NC07 (SC01) — Congaree NP

To drive directly from Asheville to Charleston takes about 4.5 hours.  We used about 7.5 h, with a detour to Congaree National Park in South Carolina.  This is a relatively young part of the park system, having become a national monument only in 1976 and then being converted to a national park in 2003.  It preserves one of the few remaining old-growth floodplain forests, which once covered a large proportion of the southeastern US.  We hiked a 2.4 mile loop on a boardwalk with a self-guided interpretive pamphlet.  Among the interesting features were very tall (up to 130 feet) loblolly pines, the bald cypress with the knobby ridges rising above the mud, and the dwarf palmettos.  Now that we are out of the mountains, the weather was very warm and humid (not unlike Singapore).  That's likely to continue throughout our four-day (five-night) stay in Charleston SC.