12-15FEB11 - Gaffney, SC (via lexington, sc)

After a great three days in Savannah, we continued on Saturday, 12FEB, to our scheduled Freightliner school in Gaffney, SC, stopping in Lexington, SC, to spend the night. Our RV park was right next to Barnyard flea market which was going strong upon our arrival. So after setting up camp we headed next door to check out the flea market. It was a pretty big flea market, but nothing unique. One thing we noted was that about almost everyone was smoking! Why? Because South Carolina has the lowest cigarettes taxes in the USA; so you can get a carton of coffin nails for about $26! We hope the state has a good health care system?

Sunday, we arrived at our RV park in Gaffney, SC; after setting up camp Dan headed to Cowpens National Battleground, while Corrie explored downtown Cowpens. The National Battleground commemorates the 17 January 1781 battle in which Continental Army & militia forces under BGEN Daniel Morgan, defeated British Legion forces under LCOL Banastre Tarleton.

Back Story – By 1778 the war was pretty much a stalemate in the north; so the British mounted a campaign in the southern colonies & were very successful in Georgia & South Carolina. By May 1780 Lord Cornwallis was preparing to move into North Carolina & Virginia. That summer Cornwallis started moving north & soundly defeated Continental forces at Camden, SC, in September 1780.

In December 1780 MGEN Nathanael Greene was placed in charge of the southern Continental forces to try & salvage the situation. He immediately directed Daniel Morgan with 600 battled tested Continental forces to split from the main army to harass Cornwallis’s Army in hopes of slowing them, or forcing the British to split their forces. The strategy worked & Tarleton with over 1000 highly trained men was dispatched by Cornwallis to engage & defeat the Continentals. We won’t bore you with the details, but Morgan’s Continental forces with the aid of 200 militia (ie Patriot Volunteers) defeated the British, capturing over 600 men.

This small part of the National Park Service is free, easily explored in a couple of hours, & has a great walking trail tour of the battlefield. Well worth checking out if you are in the area! Note, the Battlefield is also part of the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail.

http://www.nps.gov/cowp/index.htm

http://www.nps.gov/ovvi/index.htm

In case you have forgotten, we have been in Gaffney before. Back in OCT09 we were returning from New England & stopped by the Freightliner Custom Chassis service center to get some maintenance on the RV accomplished. Anyway, Freightliner conducts two day “schools” called Camp Freightliner for owners of RV built on Freightliner chassis. We have been trying for two years to attend one of these classes. Since they are only offered in the spring or summer, & only in Gaffney, we haven’t been successful. This year they offered the course earlier (ie FEB) & we signed up.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2009/10/27-29oct09-gaffney-sc.html

The school was two days of constant & highly valuable info! We highly recommend it for anyone that has a diesel powered RV, even if it is not on a Freightliner chassis. Besides all the useful information they give you, they also provide some pretty good food for two lunches & one dinner. The only bad thing about the class was too much time wasted by certain participants who either “didn’t get it” or thought they “knew it all”! As we all know, every class/seminar has them, & you just learn to grit your teeth & hope the instructor can deal with them.

http://freightlinerchassis.com/Owner-Information/camp-freightliner/menu-id-98.html