"Congaree Swamp National Monument"

We awoke to a very cold morning in Columbia, SC. Temperatures were still below freezing after sunrise, when we crawled out of bed, and the weather forecast for the day did not look promising. The plan for the day was to take the kids to the zoo in Columbia, but with Joshua sick, those plans were quickly scrapped. The best thing for him was to keep him indoors all day long and to try to keep his fever down as much as possible. Lotte suggested that we - John, Mary and I - go to the zoo without them, but instead, we decided to go somewhere else. About twenty miles outside of Columbia is the Congaree Swamp National Monument, which Lotte recommended as a nice place to visit. Although we would have loved to take Mary to the zoo that morning, we decided to go there instead, and if there were time later in the day, we would then go to the Riverbanks Zoo. Around 9:00 a.m. or so, we left the house and drove to the Congaree Swamp National Monument. To get there, we took SC Highway 48 south from Columbia then turned at the sign for the monument. The Congaree Swamp is actually the flood plain for the Congaree River, which cuts through South Carolina. The swamp is home to hundreds of plant and animal species and was given national monument status in order to preserve their habitat. There are twenty-five miles of hiking trails in the park (some of which we hoped to hike that day), as well as a visitor center with educational exhibits. Upon our arrival, we loaded Mary into the stroller and immediately took her into the visitor center, as quickly as possible so as not to disturb the television crew that was interviewing the park ranger. Once inside, we pulled Mary out of the stroller and let her run around while John talked to the park ranger on duty. He recommended that we hike along the boardwalk, which was a two-mile walk through the swamp on…well, on a boardwalk. It was handicap-accessible, which meant that we would have no trouble taking Mary in the stroller. It was also one of the best ways to enjoy the swamp, as it was supposed to be a nice, relaxing walk. There was a good chance that we could see some wildlife out there, too, because it was a very quiet day. "You shouldn't have to worry about the boardwalk being underwater, either," he went on to explain. "We've had drought conditions over the past couple of years, and the river hasn't been flooding like it was supposed to." Nearby, we saw pictures of the boardwalk underwater, during a normal year; it just seemed to disappear under the murky waters of the swamp. We thanked the park ranger for his time then set off to start our leisurely hike along the boardwalk. Our walk started out just fine, despite the fact that it was very, very cold outside - it was probably forty-five degrees outside, which is not exactly the type of temperatures that we are used to. I think that was why our hike ended up the way it did. The boardwalk began just outside of the visitor center and immediately dropped down to the swamp level. After a quarter of a mile or so, we came to a junction, where the two-mile loop ended. From there, we could either go clockwise or counter-clockwise; we chose the latter and kept going straight, deeper and deeper into the swamp. And what an interesting swamp it was! As we hiked, John opened up the information pamphlet that he had received from the park ranger and began to point out all of the native foliage, including the cypress trees, which had a very interesting root system. Their roots grew partially above ground and created little bumps in the swamp called "cypress knees". Among these trees were very tall loblolly pines, which grew to great heights. Like the trees that grow among the sequoias in California, these trees must grow tall enough to reach the sunlight in order to survive, for the foliage is very thick closer to the ground. Among the shorter trees in the park, we found holly trees, which had the distinctive pointed leaves that distinguished them from the others, and oak trees. Most of the trees were leaf-bear, awaiting the beginning of spring to grow new leaves, so we could only imagine what the swamp must look like during the summer, when the tall trees are in full bloom and create dark, humid shadows over the swamp. As for animal life…well, we weren't lucky enough to see any animals this time around, because of all of the noise. Not from the other park visitors - there weren't many - but from Mary. For most of the two-mile hike, Mary cried and cried and cried. It just wasn't like her to do something like that - normally, Mary is very happy outdoors and loves to go hiking with us - so we figured that something was bothering her. Was it the stroller? Or was it just too cold for her? We just didn't know, so we didn't know what we could do to calm her misery. With only one mile to go to the end of the boardwalk, we decided that we had had enough of her crying. We had tried everything from carrying her to pushing her quickly in the stroller (something that she usually enjoys) to no avail. It was time to try something different, so I scooped her up from the stroller and sat down with her at one of the benches along the route. I cuddled her very close to me, so that she could share my warmth. And you know what she did? She fell asleep! She must have been cold - that was the only explanation that we could think of. Finally warm against her mother, she was content enough to fall asleep in my arms. Of course, I now had to carry her like that, but as long as she was quiet, I just didn't care how heavy she was. Eventually, we put her back in the stroller, where she continued to sleep for another five minutes…at which point, the boardwalk ended for a tenth of a mile, forcing us to walk on the dirt trail. The bumps woke Mary up again, and she remained so for the rest of the hike. It took us just over an hour to get back to the visitor center, where we went back inside in hopes of getting warm. We let Mary out of the stroller again and encouraged her to run around - she happily did so - now that she was out of the cold, she was happy again! We spent a half an hour at the visitor center, teaching Mary the names of the animals that were on exhibit behind the glass displays and learning what we could about the swamp. Despite the bad experience we had had hiking in the swamp, we were intrigued by the area and wanted to know more about it; we would just have to come back another day to hike there again. It was nearly noon when we left the monument. We were all getting hungry, so we set out in search of a place for us to eat lunch. Unfortunately, there wasn't a restaurant around for miles, so we weren't able to stop anywhere until we returned to Columbia. Once there, we ate lunch at a Subway near the university then tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day. "It's just too cold outside," John said. "No matter what we do, Mary is just going to be miserable." I agreed with him. Even if we took Mary to the zoo that afternoon, she just wasn't going to enjoy it, because it was just getting colder and colder as the day progressed. We decided that it was in our best interest to take Mary back to Aunt Lotte's house, where she could play inside for the rest of the day. That evening, John and I - and Janice and Danny, too - left the children with Lotte and Richard so that we could have dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. The grandparents were very excited to have us over for dinner and prepared us a wonderful dinner. Following the meal, we all sat down in their living room and chatted for about an hour. Then, just as John was trying to wrap up the conversation so that we could all leave, Aunt Lotte called us to say, "HELP ME!" She had been trying to get the kids to go to bed, but was having a disastrous time of it. As soon as one child fell asleep, the other one would start screaming, thus waking up the other one. And Mary, who had been napping when we left for the evening, was in full separation anxiety mode and wanted Lotte to carry her around everywhere she went. We came home just in time to wipe away the tears (and the tears of the children, too!) and to put both of them to bed. Neither child went to bed easily - Mary was much too excited, and Joshua kept coughing himself awake - but eventually we won the battle. John and I outlasted everyone that night, making it to bed around midnight. As we lay down to sleep, we said to each other, "Our vacation starts tomorrow." Return to Southern Comforts.

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