After our night on the town, we returned to our campsite at Longleaf for a much more restful night of sleep. We headed to the Harry Hampton Visitor Center right when it opened at 9 a.m. We watched an 18 minute intro movie here where we learned some interesting facts such as: Congaree National Park is a relatively new National Park officially being established in 2003; its name literally means “dragging your bottom” in a Native American language because the bottom of their boats drag on the floor of the shallow Congaree River. All the trails start from the Visitor Center, so we chose a 12-mile loop combining the Boardwalk Loop Trail, the Weston Lake Trail, and the River Trail. I think we were the only ones crazy enough to try the longest trail the day after a huge storm, so we were alone for most of our hike. We maneuvered several down trees and we were constantly dodging spider webs. Our adrenaline kicked in each time we ran into a pack of wild boar, mostly because we didn’t know what to expect, and we never stopped moving because if we did for even a second, the mosquitos pounced (even though the official mosquito meter ranging from 1-6 was a 3 at the visitor center). Overall, we enjoyed the giant pine trees, the cypress knees, and never-ending nature sounds of Congaree National Park.