With the northeast winds and cool fronts moving through the fall season is definitely upon us. This time of year always reminds me of my time spent as a student at Clemson University. Each Saturday in the fall season I would look forward tailgating and football games with some eighty thousand screaming fans, but come Sunday I was ready to get away for a little while. With the mountains less than an hour away my room mates and I would usually head up for some Trout fishing on the Chattooga to relax and prepare for another week of studying.
This past weekend my good friend, Danny Mikell, invited me and some of our friends up to his parent’s mountain house just outside of Mountain Rest, South Carolina. I was excited about the trip as I have been reminiscing about my Clemson days ever since the weather started to change this fall. We left on Friday morning and of course I timed the drive so that we could stop in Clemson at the “Pot Belly Deli” for lunch. After a spectacular lunch we headed on up to Walhalla where we stocked up on food and gas before heading into the mountains.
On the way to the Mikell’s mountain house I was uncertain as to what to expect. I have been to several other friends of mine mountain houses in the past, and I have to say I am usually disappointed. Most of them were built in a small neighborhood community with other homes less than spitting distance away and were part of some type of a time share. I should have known the Mikell’s would have a true mountain house. We pulled off of Highway 28 and followed a gravel road for ½ a mile back into the woods. From the gravel road we pulled into the drive way that was another ½ mile long and was a steep, narrow, winding dirt road that literally went through the woods and up the side of a small mountain. The house was located on the top of the hill and had a small lake in front of it and a mountain steam running behind. The location of the house combined with the antiques decorations that filled the interior made our accommodations rust