So. Greenville, South Carolina. It's an hour away from where I live in Asheville. I've been there before of course, and have even posted photo threads of it before. My partner and I both bought our cars there, and growing up in this area I've always been treated to the weather forecast from down there. Basically, you take the temperature in Asheville and add five to ten degrees, and you've got it.
Anyway, my partner and I had a rare weekend day off together and he didn't want to spend it sitting around the house watching our cats eat the lettuce growing in our Aerogarden. In fact, he announced, he wanted to go to the Cheesecake Factory.
I tried to warn him. I told him that if he declared he wanted to eat there and worse, if he he actually did eat there, everyone on SSP would clutch their pearls and hiss the dreaded words,
"CHAIN RESTAURANT!!" and would refuse to speak to him anymore. He was undeterred by SSP scolds, however, and after a busy morning walking around downtown Greenville we did end up at the Cheesecake Factory. It tasted okay. I've definitely had worse, but about those calorie counts...
I feel certain that somewhere, in a sinister laboratory lit in cold blue mood lighting the way they used to do on shows like CSI, unethical Cheesecake Factory scientists are hard at work trying to come up with the perfect entree... Unsatisfied with entrees that pack in 2300 calories and meals that top out at more than 5000 calories, I'm sure their ultimate goal is an entree that contains 1000 calories
per bite.
And rest assured, when they find it, they
will unleash it on an unsuspecting nation.
So thank God we did all that walking before we went to eat.
Now, before anyone says as much, I know these pictures suck. My phone struck again. I would have taken a camera, but I really just can't find any reason to pay about $50 to reactivate my photobucket account. Just bear with me and let's go on a stroll through Greenville...
Greenville is the nearest peer city to Asheville, and people are constantly comparing the two. Asheville has better weather, scenery, and architecture, and Greenville has as good or better everything else. Once upon a time, Asheville was the only city in the region with its urban shit together and was the only city in the region that could reliably attract tourists. In the past twenty-five years though, Greenville got it together and is gaining on us. And more than a few Ashevillians sit around fuming that Greenville has jobs that pay more, houses that cost less, restaurants that are just about as good, a performing arts center worthy of the name, a zoo, and a better airport. Meanwhile, Greenville just does its thing.
• Video Link
Greenville is famous for its downtown waterfall and the enormous parks complex they've built around it. Greenways and trails connect Falls Park to other major parks like Cleveland Park where the zoo is located, and then they just keep on going on through the city, on through the county... Their trail system is a marvel to behold. Back downtown they make a very deservedly big deal about the waterfall smack in the middle of the city, but not many people know about its little sister elsewhere in the big park complex that threads through downtown, though.
Once upon a time, Asheville was the only city in the region with any public art worth the name, but Greenville has caught up and surpassed us. Greenville is littered with public art, such as this Dale Chihuly sculpture that looks like wads of used chewing gum stuck together.
Greenville also surpasses us in the number of fountains. I guess it's all part of their celebration of water downtown, but Greenville is lousy with fountains.
All of this is near the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts.
It's supposed to be some lady who did a lot for art in Upstate South Carolina, but up close it looks like that chick from
Hocus Pocus
The little creek that forms the little waterfall, that flows into the big river just past the big waterfall.
The big waterfall.
We've had a lot of rain lately.
Once the park was in place along the river and the falls, the rest fell into place. Now you've got downtown Greenville booming, the West End across the river booming, and that's started spilling out into neglected little mill neighborhoods across the city.
What Greenville lacks in flashy Art Deco, it makes up for in simple, clean, and attractive historic factory architecture. There are lots of historic mills and factories across the city, and many have been preserved and repurposed. This one is an event pavilion. Others have been turned into apartments.
Why a bronze pig, you ask? Perhaps you should be asking yourself, why
not a bronze pig?
I have no idea what's going on here, because it looks like he's about to shoot up. I may be biased though because in my line of work, pretty much everyone shoots up and every day is a parade of leathery meth whores, and heroin addicts whose skin already has that alluring greyish-purple hue you used to only find on dead people.
Apartment buildings are spreading across the west side of the city like lichen on a dead tree. They're everywhere and more are roaring down the pike.
Two -- count 'em! -- two cupolas!
The old family courts building has been repurposed as a bookstore and cafe.
And after this... Cheesecake Factory.