A Story About Life and Living It

Surprisingly enough, South Carolina was the only state on our trip that I had never been to before. Some of the others I had only driven across, but this was the only state in which I had never even set foot. Lani, by comparison, had never set foot in 15 of the 17 states we visited.

The highpoint of the state, Sassafras Mountain is right on the border with North Carolina. The USGS marker is a funny little pedestal. Near the top of the pedestal you can see a piece of re-bar that was used to mark the highpoint before the USGS marker was put in place. Sorry if feet gross anyone out. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking.

Here we are posing on top of the pedestal. Lani is clearly more creative than I.



We spent the evening at Table Rock Mountain State Park. We really enjoyed it and only regretted that we didn't have time to actually hike to the top of Table Rock Mountain, which we were told is a splendid hike.

On our way to Georgia we saw signs pointing toward the "World of Energy" so we decided to stop by. Turns out that there is a nuclear power plant in northwest South Carolina with a cool museum documenting the various modern methods for energy generation and highlighting the benefits of nuclear power. I'm such a nerd that I enjoyed it immensely.


They have some dams near the power plant that are capable of pumping water both directions. When energy demand is high they lower the level of the lake to produce extra energy but when demand is low they use the turbines to pump water back the other way and raise the level of the lakes. There are three of them, connected in a row so they can pump water at will between the top two. It's a pretty nifty system.



The museum included models of their reactors and a description of how everything works.


Here's a view of the reactors. They are inside of the cylindrical buildings.


I know this isn't a political blog, but personally I think the US needs a lot more nuclear power plants to ease our energy woes. Way to go South Carolina!