Today’s destination was Issaqueena Falls in Walhalla, SC. Walhalla is a quaint little town with quite a few really neat houses and a nice downtown area where we stopped to eat at a place called the Steak House Cafeteria. This place has pretty good food at a very reasonable price but, unfortunately, no steak. They do have really good fried chicken that the tourist guides for SC indicate has been designated the best fried chicken by Blue Ridge Magazine. I’m not sure it is really that spectacular but it certainly goes way beyond being nominal.
After lunch we continued up the road to Issaqueena Falls, which after about a 2 minute walk are plainly visible from the top. Another 2 minutes takes you to a nice viewing platform where the entire falls can be seen. It is a very nice natural asset to this area and, although one is required to leave the designated trails to access other viewing areas, they are very nice, too. A short walk for younger folks than me takes you to the bottom of the falls where there are large, flat rock formations where you can sit and gaze at the surrounding beauty. Another quite well-used but undesignated trail takes you to a ledge beneath the very top of the falls where you can walk behind the cascade of the creek without getting wet, sort of like I saw in the movie, Last of the Mohicans. If we were a bit younger and in better shape, we would have been all over this place.
Leaving Issaqueena Falls we decided to do another drive through the rural countryside surrounding the area and the scenery was again great. SC has extremely confusing road signs which resulted in us turning around and backtracking a few times to remain on the roads we desired but even going the wrong way was scenic so the confusion was not bothersome. A word to other travelers: road signage here can tell you that despite being on a road that runs west, the signs may indicate you are on a highway that runs both north and south at the same time. Don’t trust the signs. Frequently a fork in the road will have signage that indicates the route you wish to remain on runs down both forks. Sign designations frequently indicate you are traveling on not less than 5 different routes simultaneously but the location where you wish to turn will be carefully unmarked until some 5 miles down the road.
We ultimately made it back home before dark but I think we may have been lucky. Navigation here must be by dead reckoning which may make you dead.