First Week in Greenville

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Sunday: First day in South Carolina. In the morning we walked around Falls on the Reedy park and saw the waterfall in downtown Greenville. It seemed like there were a lot of shops and restaurants around the downtown and west end that just weren't open yet on a Sunday morning. But many things were decorated for christmas and it was kind of nice seeing everything so tranquil. In the afternoon Copper and I headed to Paris Mountain State Park which is about 6 miles out of town. It's South Carolina's most visited park. We did a nice hike with a fair amount of incline- the most we had seen since Colorado since mountains don't really exist in Kansas or Kentucky!

Monday and Tuesday: Work days, walks around the neighborhood and time at home at the airbnb 😊

Wednesday: Went to a dog park bar called unleashed. Super casual patio with heaters and about a half dozen dogs running around the enclosed yard while their owners sipped on some beer.

Thursday: My friend Theresa (and Phoenix Realtor) flew in for a weekend visit! We headed to a neat outdoor converted container dining experience. Lots of small restaurants in containers surrounding a large patio. Forgot to get any pictures. Oops.

Friday: Ended up being pretty similar to last Sunday :-D. In the morning we headed to Paris Mountain and did a different short loop trail. We grabbed lunch at a local sustainability focused cafe and grocery store called "swamp rabbit cafe". Greenville has a lot of things named Swamp rabbit I still haven't found the history/meaning/background on the curious name. I had a delicious quiche and Theresa couldn't stop raving about the bread on her sandwich 😊 In the afternoon we walked around the downtown area and the park again but this time stores and restaurants were open. For dinner we found a really neat persian restaurant yum!

Saturday: We did a day trip up to Asheville NC - a little over an hour drive. We toured the Biltmore Estate- America's largest home. You really can't grasp how big that "house" is. Most rooms in there seem to be bigger than your typical apartment! To the point where in the bedrooms the narration says the bed looks small but it's actual a standard size bed lol. The estate was all decked out with Christmas decorations too. Each room even had a theme which had been inspired by a different christmas carol. So interesting to hear about the way of life for the elite and for some of the servants at the turn of the century. In addition to seeing the living quarters we saw the kitchen and some servants quarters and learned how the estate used to work on a daily basis. The weather unfortunately was not on our side- it was foggy and rainy a lot of the day making the narration when they told you to look outside a little comical. Luckily by the late afternoon it had dried up and we wandered around downtown Ashville for a little bit, got some tapas and headed back to South Carolina to pick up Copper who got to play with dogs all day long at day care.

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