Of all the parks on this trip, this was the one we found the most interesting. Congaree National Park contains “the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeast United States” (from park website). Also called, swampland! We got to the visitor center at 8:15 AM on a Friday morning and the visitor center did not open until 9 AM. We planned it that way so that we could have their 2.4 mile loop boardwalk to ourselves as well as seeing in in early morning light. For us, it was like walking into another world. If fact my wife recently found an article describing it and they made a comment that if you were to see Yoda here, he would not seem out of place at all! Very interesting forest, especially the Bald Cypress trees and the “knees” around them. Also, the spiders we saw, Golden Silk Orbweaver (Nephila clavipes) and Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver (Neoscona domiciliorum) were beautiful. Wouldn’t ever want one on me (fortunately all the webs we saw were clear of the walkway), but seeing them was amazing! Along the leg of the rectangular pathway near the lake, if you stopped to take a photo, the mosquitos immediately were landing on you, but as long as you were moving it was fine, so only ended up with a couple of bites and we were not wearing any insecticide.