I departed Virgina and headed south down I-77 bound for the small town of Fort Mill, South Carolina - just outside Charlotte, North Carolina and home to my older sister and her ever growing family. It has been more than a year since I had last saw them and they recently welcomed their baby boy, Joshua, into the world and this would be my first chance to meet him. Joshua is a brut of a child and although nearly a year and half younger than my son Tyler, he is quickly gaining on him in size and mass. This kid has "football player" written all over him which brings a smile to his father's face - who was a standout player during his high school days in Nebraska. I cherished my time spent with them and look forward to spending more time with all of them in the future.
One perk of visiting my sister and her husband, Russ, is that Russ is the manager of a local Chick-fil-a which means, you guessed it - FREE chicken sandwiches. For me, I can not imagine having a better ali in the food industry. During my 48 hour span with them I consumed enough chicken to put a dent in Tysons South Carolina stock pile and nearly put his store out of business. The young girl at the cash register winced each time that I walked-up to the counter in fear that I would ask for something ridiculous like 37 sandwiches. My two day tour-de-chicken consisted of 6 sandwiches, 2 chicken biscuits and a cookie's and cream milkshake to wash it all down. I have not eaten since.
Fat and happy, I departed the Kral family and ventured south to Columbia, the capitol of South Carolina and home to National Park #31 on my list, Congaree. This giant floodplain is the most recent edition to the National Park list and its relative obscurity makes it one of the least visited in the park's portfolio. It offers minimal services to visitors and is void to any wondrous vistas and unique features that other parks offer. But, what it does have is a subtle beauty that requires the visitor to slow down and appreciate - something that I have already failed to do on my visits to both Badlands and Wind Cave. So on this park I decided to negate my daily allowance and splurge on renting a kayak so that I could explore the backwaters of the park.
I contacted River Runners in Columbia who set me up with a kayak and a map of the parks tributaries. Due to the decade long drought that the Southeast is battling with combined with the minimal amount of rain fall that the area generally sees in the summer my exploration of the park would be limited to either the Congaree River or Cedar Creek. I decided to venture down Cedar Creek mainly because this tributary lies completely within the boundaries of the park and it’s relatively tight waterway would make for a heightened sense of exploration.
I put in at the Bannister Bridge Canoe launch and decided to float an hour and half downstream before turning around and having to paddle back upstream to the car. I was greeted at the launch area by two of South Carolina’s finest, a husband and wife fishing for bass in the amber colored creek. Together they had a full set of teeth and a mild comprehension of the English language which they maxed out as they attempted to share with me about what I might encounter downstream in my travels. As I studied their faces I couldn’t help but notice that the supposed female of the duo had a pronounced jaw bone, clef chin and significant patches of facial hair, all of which I wrote off as bad lighting. It wasn’t till she started talking that I came to the realization that this was no female. No, this was a man, dressed like a woman, lipstick and all, fishing side by side with a gentleman that I can only imagine will one day wake-up and finally realize why “Lola” walks like a woman, but talks like a man.
Not one to point out the obvious and seeing as how they themselves have never ventured any further than their lawn chair spot on the riverbank, I was left to explore the bends and corners of the river to my own intrigue. So I set off and found myself floating past groves of giant cypress trees and the low lying sassafras and oak trees which play host to turtles, barn owls and the occasional camouflaged snake wrapped tightly within the their low hanging branches. Every so often you would hear them unravel from their slumber and toss themselves into the river below in an attempt to find an underwater hiding place. You hear stories of old timers shooting holes in their boats and it soon becomes apparent why. A snake will every so often leap into the unexpected boaters bow and instinctively the gun wielding oarsman will fire off a few rounds to exterminate the stow away only to find that they just ripped a toilet bowl size hole in the middle of their canoe. In an effort to avoid any high flying encounters, I paddled down the middle of the creek, away from the overhanging branches.
I spent a total of four hours meandering down the amber colored creek and a majority of that time was spent navigating around downed trees and stretched out on the stern of the kayak, lying on my back and starring at the canopy above. The swamp can be an eerie place at first and I ventured into it with great hesitation, but by the end of my float I had learned to appreciate my surroundings and drew comfort from all the variety of noises, knowing that they were rarely anything more than a chipmunk scurrying across the dried leaves on the riverbank or the occasional harmless tree snake taking an afternoon dip. Congaree National Park is a special place and one that I will forever remember because I took the time to explore it.
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