Hilton Head Residency Part 9: Homeward Bound
We left Hilton Head on Thursday, February 2 and arrived in Columbus for a long weekend with M's family on the evening of Friday, February 3. There were a lot of miles and adventures between Hilton Head and Columbus.
Our first stop was Congaree National Park in central South Carolina. Congaree was only promoted to National Park status in 2003, and it is small and relatively unvisited. This is everybody else's loss, because we had a great time. Congaree encompasses one of the largest remaining tracts of old growth forest in the U.S., and certainly the largest east of the Mississippi. Sadly, "largest old growth forest" in this case means about 40 square miles, but it's still enough to get a real sense of how the forest might have been before we began logging. In this case, the forest was preserved because it is mostly over frequently flooded river bottom land, and prior to mechanization it wasn't cost effective to log there. By the time it was cost effective, enough people wanted to preserve it that it became a National Monument.
There are a lot of trails and backcountry camping sites in Congaree, but given the limitations of travel and toddler, we simply went to the main visitor center and walked along the very extensive boardwalk. The boardwalk rises above the very wet and swampy forest floor while allowing you to walk among some very, very tall trees. No, they aren't redwoods, but there are may be more 130 foot tall trees in Congaree than anywhere else east of the Mississippi. There were also quite a few birds. We saw a lot of woodpeckers, heard a very loud owl, and saw quite a few warblers.
The weather that day was cool and slightly foggy, which made it perfect for walking along the boardwalk, or running in Birdie's case. I'm not sure how nice it would have been in summer humidity with the inevitable bugs that would accompany that much water, but in February it was just about perfect, and I highly recommend it to anyone heading in that direction.
From Congaree, we headed north and spent the night in an Airbnb in Mt. Airy, NC, which is very close to the border of North Carolina and Virginia. We had some Thai food that night, which resulted in an entertaining confusion. I ordered the takeout, M picked it up and went to the supermarket to get a few things for Birdie. While she was in the market, the restaurant called me to say that they'd given M somebody else's order in addition to ours, and could she please bring it back? They called several times before she got done in the market and swung over to drop it off. It seems odd that they didn't just make it again, but such is life.
When we woke up on February 3, it was time to absorb some pop culture tourism, because Mt. Airy is famous largely as the supposed basis of Mayberry. This is mostly because titular actor Andy Griffith was from Mt. Airy. This is where I admit that I knew nothing of this, because much to M's disbelief, I have zero memories of ever having seen The Andy Griffith Show.
My cultural ignorance was rectified with a visit to the Andy Griffith Museum, which had everything about Mayberry and Griffith that you might ever desire to see. It also had side exhibits on Betty Lynn, who was on the show and actually retired to Mt. Airy. Outside the TV world, the museum featured another pair of famous locals I had heard of, Chang and Eng, the twins who put the Siamese in Siamese twins. M, of course, was confused about how I knew about Chang and Eng but not Andy, but such is life.
We headed north and drove all the way through Virginia. In West Virginia, we made two brief stops. The first stop was at the primary visitor center for New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. It was cold and snowy at our newest national park, but we went out to the overlook and saw the gorge and New River Gorge Bridge. The latter was the longest single-span bridge in the world for more than 25 years, and is the kind of bridge that civil engineering nerds come to visit.
After taking in the view, we made another brief stop at Cathedral Falls, which is next to a winding road en route to the Ohio border. We got out and took some pictures. From there, we went straight through to Columbus, where we returned to the same Airbnb we started at. We spent the weekend with M's family, most notably picking up a bunch of holiday gifts that we'd left waiting for us, and then headed home on Sunday, February 5.
Our first stop was Congaree National Park in central South Carolina. Congaree was only promoted to National Park status in 2003, and it is small and relatively unvisited. This is everybody else's loss, because we had a great time. Congaree encompasses one of the largest remaining tracts of old growth forest in the U.S., and certainly the largest east of the Mississippi. Sadly, "largest old growth forest" in this case means about 40 square miles, but it's still enough to get a real sense of how the forest might have been before we began logging. In this case, the forest was preserved because it is mostly over frequently flooded river bottom land, and prior to mechanization it wasn't cost effective to log there. By the time it was cost effective, enough people wanted to preserve it that it became a National Monument.
There are a lot of trails and backcountry camping sites in Congaree, but given the limitations of travel and toddler, we simply went to the main visitor center and walked along the very extensive boardwalk. The boardwalk rises above the very wet and swampy forest floor while allowing you to walk among some very, very tall trees. No, they aren't redwoods, but there are may be more 130 foot tall trees in Congaree than anywhere else east of the Mississippi. There were also quite a few birds. We saw a lot of woodpeckers, heard a very loud owl, and saw quite a few warblers.
The weather that day was cool and slightly foggy, which made it perfect for walking along the boardwalk, or running in Birdie's case. I'm not sure how nice it would have been in summer humidity with the inevitable bugs that would accompany that much water, but in February it was just about perfect, and I highly recommend it to anyone heading in that direction.
From Congaree, we headed north and spent the night in an Airbnb in Mt. Airy, NC, which is very close to the border of North Carolina and Virginia. We had some Thai food that night, which resulted in an entertaining confusion. I ordered the takeout, M picked it up and went to the supermarket to get a few things for Birdie. While she was in the market, the restaurant called me to say that they'd given M somebody else's order in addition to ours, and could she please bring it back? They called several times before she got done in the market and swung over to drop it off. It seems odd that they didn't just make it again, but such is life.
When we woke up on February 3, it was time to absorb some pop culture tourism, because Mt. Airy is famous largely as the supposed basis of Mayberry. This is mostly because titular actor Andy Griffith was from Mt. Airy. This is where I admit that I knew nothing of this, because much to M's disbelief, I have zero memories of ever having seen The Andy Griffith Show.
My cultural ignorance was rectified with a visit to the Andy Griffith Museum, which had everything about Mayberry and Griffith that you might ever desire to see. It also had side exhibits on Betty Lynn, who was on the show and actually retired to Mt. Airy. Outside the TV world, the museum featured another pair of famous locals I had heard of, Chang and Eng, the twins who put the Siamese in Siamese twins. M, of course, was confused about how I knew about Chang and Eng but not Andy, but such is life.
We headed north and drove all the way through Virginia. In West Virginia, we made two brief stops. The first stop was at the primary visitor center for New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. It was cold and snowy at our newest national park, but we went out to the overlook and saw the gorge and New River Gorge Bridge. The latter was the longest single-span bridge in the world for more than 25 years, and is the kind of bridge that civil engineering nerds come to visit.
After taking in the view, we made another brief stop at Cathedral Falls, which is next to a winding road en route to the Ohio border. We got out and took some pictures. From there, we went straight through to Columbus, where we returned to the same Airbnb we started at. We spent the weekend with M's family, most notably picking up a bunch of holiday gifts that we'd left waiting for us, and then headed home on Sunday, February 5.