A Walk Downtown
greenville
Grand Bohemian
Greenville’s newest fanciness.
Downtown
We decided today we needed to get out, to take the kids and the dog and go into the world. Our first stop: a new mural downtown.
It took a month to pain this eight-story mural, and it’s been in the news a few times.
Afterward, we went for a walk in the ever-growing park downtown, followed by a light dinner.
It was almost like normal times except for the masks, which we left off most of the time as there were hardly any people about.
A Walk in the Park
After a day spent indoors, we were all in need of some motion outside. A damp, gray sky and cold air conspired to keep us inside — we all are fighting illness in one stage or another — but the promise of a warming walk won out.
We headed downtown, to Falls Park, with its cantilevered bridge and short, riverside paths. It had been months — probably over a year — since we’d been to that particular park, and it seemed there was a new attraction there: an entire fleet of bench swings.
And the Girl made a valiant effort to swing on every single one.
The swings certainly weren’t the only attraction. There was a fascinating tangle of roots,
several dozen rocks begging to be tossed into the swift current,
and an alligator that sneaked up on Mama and almost gobbled her up for a late afternoon snack.
Eventually, everyone needs a late afternoon snack, though.
Music by the Lake
It’s almost over: only a couple of concerts remaining, but we finally made it to Furman’s “Music By the Lake” free concert series tonight. It’s an odd crowd: college students who stick around for the summer, families, and literally bus loads of elderly from local nursing homes.
Of course, as soon as the music strikes up, the Girl wants to head to the lake and look at the ducks. We wander down, listening to the strange echo: enormous speakers in the clock tower transmit the concert over the entire campus, but there’s just enough time delay to make a cacophony of otherwise fine playing.
Even behind the stage, it’s noticeable. Not to mention annoying.
The best place: midway up. Good sound, and lots of room for the Girl to run around, dance, fall, and be a three-year-old.
And there’s a lot of reason to dance tonight: the Andy Carlson Band is playing, and Andy Carlson can play a fiddle like no one I’ve ever heard. Classically trained (he’s a professor of violin, after all), the man brings a deep understanding of music along with phenomenal playing. It makes for bluegrass of a rare quality.
Of course, who can go to Furman and not take a picture of the clock tower?
Another Sunday in the Park
We went back to Cleveland Park this weekend, with the intention of going to the G’ville zoo. We arrived at 4:00 to find it closes at 4:30 — an odd time to close a zoo.
Instead, we walked through the park and made our way over to Falls Park.
On the way back, we stopped to swing and play in the sand:
More pictures you-know-where.
