South Carolina - The Swamp

Melissa, Adam, Benton and I went to Congaree National Park while my younger kids stayed home and played with cousins.  I hear they fed fish.  I'm not sure what else went on. :)

But Congaree was really cool!  Fewer mosquitoes than I was expecting, too!  We got there around 6 and it was nice to be in the shade.  Which it was all shady. 

Did I mention that the entire southern half of the United States was having a major heat wave during our entire time there?  Yeah, everything was hot.

We got the Melissa-given self-guided tour, which was great.  Very informative!

Knees from the cypress trees.  They think they grown them for increased stability in the swamp.

I can't remember what it's called when the trunks are really wide at the bottom like that, but I learned.  Also, the moss indicates previous water levels.  That's crazy.

Peter called and told me a story about how he had to break into our house, so I missed part of the tour and took pictures so I could see them later.

There were so many Golden Orb spiders.  They were really pretty and had HUGE webs.  There's one in this picture to the left of the front tree.  (It's in front of the tree, but it appears in the picture to the left of the tree.  They aren't THAT big.)

This tree, however really is THAT big.  It's a huge Loblolly pine tree.  By the way, Loblollies are the best.  Driving into South Carolina there were a bunch on the side of the road and their new growth was so soft looking.  They're awesome.

The highlight for the people who had been to Congaree before was these cute little wild pigs.  There were three of them and they really were quite cute. 

The swamp was totally worth going to.  I loved it.

And then we went home and had milkshakes. (Ingrid said something really funny about her milkshake, so I took this picture and now I have no idea what the funny thing was.)

Not bad for less than 24 hours staying with Melissa.