Day 1 - Of Swamps and Smokies

Whitney and I are making the trek from Atlanta to Oregon City! Instead of simply driving the fastest route in three or four days, we are spreading the trip out among a week and a half. I think our US National Parks are treasures, so our plan is to visit of parks on the way back--especially focusing on those that are less accessible from Oregon. Hence, stop 1: Congaree National Park.

Much of the South and East used to have wide swaths of lowland/floodplain forests, but the majority of them have been harvested over the years. Congaree was spared at first due to the difficulty of logging it, but then later the land owner altruistically figured he should save it as a specimen. At least, that's what the video told us. I'm guessing he either was saving it until the market was so depleted that he could make a fortune, or at least until he could recoup the costs of harvesting. Either way, I'm glad we still have it! It's a relatively recent addition to the Nat'l Parks, having reached park status in 2003.

It features several ecosystems, including swamps, lakes, rivers, and bluffs. We took a boardwalk tour that mostly went through the swampy area and enjoyed seeing the plant life that thrives in such specialized areas. Of course there were Cypress trees with their knees that jut up from the swamp.

Whitney, being the physical therapist, just had to conduct an inspection on the tree's knee.

Another specialized plant is the Tupelo tree, whose most striking feature is a tapered trunk. Perhaps this is for stability? Whitney is pointing to the moss line on the tree, which marks the high water line. This being a flood plain and all, the water can swell up to ten feet!

In addition to our flora friends, we also met some fauna folks. Here is Whitney photographing a frog. Last summer, a frog kept trying to make its home in the Ernsts' garage, so we thought we'd send the photo to Shawny to post in her garage as a reminder to all frogs that they belong outside.

There were beautifully terrifying spiders, too. I don't know how it is that I didn't see these humongo spiders in Georgia (like I had in Louisiana) but they're magnficient. There would be these huge webs spanning distances between trees, stalking in its body armor and evoking images from the movie Alien. I was pretty good at keeping my cool around them, but I'm pretty sure I would've just "opted out" if one jumped onto me. It's hard to tell, but the body of this spider was about the size of a large Brazillian nut.

All this interaction with spiders got us real hungry, so we stopped at a Zaxby's (Zaxby's:Chick Fil-A::Burgerville:McDonald's) to satisfy our cravings.

Afterward, we backtracked heading west on our way the the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The drive up was beautiful (part of it followed the Blue Ridge Parkway), and it's like the wildlife knows where park boundaries are, because just as soon as we turned into the park, we found a meadow where elk were calving.

There are many roads through the Smokies, so as we drove through the park, we felt it appropriate to listen to Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and Strauss' "An Alpine Symphony." We had originally planned to camp in the Smokies overnight, but it was sprinkling and the weather forecast kept heavily suggested the occurrence of thunderstorms. After driving through the park, we pulled over at a visitor's center to evaluate options, when the heavens opened... it was a pretty easy decision at that point.

We kept on driving another hour or so through the torrent and stopped at a motel on the west side of Knoxville. I mean, it's not like we couldn't handle camping in the rain, but we figured we'd get a jump start on the next day's travels.