We had been trying to figure out what our vaccine strategy was going to be but not having much luck. We initially thought Florida would work out easiest since we are Florida residents, but for most of our stay, we haven’t been eligible to receive them. It wasn’t until the last couple weeks of our stay that our age group came up. We tried to get a J&J vaccine appointment but they were prioritizing teachers so we never were able to find a shot within 100 miles of us. Since we were going to be traveling again in April and May, we were reluctant to go for the 2 shot vaccines since we would not be in the same area for the second dose. The day before we left Brooksville, I had gone for a long bike ride at Croom and got a phone call from Chris telling me to be home by 2 in order to get to the fairgrounds for our first Moderna shot. It was a pretty well run site and had no issues. We will be somewhere in Ohio when our time for the second shot arrives. Hopefully we will be able to get that taken care of just as easily.
We had one week to kill before our scheduled service appointment for the rig in Gaffney South Carolina. We looked at the route and realized we would have two intermediate stops somewhere along the 600 mile drive. Splitting the route in thirds had our first stop near Brunswick Georgia and the second near Santee South Carolina. Since we had spent eight nights on Jekyll Island back in the fall of 2018, we decided to just make Brunswick a simple overnight and spend 6 nights in Santee. The Southern Retreat RV park in Brunswick worked out well for us. They had a pull thru site so we didn’t even need to disconnect the Jeep. Better yet, they took Passport America so the site was 50% off.
We ended up staying at the KOA at Santee Lake South Carolina. The location worked out well for us putting us near the things we wanted to see. KOA’s aren’t our favorite campgrounds. They tend to have many amenities that we don’t use and seem to cost a lot more. This place was nice enough but parking on a grass site with water, electric but no sewer for $66 per night seemed a bit overpriced. In all of our stops before or after going full time, I can only recall one other place where the campground permits the dumping of gray water at the site. It did allow us to run several more loads of laundry during the stay.
One of our day trips for this area is a National Park that I suspect many people have never even heard of. Congaree NP is about an hours drive to the northwest from our campground. We had actually intended to stop here back in October 2018 as we were heading from Maine to Florida, but it didn’t fit into the schedule back then. Chris had checked out the park online to figure out what hiking or sightseeing there is to do in the park and discovered there was going to be a flute quartet playing on Saturday. It was free but required an online reservation and the event was sold out due to limited seating with COVID. We still decided to go on Saturday since the weather looked to be rather nice. Th park is rather remote even though it is only about 20 miles from Columbia SC. We arrived mid morning and was really surprised by how many cars were already parked with the lot nearly full.
We start out at the visitor center but most of the inside exhibits are closed so we head out on the 2.6 mile boardwalk loop trail. Congaree boasts of being the largest expanse of bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern US. An easier description would be a floodplain in a forest. Some people might call it a swamp, but the water is relatively clear with hints of it moving so there isn’t the stink that sometimes comes along with swamp. I suspect mosquitoes could be a real problem at times given all the water. But it was a relatively cool morning so the insects weren’t an issue. Although there were some pretty butterflies.
Zebra Swallowtail
Much of the boardwalk was in great shape and sections even looked to be quite new. At the intersection with the loop portion, we went to the left on the elevated boardwalk section that heads back to Weston Lake. There were a fair number of people out so it took a while to get to the viewpoint over the lake. Given how high the water level is, it’s hard to appreciate the lake since we have been walking along the boardwalk above the same water that forms the lake for nearly a mile.
Heading Along Boardwalk
Fallen Tree or Large Lizard?
Floodplain Reflections
Weston Lake
At the lake overlook, the boardwalk loop continues on after going down a short ramp. This is the low boardwalk section of the loop. There is the intersection of some ground based trails but with the high water those trails are inaccessible. We walked a couple hundred feet along the low boardwalk with water covering it by an inch or so. We managed to stay dry but then came upon a large tree that had fallen across the boardwalk. Getting past it looked to be a bit more challenging and likely would end up with us taking an unintended swim. So we back track to the split and take the other direction to see how far we could get going the other way around the loop. It turns out this section of the low boardwalk is even lower. There were a couple of people coming back from the underwater section and said the water was midway up their calves at the deepest part. Glad we didn’t try to go past the fallen tree.
Flooded Trail
Flooded Low Boardwalk
There are a couple other trails that start near the visitor center that aren’t boardwalk. The Bluff Trail sounded promising since it implies higher ground. It turned out to be quite a nice walk. Just past the Bluff Campground (tent camping only) we enter a newly burned section of woods. From the smell and only small amounts of leaves and pine needles, I suspect that this area had been burned about 2 to 3 weeks earlier. As we made our way thru the woods heading back towards the visitor center, we could see something unusual. It appeared to be a couple dozen chairs and the first thought was maybe a wedding ceremony? But as we got closer, we realized this was the location of the flute quartet. It was still 90 minutes before they were to start, but they were getting set up and I suppose checking out the acoustics of the woods? We realized that there were plenty of spots on fallen logs to sit and enjoy. So we headed back to the car to have lunch and do one more short hike along the Sims Trail that also ended in the floodplain.
