Away from everything in Daydreaming on the Porch

There was no other place this past weekend than Beidler Forest for a perfect retreat from the city and the stress of life as I now live it. At this magnificent sanctuary of thousands of acres I can usually count on nearly complete stillness. Sometimes you can hear hunters in the distance or a plane briefly and terribly overhead, but it's so far from the nearest highway and so remotely located way out in the middle of South Carolina.

I walked deep into this part of Four Holes Swamp on an elevated boardwalk, flowing swamp water underneath, and marveled that such a place can even exist in a world where in decades past the only goal of the timber barons and lumber companies was total commercial exploitation of forests and cutting down every tree. Save some tall trees and ancient woodlands for future generations to enjoy and venerate? Not much chance, except for the visionaries who set aside this particular swamp forest. It has some of the tallest bald cypress trees in the world, many more than 1,000 years old. The old growth forest here comprises 1,800 acres.

As I walked along and looked up at the sky meeting the tops of ten-story tall cypress trees, I thought to myself, "What another world this is!" A refuge, a place of sanity where one can be alone with Nature. I saw not one other person the entire time I was there. Sublime.

Tall and ancient bald cypress in Four Holes Swamp