Summary: We went to Salem, South Carolina to visit the Fortney Four.

Thursday, June 7th (Salem, South Carolina-1st night): We drove on Hwy 76 through a little piece of Georgia to South Carolina and took Hwy 11 to Salem (110 miles). This is where my brother, Don, and his family live. We, at first, planned to stay at Devil's Fork State Park, but after we drove all the way out there, we found out they were full. So, our Plan B was a park that Don told us about. We ended up staying at the High Falls County Park ($14/night, W&E). We had phone and Internet, but no DirecTV (those darn trees get in the way).

As soon as we got settled, we called Don and he gave us directions to his house. We visited with Don and Stuart while we waited for Ginny to get home. She'd been running errands or something. Michael was at work at the golf course.

When Ginny got home, we visited for a little while and then we piled in the van to go down to the boat. This was just a short distance down the road. In fact, Stu rode down on the scooter. They have a 22' deck boat docked on Keowee Lake. It is so much easier to take the boat out than to have to do the trailer thing with it!!!! We had a great time out on the lake. It was really hot and the fresh lake breeze felt so good!!!

When we got back to the house, Michael soon got home from work and we went over to Ginny's parent's house. Bart, Ginny's brother-in-law, moved to Salem for work about three years ago, with Cindy (Ginny's sister) and their three girls, which started the migration for the family. Then, Ginny's parents moved to Salem about two years ago. Ginny and Stu moved about a year ago (June 2006), while Don and Mike stayed in Chicago. Mike started college in August at Clemson, about 20 minutes from their new house in Salem. He's been living in the dorms for the past 9 months and just finished his first year in college. Don still is working part-time in Salem and part-time in Chicago, driving back and forth every other week.

We had a great visit with Ginny's parents (they have a wonderful house with great views) and then went out to eat. After we got back to the house, we were visiting when suddenly Carl looked at the clock and realized it was almost 10:00 p.m. THE GATE CLOSED AT 10:00. We'd seen a sign about the gate closing when we went to pay for our campsite ("$50 fee to open gate after 10:00"). We couldn't quite remember which gate, but we didn't want to take any chances!! We got back to the campground as fast as we could, it only took about 15 minutes. When we got there, the guard was just lifting the gate to close it!! We barely made it!!!! And it was the gate to the main campground!!!