The Jamboree spent a long winter in hibernation awaiting her next adventure. Then, I was talking to some old fun road life friends about wanting to get down to check out Congaree National Park in South Carolina, sort of near them and the next thing I knew, we were camping at a state park for the week with them.
I have never been more excited to spend the night in a Walmart parking lot, with a pack of teens playing loud music and racing cars late into the night, delivery trucks slamming doors at nearby restaurants early in the morning. It was lovely. Ruby agrees. And even the Lidkids were in good spirits, likely due to meeting up with old friends.
We couldn’t check into the campground until like 2 or so the following afternoon, so the kids and I did a quick little trip into Columbia, SC to continue our long paused state capitol tour and see if there was any other cool things to do. The South Carolina state house was our 21st state capital. We weren’t suprised to find a confederate monument in the front of the building. Sigh.
We took our obligatory photo and then wandered out. There were lots of lovely flowers on the grounds, probably to distract you from the racism. Who knows. It made for fun photoshoots.
The visit didn’t take nearly as long as I had anticipated. (It was a Sunday so downtown traffic and parking was easy). So, I looked up some other things to do and came across the perfect roadside attraction. The World’s Largest Fire Hydrant. I mean, we have already been to the world’s largest: boot, wagon, and eyeglasses. We obviously needed to add this to our collection. It was only a few blocks away, so off we went.
Then, there was a little bonus. There were took pretty cool murals on the buildings in the parking lot around the giant hydrant. We love a good mural. The hydrant did not disappoint either. It was large. And parking was free and easy. Isaac wasn’t amused however, and tried to ruin my good time with his grumpiness.
From there, we picked up some delicious Publix deli fare and met up with Derek at the campground and our first RV trip of 2021 was underway!
Beautiful flowers and kids pics!