Happy 4th of July from Greenville, South Carolina!!

We chose to stop in Greenville because it offered an affordable place to stay that was close to our destination of Asheville. Am I glad we did! We headed downtown around 7:00 to enjoy the Red, White and Blue event. Our amazing night began with a wrong turn down a dead end street. There was a small parking lot on the left, which a friendly attendant told us was full however he quickly offered to move his own car so we could slip our rig in there. As it was staff parking, he said he "couldn't charge us"(!) I thanked him profusely and mentioned that I was a southern girl by birth, born in Lake City. We wandered in towards Main Street, stopping to listen to some music for awhile before heading down to the Red, White and Blue event. While the band rocked on, the kids enjoyed an ice cream and James and I sipped on a cold beer. There were food tents and small carnival rides but most of the people on the closed off street listened to the Piedmont Boys who played on the main stage just by the river. The downtown area of Greenville is beautiful with lush, green trees shading the sidewalks. Many of the restaurants spilled out on to the sidewalks with small cafe tables taking up a place beside the pedestrian way. The impressive architecture in the downtown area included The Peace Center (http://www.peacecenter.org/) as well as a couple of spectacular suspension bridges which stretched out over Falls Park (http://www.fallspark.com/167/Falls-Park). While the kids sat down by the river, James and I wandered around the park and listened to the band before settling in to our spot by the river. The fireworks began at 9:45. We sat by the shallow, rocky river where some kids sunk in to the deeper spots while others chose to sit with their families on the grassy banks. With the prime parking afforded to us by the wonderful gentleman at the Brown Street parking lot, we were able to make a quick getaway back to our hotel. As we pulled out, I made sure to thank this man again, telling him "I'm moving to Greenville!" A quick mutual smile and we were on our way. This chance meeting with Greenville was such a very fortunate one!