Flooded Sims Trail
We didn’t have chairs with us but grabbed something to place over a fallen and charred log and headed over to the concert area. It was quite a unique experience to listen to the 4 students from the University of SC play for an hour or so standing amongst the charred trees. For one of their pieces, they each stood at a different section of the surrounding woods and played a piece that sounded like birds calling one another. By the time they finished, we decided we had seen as much of Congaree NP as we could. It’s definitely not a Yellowstone or Glacier NP experience but it was still worth the day trip.
Flute Quartet in Woods
One of the "Birds" Calling
Short Video Clip of Flute Players
Another day trip is to the Santee National Wildlife Refuge. There are 4 “units” that make up this refuge. One is just down the road from the campground but we didn’t make it to this one. Instead we drove over to the Cuddo Unit since there appears to be larger with much more to see and do here. It’s not a long drive from camp and we lucked out because the place is closed on Mondays but we were here on Easter Sunday. There is a 7.5 mile nature drive with a dozen numbered stops along the way. We do a short hike from #6 - the Red Bank Field. There are a few small ponds with ducks that don’t seem to appreciate our presence. As we approach the lake, we see lots of boats out on the water. Apparently this is a very popular fishing lake. A small cove at the end of our walk has numerous turtles sunbathing on fallen logs. We also see what we assume to be otters swimming around in the cove but none get close enough to confirm.
Stretched Out on Log
All Lined Up
A little bit further on the nature drive is stop #8 - Alligator Alley. Sounded interesting to us so we parked and got out for another walk just along the road. We had spent a full 5 months in Florida and never saw an alligator. We ended up walking about a third of a mile thru Alligator Alley and managed to see two. One of them was rather large and we were glad they were on the far side of the pond and appeared to be sleeping. As we headed back to the car, a few other people just driving by missed the gators altogether until we pointed them out.
Large Snoozing Gator
Fallen Tree over Moat
Just beyond the alligators, we stopped to do the 1.4 mile South Loop trail. There were lots of birds and dragonflies along the pleasant walk. No more gators were spotted. We have been seeing lots of pale purple flowers hanging from the tree canopy. Upon closer investigation, they appear to be some sort of vine and later research leads me to believe they are a type of wisteria although it’s unclear whether it is native or invasive. This was a fun stop. We probably spent 2-3 hours exploring here.
Dragonfly with Intricate Wings
Damselfly
Wisteria
Just across Lake Marion from us is Santee State Park which had two things drawing us to explore there: an 8 mile hiking trail and over 60 geocaches along the trails. We saw the trail could easily be split into two loops allowing us to do the shorter southern loop before lunch. Then reposition the car and tackle the longer northern loop. We did just under 3 miles and 18 caches before lunch and we really enjoying the solitude of the trail. The nearly 6 mile northern loop was very similar but halfway thru it we started to run into problems finding some of the caches plus the legs were getting tired. We managed to find 38 of the 41 we tried in the afternoon giving us 56 finds for the day.
Red Buckeye Tree?
Trailhead on North Side at Santee SP
Lake Marion View
With tired bodies, we decided to try something a little less strenuous the next day. Cypress Gardens isn’t super close to camp, but the 62 mile drive will allow me to find caches in a couple new South Carolina counties. The gardens are on a 170 acre preserve. Besides the expected gardens, there are several walking trails, a butterfly house, a bird exhibit and a swamp creature building. Plus your $10 admission gets you on a boat ride around the pond. We got stuck in the traffic from an accident on the expressway so our arrival was delayed by an hour or more. All the guided boat tours were full but we would still be able to do a self guided tour.
We started out in the butterfly house. It’s a good sized building about 70 by 40 feet. It was packed full of interesting and colorful flowers. There were lots of butterflies although not as many as I was anticipating given the size of the place. We spent 30 minutes just walking the aisle waiting to get a good shot of a butterfly.
Butterfly House
Wall Mural
Chinese Lantern Flower
The “Swamparium” was next on our tour. Kind of like an aquarium but for swamp creatures. This dark building was full of some very interesting animals - snakes, frogs, turtles, lizards and crocodiles. It’s kept dark inside so the animals cannot see visitors as easily - think two way mirrors. Unlike other places like this we have visited, we were able to spot most of the creatures easily in their homes. I’d say the most unusual ones were the two dwarf crocodiles. They were so motionless, we just assumed they were fake - very realistic fakes but fakes nonetheless. But after staring at them for a bit, one of them closed his mouth and moved. So maybe they are animatronic fakes?
