Lost on the Swamp Rabbit

Over the years, I have received two backhanded compliments that I can recall (I have received plenty of backhands that had no hint of compliment in them). The first was “You have amazing hand-eye coordination.” That was delivered by Steve Prugh at my first ever golf lesson, in Spokane, WA at age 31 or 32. Let’s just say they don’t make instructional videos based on my swing. Sadly for me, the need for amazing hand-eye coordination is fairly limited when riding a bicycle. The second, and I can’t remember when or where it was delivered, was “You have an uncanny sense of direction." I can only assume it resulted from my spectacular map reading skills, back in the day of paper maps and long before GPS in every app on my phone. Sadly for me, those skills do not appear to be nearly as sharp as they used to be. There was the time a couple years ago when we were leaving Redwoods National Park and my “shortcut” took us down some first roads and added about 100 miles to our trip. Then there was today.

I drove from Atlanta to Greenville, SC today to ride along the Swamp Rabbit trail. Everything I had read was that the trail was somewhere between 19.9 and 22 miles, each way, starting from downtown Greenville. It took me two tries to find the start of the trail (because it wasn’t downtown) and I had to park behind a bowling alley. I was immediately in trouble because the first milepost I saw was mile 37. The first mile or so was basically the sidewalk but then dropped down along a creek and was very pleasant, for about another mile. Then the fun began. There were signs all over the place and I tried to follow all of them. I rode past the zoo, still on something that looked like the trail. I stopped to use the restroom and consult my GPS to make sure. Over the next half hour, I followed a path that popped out on a major street. I turned around, did a lap around a baseball field, went up another street, turned around, went up another side street, crossed over the busy street, went up a dead end into an apartment complex I did NOT want to be in, came back out to the busy street, went down and turned up another side street, ended up on a freeway frontage road, turned around after about 1/2 mile, went back to the busy street, found the first street I had turned down and ended up back at the restroom that had started all this. Mind you, I had probably checked the GPS a half dozen times during this process, each time convinced I had it right. Finally, I found the trail and started to wind my way back and forth over bridges, around detours and through downtown Greenville. Eventually, I came through some more construction on the trail and saw the Commons on my right. There appeared to be a variety of local restaurants in the space and a bunch of people eating and drinking at tables outside on a beautiful afternoon. Pretty sure my ride was over, I went to the Automatic Taco for Taco Tuesday. It was definitely a good call. While I was eating, I checked my maps. I had gone 9.2 miles, but was only 3.6 miles from the start of the trail!

Invigorated by my hot chicken taco and some delicious chips and guacamole, I decided to push on. I’m glad I did because the path was easy and straight from that point forward. The trail was very popular with bikers, runners, walkers and even roller-bladers. It passed by Furman University and through Travelers' Rest. That’s the actual name of a town and was appropriately placed with several benches, parks and places to eat/drink. I was enjoying the ride so I kept going. After a couple more miles, the trail abruptly ended - at milepost 22. Consulting the GPS again, I was pretty sure I saw where the trail continued on. I rode about 100’ and stopped and thought better of it. Based on the way the ride started, it seemed like a bad plan to start guessing again. I decided I would just head back and look for ice cream.

I realize the thread today is about getting lost, but I have to share the ice cream story as well. After the first place I went was closed, I ended up at Molly and Myles Ice Cream. The young lady behind the counter was making my Pecan Praline sundae. She was shaking the caramel sauce when it exploded all over her, leaving a huge stripe of caramel sauce from her left ear to her chin. She did not skip a beat and continued making the sundae as if nothing happened. By the time she was done and I was paying, there was literally caramel sauce dripping from her chin. It wasn’t until I had finished paying that she went and cleaned the sauce off.

If only the trail had been this well-marked the whole time

Hard to see, but the sign shows how many bike riders and how many runners are on the trail at the time, as well as how many of each have used the trail so far this year. (Just under 100,000 of each year to date. Not bad for a city of 70,000)

Wait, what?

I must say, they do it right here. Clearly lots of activity on the trail and a real source of civic pride.

Some quality bathroom humor at the ice cream shop

Notice the serious confusion south (and east) of Greenville at the start. I was aiming for north and slightly west.