Trip Coordinator: Ellen Miska
River Level: 1.40 USGS at Black Creek near Hartsville
Round trip from Sonovista Landing at the dam on Prestwood Lake to Black Creek.
Up the Creek and back to put-in: Approximately 11 total trip miles

Beautiful day, great paddling, good dinner, educational and interesting trip to Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden near Bishopville and nice paddling partners! What an adventure. Ten paddlers met at the Prestwood Lake Landing at 11:00 Saturday morning. It is about an hour and a half from Columbia, traveling highway 15 from I-20, through Bishopville to Hartsville, staying on Business 15 though town, making a right turn at a traffic light just past the bridge over the lake on Society Lane. Take another right at the brown Sonovista Landing sign. The landing is large and well kept though the factories it sits next to are noisy. But soon we were on the water and paddling away from the noise, under the highway bridge and toward the trees. The lake is about 1½ miles and took us about 30 minutes to paddle. Soon we were in the trees and exploring a new place; Ellen Miska had done the scouting and was ready to lead us through the swampy end of the creek up into Black Creek proper, which was very quite, private and beautiful. The path was very winding and we were glad to have a leader of the pack. Ten year old John, Ed's nephew, soon got tired of the canoe and managed to switch places with his dad and 'drive' a kayak for a while. He's our newest convert though he ended up getting up front and personal with a tree or two. (Have you hugged your tree today??) Jeffrey and Linda took off ahead of the group for some further exploration and got all the way to the boardwalk at the park. The rest of us stopped at a little beach, had some lunch and a swim to cool down. Chatted with a passing solo paddler for a while before he headed further up the creek. The trip back got a little rowdy and competitive, what with water flying and some racing between boats, instigated by the young and the young at heart.

At the take-out, Jeffrey got a dinner recommendation from some fishermen just putting in and we were off to Shug's Smokehouse Grill, just off highway 151 on hwy 12 ((Kelly Town Road) out of Hartsville, for barbeque, steak and tuna. Yum. A convivial group and good food. Then, at Jeffrey's suggestion we headed back to Bishopville and all stopped at Pearl Fryar's place to see his topiary and statuary art. Got to meet the gardener/artist and hear about his adventures with the motion picture people. A full-length movie of his skill will be playing soon at the Nickelodeon in Columbia. Jeffrey Day had written an article about him and his art in The State and was happy to introduce us to Mr. Fryar. If you get a chance, read the article (08/26/07) and stop by Bishopville for a visit. It's fascinating.

Great day, great trip. Happy Trails, Kate Whitaker