The Beavers were tired after driving up from Columbia, visiting Hamilton Branch State Park along Lake Thurmond on the way up to visit my dad and stepmom, with the goal of visiting the six state parks along the lakes along the SC/Georgia border. We got up and enjoyed a peaceful morning on Lake Secession, but after breakfast, we loaded up the car to do a loop around Lake Hartwell.
(Side note: Little did we know, but today was apparently Kids to Parks Day, celebrated the third Saturday of each May. That means we’re winning, right?)
I (Benjamin) grew up in Anderson County, so Lake Hartwell was essentially in my backyard. My mom had a jet-ski, and my dad had a boat, so we were on the lake a good bit. (But we just won’t talk about that time we were on the lake and one of those pop-up storms came up and scared the living daylights out of all of us as we raced back to the marina.)
Lake Hartwell State Park was never a spot that we visited, though. It’s actually located in the southern tip of Oconee County at the end of Highway 11, and we lived in the south-eastern tip of Anderson County, so that would have been a drive. In fact, I think my visit today was just the second time I had been, the first being while geocaching back in 2007 or so.
We got here by crossing the Savannah River just under the dam into Georgia, then driving along the western side of the lake through Hartwell, GA, before getting on I-85 Northbound, getting off at Exit 1 upon crossing back into SC. The state park is just a minute or two up Highway 11. (Side note: The town of Hartwell and the lake are named after a ‘rebel heroine’ of the American Revolution, Nancy Morgan Hart, per Wikipedia’s page. I also just learned she was a cousin to Gen. Daniel Morgan, who helped command a victory at the Battle of Cowpens.)
Again, we weren’t armed with a boat today, so we needed to find some fun along the shore. The first stop, then, was the park office. Here we stamped our passport and explored a bit. They had a small aquarium with just one little fish in it. They also had some taxidermied animals there that are from this area. Tiffany and Sage also found a checkers table.
The ranger let us know that there was an old homestead located within the campground. We went and found what remained of it, essentially just the chimney. This was occupied by a family around the turn of the 20th century. At that point, they had animals and a garden for their food needs. As the textile industry started booming, however, some of the family started moving away towards the mills until the house was left abandoned.
Here, my dad showed Teagan one of his tricks–how to pop a leaf by placing it over a slightly opened fist and slapping it. Afterwards, we drove over to the day-use area to find a geocache.
Knowing we needed to keep moving in order to make it back home for lunch, we kept moving, continuing our loop around the lake towards our next stop–Sadlers Creek State Park.
Beavers in the Park 