not quite high enough to be the Highlands, but definitely not the Lowlands either.
My post-walmart day started very well, my wifi app found me an excellent little cafe. I seem to get a more targeted selection of eateries by asking my wifi app for places to eat than i do by asking yelp. Anyway this place offers a little gourmet brunch menu on Sundays, which is when I happen to be here! I had the crab benedict, which makes this the second day that I have had crab for breakfast, finished it off with a fancy cheese danish, which I call living right!
After that though, my day fell into a curious doldrum. I drove all the way out a long gravel road to a wildlife refuge that was locked at the front gate – turns out to only be open banker’s hours M-F – what’s up with that?? … and what to do with myself now. Beach campgrounds are $34 and up or I could finish up the short drive to Savannah and doing the city walmart thing again. I just wasn’t feeling it for either of these choices, I wanted a little space between Charleston and Savannah and it wasn’t happeing on my current trajectory. So I stopped at a quiet place to think about shaking things up a little bit and doing something different.
In my research I’d found that there is a National Park in South Carolina, on the Congaree River. It looked pretty remote on the map, and the only camping it has is called primitive and is free! So I head there. Turns out to be farther than I thought (as usual…) so I rolled in a little before dark as usual.
It was indeed remote coming from the direction I did and it turned out to be quite low-tech for a national park. However, from the opposite direction it is actually pretty close to Columbia – there were a lot of tree-hugger types finishing up their day of Sunday hiking when I got there. But it did not disappoint! National Parks always have something … and Ranger Ann says this one has a 4.6 mile-long boardwalk trail through the hardwood swamps (technically not swamps, because the water is running … slowly … but certainly very swampy and swamp-like t the untrained eye :).
Monday
Here, camping means hanging out in the parking area for the walk-in tent sites. But there was no one else there on Sunday evening, so I was able to alternate between thinking of it as an exceptionally tidy forest clearing and/or an exceptionally over-landscaped walmart parking lot, and either way I had the whole place to myself, so woo hoo!
In the morning I did that excellent boardwalk hike, did not see a single other human – just me and the squirrels and the nuts. That put me in a real nice mental place as I headed off to see what Columbia was all about.
Generally the only radio I can bear is NPR and sports radio. Right here right now, sports radio is just abuzz! The local boys, the Gamecocks of USC upset the hated Florida Gators two days ago to win their half of their division (college football is so wierd), and that was all they talked about on two different stations all day – Gamecock pride, it was kinda cool.
I killed the day doing totally nothing, which is the first time I’ve done that (alone, not at a friends house) on the whole trip. A couple of hours at the library -> eat way too much shredded barbecue -> 3-4 hours driving and walking and sitting places downtown -> back to the library to kill time till Monday Night Football (dark at 5:30, game at 8:30) -> drink beer and watch the ‘Skins succumb to the awesomeness that was Michael Vick last night -> snuggle in at the walmart to live with my un-showered self for one more night.
Tuesday
Coffee + food (if you call french toast bagel with sausage and egg food!) + wifi, til noon-ish, then off to my date with an expensive shower.
I am glad I drove into central South Carolina. I’ve never, ever been here in all my years of road-trippin. Now I want to visit western South Carolina/Northeast Georgia corner – the highlands as it were. I’ll bet the southern Appalachians are real purty this time of year. I seem to have caught up with Autumn down here – the trees in my little park were madly dropping their leaves at the least breath of breeze, which made the ground very pretty. There was still plenty of red and yellow in the hills.
I am in Barnwell State Park, a quiet little spot back in the same kind of hilly/boggy country as the National Park a couple of days ago. The attraction is a couple of pretty little fishing ponds. Of interest to me is that the buildings were built by the CCC in the 30’s. It’s ironic to read the official web site bragging about these examples of socialist activism in the most politically reactionary state in the Union. Jim Demint would probably have them town down because they might infect people with socialism if he thought about it.
The sturdy, spacious CCC bathroom shower did not disappoint! I busted out some clean clothes from the bottom of the box and felt pretty luxurious! I busted out the bike, took a sunset walk around the ponds, and all in all had a perfect time, perhaps the most vacation-y day I’ve had on the whole trip.
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