Keowee and Table Rock . . . Two Gems of South Carolina

post by Michelle Griep

Indian Princess Screams Like a Banshee.

With a belly dragging the ground from too much banana pudding, what better way for me to finish a southern trip than to hike off all those calories at a few of South Carolina's finest?

KEOWEE/TOXAWAY STATE PARK

This area of upstate South Carolina is the lovely countryside that my hero travels in with his heroine to visit the Cherokee lower town of Keowee. I've read a lot about this land, past and present, and must say that it lived up to my expectations on our 3 hour hike today.

But one thing I didn't count on was the spiders.

Now don't get me wrong. Usually I can mash up a spider like nobody's business and not even bat an eyelash. But sweet mercy! They grow 'em big down here. Like the web I ran into today. Literally. And the spider at the center of it was freaking enormous. Like the dude should purchase license plates because someone could drive this sucker with a CDL. If there were any bears anywhere within a twenty mile radius, my scream scared the bejeebers out of them.

Lake Keowee, former site of the Cherokee Lower Town.

Takeaway value for my book: give my heroine a run-in with a spider

TABLE ROCK STATE PARK

Whew. No spiders here, folks. Just plenty of beauty. I'm talking waterfall, after waterfall, after waterfall. We did the shorter hike -- Carrick Creek -- but it took us nearly as long as Keowee because we stopped to take pictures like idiot tourists.

Takeaway value for my book: after all my heroine's hardships, she can finally stop and smell the roses, er, woodlands . . . this place smells heavenly!

One of the bajillion waterfalls at Table Rock.

I must admit that at both places it kind of creeped me out to have to sign in a ton of information just in case we got lost, eaten by wild animals, met with a tragic selfie end by falling off a cliff backwards, or twisted an ankle and couldn't crawl our way back. Thankfully none of that happened.

And that wraps up our little off the leash romp to South Carolina. It was a great research trip. Of all the places I went, I have to say that the Cherokee Museum, Ninety Six, and hiking at Keowee (despite the spiders) were my top 3 sites.