Carolina Cottage Guest House

We've intended for a long time to add a blog post, and we have about three drafts just waiting to be posted.  Why we haven't yet posted them, who knows?  But this idea of "Saluda Soothes the Soul" came to us several months ago, and it's been lingering ever since.  So we decided that now is the time, before somebody else claims it and puts it on billboards along I-26 and I-40.  

People ask all the time:  what is it about this place?  There's a sense of patience (more than just functioning on "mountain time"), peacefulness, calm.  How does that happen? 

There was a time when the phone book had a piece on the effects of negative ions produced by waterfalls.  The crux of the article was that negative ions were/are created with air molecules broken apart from moving water, and apparently negative ions give positive results such as better sleep and a positive attitude.  And apparently they are inhaled in abundance in certain environments, namely mountains and waterfalls.  No doubt we have more than our fair share of moving water, mountains, and waterfalls.  And we also have more than our fair share of positive attitudes.  But other places have beautiful water and/or mountains, and other places have people with positive attitudes, and some places have both.  Yet Saluda still has something more.  Something that you just can't quite put your finger on.  You feel it whether you're walking through the shops downtown, enjoying a meal at a restaurant, playing at the park, enjoying a bike ride, kayaking the Green River, and/or hiking the nearby trails.  You sense it even when you're sitting alone on the deck or enjoying the hammock in complete solitude (which contrary to popular belief is a good thing).

So we still don't know what it is.  We don't know how it is that Saluda is so soothing.  And to be perfectly honest, we're not going to spend our time trying to figure it out, primarily because we have restaurants to enjoy, rivers to kayak, and trails to hike - among other things.  We're just going to spend our time enjoying this place, and you should, too.  Because all that really matters is that spending time here makes one a better person, because Saluda soothes the soul.