South Carolina

It’s October 22, 2019 a slightly foggy and misty morning. At this point, we had been on the road for 52 days. We got up early and loaded up the Subie to make the 3 1/2 hour drive from Southern Pines, N.C. to Charleston, South Carolina. Where we would spend the night in an Airbnb before heading to Congaree National Park to camp. The Carolina’s were something special.

The fam pulled into the Airbnb and noticed the street name was the same name as my Grandmother’s maiden name who had recently passed, it made it feel a little like home. We dropped the dogs off and headed to The Battery area of the lovely Charleston. Oh all the wonderful things we had heard about Charleston and we were ready for a history lesson. The drive through Rainbow Row was neat, a row of pastel-colored homes that were built in the 1700’s with ordinary colors and restored in the 1900’s with bright colors. The Battery is known for its historic war memorabilia dated back to the Civil War & beautiful scenery. It is right off the waters of the Ashley & Cooper Rivers that meet and flow into the sea and wow, what a gorgeous view!

Our tummies were grumbling, our queue to go get something to eat. Downtown Charleston had a hip and happening feel to it. Everyone was in their best dressed attire. It felt like all business, not just business in the front, party in the back. Another place that we fell in love with! We strolled around the area window shopping until we decided on some tacos and beer at Beer Works. I would highly recommend checking this place out, a small sports bar with great customer service and a damn good taco. We had our hearts set on Mellow Mushroom for the final course because it is my favorite pizza joint in the south. Each Mellow Mushroom I have been to gives a unique experience, funky hippy-like interior decorating that will make you feel like there was another type of mushroom on the pizza. Their homemade crust is to die for, seriously so good. I was recommended the mighty meaty pizza with a drizzle of BBQ sauce the first time I went there and have gladly stuck with it. We made our way back to the Airbnb to hang with the pups and get some rest.

Rise & shine, we had the idea to walk to the coffee shop down the street, Highfalutin Coffee Roasters and we were not disappointed. Another good find! What else was something local we could try before going camping? You guessed it, doughnuts! Duck Donuts to be exact. They weren’t actually local to South Carolina, but they were to North Carolina so that counts. They had a large variety to choose from and both that we tried were tasty!

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Finally, we were off to Congaree National Park in Hopkins, S.C. to spend the night out in nature. We pulled up to Longleaf Campground and to our surprise, there was only 1 other person camping and another in their converted van. This was cool and also a little creepy being in a national park with so little people. A new experience for us. The gentleman camping informed us about banana spiders (Nephila) and to be on the lookout because they sit on their giant webs between trees, right where you could possibly walk through and end up with one all up on your face! They typically won’t bother humans unless they are feeling threatened. He wasn’t wrong though, there were several throughout the park and even one chilling at our campsite. We set up our tent, blew up the air mattress (still intact with flex seal), cozied up our tent-home and then headed to the self-guided boardwalk trail. There were several trails to choose from, we chose this one because it was dog friendly and only 2.6 miles roundtrip, perfect for our little Riley who can’t hike as far as he used to. The pups were loving it! What a beautiful walk it was, crossing through what felt like an enchanted forest/jungle. Full of several species of trees including water tupelos, loblolly pines, oaks, maples & holly. A truly magical place.

Back to our campground we went. It was time to pull out the camping stove and make some of our famous chili! Not really famous, but those around us know how good it is. Made with ground chicken instead of beef and topped with some chili cheese Fritos, yes please! It was getting late so we moved into the tent to play some Sequence and watch Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist on our laptop. Our go to camping snacks are almond M&M’s and Twin Snakes. Trace was the champ at Sequence this time! During the movie, we started hearing these crazy sounds that sounded like wild animals fighting and chanting out in the jungle. Sounds neither of us had heard in our life. We were spooked, so we decided to sleep with our hatchet. That’s logical, right? The sounds happened one more time in the middle of the night. I cannot express enough the amount of fear that filled every ounce of my body. Somehow we managed to fall asleep and woke up in the morning, not attacked by animals in the jungle. We were just fine! Something to laugh about now haha.

We cooked up some breakfast on the stove, put on some tunes and started packing up the tent. “Work it Out by Jurassic 5 feat. Dave Matthews Band” came on and all of a sudden all these birds above us in the trees, started chirping and singing. It was like a scene out of Cinderella. I wish that I would have recorded it, it was incredible and made our morning. Out of all the songs we played, that was the one that got the birds moving and grooving. It was time to load up the subie again and we were off to Savannah, Georgia…