Congaree South Carolina

Well this blog hasn’t seen our presence in awhile, but we have been off doing our thing in just about every corner of the U.S. But this particular blog is about our visit to South Carolina, more specifically the old growth and bottomland hardwood forest known as the Congaree. It’s almost like a swamp atmosphere and it really caught our attention awhile ago when we were compiling our list of national parks to visit. So we finally got the opportunity to go and it was absolutely worth it.

Since we live in Florida it was a very long drive to get there. We ended up renting a Dodge Journey from Alamo and driving seven hours to our hotel in South Carolina. Now if you haven’t figured us out by now we usually stay in a place for several days despite the fact we explore most of the parks in less than a day.

The next day after a hearty nights sleep we woke up and ate a local diner, one of those trailer diners. It has kinda been a secret desire of mine to eat in one, where there is only three tables and the bar, one man cooking one woman serving and three locals who look like they visit everyday. Pretty much the highlight of my trip, and the coffee was beyond exceptional.

Anyway we ventured out into the Congaree and saw why they call it a forest. This place is full of thick underbrush and everglades style waterways. I mean the entire time you travel through here you are covered overhead by tall trees, and just below you is the beautiful water. Of course we had to take a tour on a boat to visit, and our guide seemed to know exactly where he was going. His main interest was to show us the unique bird populations in the area; we even saw a bobcat while we were there.

The Congaree is a really interesting place, but I can’t help but think that it is too familiar to everglades. Regardless the animal species in the area are different and the terrain is beautiful, I had a very good time, especially when we got to explore on our own!