Frogs
Snake
Lizard
Turtle
Snake Peeks
Turtle with LOOOONG Neck
Almost Looks Fake, But IS Real
We figured we should head over to the boat dock to see how this part of the gardens works. There was a line of people waiting so we got at the end. There were probably 6 groups of 2 to 5 people ahead of us. But a few minutes later there were at least that many people behind us. They have a couple different size of boats. Two to three person boats and one that hold up to 6. As one boat would come in, they would load the next properly sized group. As we were waiting in line, we could see several small gators swimming around the pond. It was probably a 25 minute wait before we got on to our boat. It was sort of a cross between a canoe and a row boat. Fortunately it was very stable and there was no current to contend with and only a slight breeze.
Guided Tour Boat Head Out
Chris Leads the Way
It’s a bit of a maze to navigate thru but they have white arrows on cypress trees every so often to keep you on track. There are two bridges you need to go under. The first one is quite low and simply ducking wasn’t adequate to clear your head. The second one was much easier. It was very pretty and peaceful. At one point we had a medium sized gator swimming out ahead of the boat almost like it was leading the way. A bit later we saw a much larger one that was fortunately far enough away to not be menacing. We ended up with a very nice paddle around the pond.
Approaching Second Bridge
Scenic Reflections
Big Gator Keep His Distance
We still had an hour of so before the gardens closed so we did all but the southern perimeter trail. They definitely have some wonderful flowers around the gardens. On a couple of the more secluded paths, we saw some birds wading in the water, looking for a meal and not bothered by us at all. This is definitely a great place to explore and enjoy.
Dragonfly (note shadow of wings)
Iris in Bloom Here
Butterfly Feeding
Unfazed Egret
For our last full day in this part of South Carolina, we headed up to Sumter to visit Swan Lake Iris Gardens. It’s about 40 miles north of camp. The park is a little over 100 acres with a small lake and a 3/4 mile walking path circling the lake. Eight species of swans call the lake home. It’s a free park and was quite a popular place for people to visit. We took our time strolling along the perimeter of the lake. It was amazing to see this many swans in one location. Swans weren’t the only resident of the lake. There are probably hundreds of turtles that were lining the edge of the lake, climbed up on the swollen cypress trunks or simply floating in the water.
Black Swan
Making a Nest
There were lots of flowering bushes around the park grounds but we were a bit too early in the season to see the iris in bloom. One shallow corner of the lake looked to be home for thousands of tadpoles. I was a little surprised something wasn’t nearby feasting on them. Many other water birds were enjoying the lake as well. Our favorite was probably the mother mallard duck and her large group of ducklings.
Colorful Reflections
Tadpoles Galore
Mom Mallard and Ducklings
There is a pedestrian bridge over the busy road to get to more of the park. It’s a much smaller section with some boardwalks around a marshy area. There were plenty of swans to see in a more natural, secluded habitat. We didn’t explore this side of the park as much since we had additional plans for the afternoon.
Mute Swan
Dangling Flowers
Snoozing Swan
Playing Around
We had brought along our mountain bikes and a change of clothes to try out the Cypress Trail on the north side of town. The plan was to do the 5 mile loop and get some geocaches along the way. Those plans needed to be modified when we discovered the northern section of the trail was flooded beyond our willingness to get wet. So we ended up doing about nine miles of riding to complete most of the 5 mile loop. Other than the flooded section, the trail was nice and we didn’t come across anybody else enjoying it.
The next morning we headed out to Gaffney SC at the far northern edge of the state. Our destination was Freightliner Custom Chassis for our annual motorhome service. We have been here a couple times before for service work before going full time. The Freightliner chassis our motorhome is built on are manufactured at a different facility nearby. We had even taken the free tour of the plant and were impressed with the factory. Currently the tours are on hiatus due to COVID. We have been impressed with the expertise of the service work and will use them for our service when we are on the east side of the Mississippi. Getting an appointment had required us to schedule months in advance. Lots of other travelers, especially snow birds, will get their service work done as they head back north from Florida.
We arrived early enough on Thursday to get the paperwork done before they closed and they told us the technician would be out at 8:15 AM Friday to pull the rig in. We had packed a lunch and pulled out our camp chairs so we could sit outside and wait for the better part of the day. One other things we had taken care of was to remedy the design flaw that had caused us to breakdown on the side of the road back in August of 2017 while heading to our spot to watch the solar eclipse. We needed a replacement pipe that directs air into the engine’s turbocharger. Back in 2017, there weren’t any of these pipes in inventory so we had the service center in Bend Oregon fix it as good as possible. When I scheduled this appointment, I had them order the pipe and it was available when we got here and was installed free of charge! The work wasn’t done until late in the afternoon so we just stayed at their campground for the night and would continue north the next morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment