Congaree National Park, SC: June 30, 2020 - The Summer of National Parks

This is becoming the summer of National Parks!  While at the lake with my family, we took a day trip down to South Carolina's only National Park, Congaree.  Sadly, the biggest draw and what appears to be the signature area of the park, the Boardwalk Trail, is closed for repairs, but still, we saw a few bits and pieces.

First, we made our way down a trail near the outskirts of the park boundaries, known as the Bates Ferry Trail.  It may surprise you to learn this, but a swamp in South Carolina in the middle of June is quite miserable.  Especially as the trail turned from this:

to this:

which may seem nicer - I mean hey, a nice grassy floor - but it meant far more bugs and bother as the trail went on.  By the time we reached the Congaree River, the trail's main point of interest, I was almost constantly running my hands over my head and neck to shoo bugs away.

We also saw plenty of the vaunted swampland, which is the primary reason this area got set aside as a National Park at all.

Next, we made our way around to the main area of the park, where the Visitor Center is, which - surprise! - is also closed right now:

We took some secondary trails through the area where the Boardwalk resides, including the Bluff trail and Sims trail.  We did get to see a few hints of the closed-down Boardwalk:

But that was it.  So no visitor center and no main attraction - clearly this is a park we'll have to come back to someday when repairs are done and a global pandemic is a distant memory.