Old Buildings & Sand Part 1- Getting there

For our annual vacation in 2013, Debbie and I visited and had an amazing time in Trinidad & Tobago.  For 2014, we decided to scale back, save some money for future foreign travel, and check out some places closer to home that we’d previously passed over.  Namely, we decided to visit Charleston, South Carolina, and then go on up to North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Above, the red star represents our home right outside of Atlanta.  The lower magenta star is Charleston, and the upper magenta star is where the Outer Banks are located, perched out on the edge of the world as it were.

With the Kia loaded down with gear, we left out early in the morning on Sunday, May 11.  The weather was pleasant and mild, and we were on Interstate 85 in short order.  Within a couple of hours, we crossed over into South Carolina.  After another couple of hours, just south of Columbia, SC we reached our first stop: Congaree National Park, which is the blue star right next to "South Carolina" above.

Congaree is a neat place.  Kind of small as national parks go.  Perched along the banks of the Congaree River, it represents the single largest tract of bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States.  Here’s some of the bald cypresses with their “knees” sticking up.  Those are actually breathing tubes for when water levels are high.  It was pretty dry when we visited.

The park is around 26,000 acres.  That seems like a lot of land until you consider that bottomland hardwood forest once covered millions of acres from Virginia all the way back to East Texas, following the paths laid out by great slow-moving rivers and bayous.  Now only slivers are left here and there.  Another notable fact about Congaree is that thanks to a combination of plentiful water, plentiful nutrients, a long growing season & mild winters, the trees here get big.  Really big.  There are numerous national champion trees found within the park, although their exact locations are not advertised.  It is typical for trees to exceed 150 feet tall here, and some of the champions approach 200 feet.  Here’s Debbie hugging one of the biggest loblolly pines we’ve ever seen, and it is just one among equals in this forest.

We stopped here for lunch and then walked some of the boardwalk path that goes out from the Visitor’s Center.

This tree isn’t particularly big, but it makes us think of a ghost every time we look at it.  Plus the tree is doing quite a balancing act with all the mass it has up in the air.

We got back on the road and a few hours later we found ourselves in downtown Charleston, SC.  I had been intrigued by Charleston for a few years.  Around where we live, lots of people talk about how amazing the place is to visit.  I had always wondered why, what the big deal was.  Short answer- it’s a pretty cool place to visit.

More in Part 2, which you can read by clicking here