Mark's Photo Travels

Sometimes an adventure in the warm, humid outdoors is preferable to staying inside in the comfortable yet confining indoors. Such an occasion was the Fourth of July holiday when frequent clouds made for a potentially tolerable day outdoors. I decided to visit two places close by: Frey Creek Falls near Wellford in Spartanburg County, and the Taylors Mill in Taylors, Greenville County. Frey Creek Falls I'm aware of only two waterfalls in Spartanburg County. Horseshoe Falls is a 10 foot waterfall on Cedar Falls Creek in the Musgrove Mill State Historic Site near Clinton, South Carolina. I visited this waterfall many years ago and remember finding the waterfall uninteresting. Frey Creek Falls is wider, more interesting waterfall on Frey Creek between Wellford and Spartanburg on Falling Creek Road near a Norfolk Southern Railroad trestle. As of the time of posting, Frey Creek Falls is clearly visible from this satellite view: Frey Creek Falls is located on land used as a par...

It's become a yearly tradition to visit Henderson County, North Carolina to explore the area and return with some apples. This year is no different (duh, or I wouldn't be writing this!). This area is currently in a drought, and recent photos I've seen of low water flow at area waterfalls were discouraging, so this year I chose to visit a few historical sites in the area. I picked some sites from a multi-county historic schools survey report I found during the summer, and some grist mills I found on Panoramio (RIP). I went last Sunday, and considering some of my stops were active schools that day worked out much better than a weekday would have. The first place I visited was the site of Flat Rock High School in Flat Rock, located off highway N.C. 225 and now the mixed use complex recently renamed to  Flat Rock Square . Flat Rock High School was built in 1925 and remained a high school until 1960 when the school became a junior high. On August 18, 1971 a fire set by an ...