I actually got Richard to go on a 2.4 mile hike today! We visited Congaree National Park which was about a one hour drive from our campground at Santee State Park, South Carolina. Congaree is a relatively new National Park, receiving its official designation in 2003. The Park is made up of lush trees growing in a floodplain forest with some of the tallest bottomland hardwood trees in the United States. The centerpiece is a 2.4 mile boardwalk that takes you through the forest on a self-guided tour. There are other trails throughout the Park but this is the one we walked on. Here are some pictures. You can see how giant the one tree is that I am hugging. It is 180′ tall!

On the way home we passed by many cotton fields. Some of the cotton had been harvested and put into these huge rolls. Other fields were ready to be harvested and looked almost like snow as far as you could see. We stopped at one spot and I picked up some cotton that had been left behind. It feels a lot like a fluffy cotton ball and you can feel the seeds inside but you can’t see them. The seeds are very hard to separate from the cotton…thus the Cotton Gin invention 🙂