Cities we're visiting

1. Greenville, North Carolina

One of our first stops was Greenville, South Carolina. We got to spend some time visiting our friends Scotty and Savannah. We all met in college and Scotty and I were fraternity brothers at SigEp, and Scotty and Savannah got married this past year and moved into Savannah’s grandmothers house. They are in the process of remodeling and you can follow along on their instagram. We were able to stay for a few days and had a great time in both Traveler’s Rest and Greenville.

2. Jacksonville, Florida

On our way back to Sarasota prior to heading out west, we made a quick stop in Jacksonville to visit Sam’s friends from high school, Tommy and Natalie. Tommy, Natalie and Sam rowed together for Sarasota Scullers for several years, and coincidentally also raced against Sarah and her team Atlanta Junior Rowing Association before they met in college. They live in a pretty cool spot near the St. John’s river - we had only been to Jacksonville once before so we didn’t have a great understanding of the layout of the city.

3. Austin, Texas

On our way through Texas, we stopped in Austin for a couple days to visit a few friends and get a taste of the city. When we arrived, we went straight to Austin Terrier to meet up with a couple friends from college, Eduardo and Santi. It was a nice dog-friendly spot, where Ravioli got to meet his new dog buddies Griffin and Jimothy the Corgi. After lunch, we headed to Zilker Park to have a few beers while loungin in that tExAs SuN (cue Khruangbin stuck in my head & hopefully yours).

4. Sante Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe, NM was a stop we were pretty excited about. Our good friend Tony had moved there after graduating from Georgia Tech, and we had been wanting to visit him for a while. We got to stay with him and his girlfriend, Becca, and their two cats, Oswaldo and Penelope. Oswaldo really took a liking to Sam. The first morning we were there, Sam and I went to the OG Pantry for breakfast (there are two now), per Tony’s recommendation.

5. Bequinox - LA Regional Burning Man Event in California City

Towards the end of April, we attended Bequinox, which is the LA regional Burning Man event. At around 1,500 people, this event is tiny in comparison to the main Burning Man, which is about 80,000 people. We had never attended any of these events, so we thought this smaller scale one would be a good test as to whether or not we would like the main shindig. We joined Sam’s aunt Gale and her group of friends in California City (seemingly the middle of nowhere) on a small piece of land recently purchased by the organizers of this event.

1. Greenville, North Carolina

One of our first stops was Greenville, South Carolina. We got to spend some time visiting our friends Scotty and Savannah.

We all met in college and Scotty and I were fraternity brothers at SigEp, and Scotty and Savannah got married this past year and moved into Savannah’s grandmothers house. They are in the process of remodeling and you can follow along on their instagram.

We were able to stay for a few days and had a great time in both Traveler’s Rest and Greenville. Traveler’s Rest is an interesting town with a cool history, as it used to be a common stop for travelers in the early 1800s. The town is still of a size where you could visit most places and become friends with local business owners. Furman College’s presence can be felt in the shops and boutiques in the main strip of town, which reminded us a lot of Asheville.

Our fist night we had a charming dinner at Sidewall Pizza which was fantastic - great pizza, a delicious pear, gorgonzola and walnut salad paired with local beers from Birds Fly South.

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We liked the beers enough to visit the brewery the next day at Hampton Station which was an old textile factory transformed into shops, restaurants and brewing space.

greenville

greenville

greenville

Next we visited Downtown, which was really fun to walk around and had quite a scenic river flowing through the middle of it. It was an interesting mix; to us it felt like the whole of downtown was planned and built at the same time, sort of like a theme park, and a college downtown. The NCAA tournament was going on so that may have played a part, but overall it reminded us of Chattanooga TN in that way. After grabbing some beers at Scotty and Savannah’s favorite tavern and late night Sandwhich Bar, we headed home to enjoy the fireplace.

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Our last stop on our way out of town was probably our favourite - Tandem Crepes. The line was a good sign and ordering outside by the VW Van prior to being seated was a great way to keep the whole experience moving rather than the typical “see you back in 30 min”. The crepes and coffee were a perfect Sunday morning combo prior to getting on the road to our next stop - Sausage Potato, Banana Nut and Blueberry Cream with a couple of lattes hit the spot.