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National Park #2 and Entering a NEW REGION of the US
Last week, we drove over a thousand miles, visited the 7th largest city in the United States, and explored our 2nd National Park 😳
Jen and Elliot
March 05, 2025
Sunday Summary #142
National Park #2 and Entering a NEW REGION of the US
Hi there,
Welcome to Scho & Jo’s 142nd Sunday Summary. This edition of the Sunday Summary was written in San Antonio, Texas, right next to the Riverwalk.
Last Week.
We’re officially at it folks, last week we drove over a thousand miles, visited the 7th largest city in the United States and explored our 2nd National Park 😳 If that sounds like a lot, it is… we’re pretty tired BUT we have some plans to remedy this in the next few weeks.
Starting off last week we left Atlanta for a short trip to Congaree National Park. Congaree is a relatively unknown park, despite being only a few minutes out of Columbia, South Carolina nad having no entry fee! It’s also dog friendly so we took Ollie adventuring with us. Here are some fun facts we learned about Congaree:
It has the highest density of Champion trees in North America. A Champion is the largest tree of its species!
It is an active floodplain, and the park floods roughly 10 times a year. If you visit during a flood, you’ll have a very different experience.
It’s some of the last Old-growth Bottomland Forest in a Floodplain in the South-East and is more similar to the Amazon than anywhere else in the world.
After leaving Congaree, we had a one-night pit stop in Atlanta before starting our longest road trip in Summit—1,000 miles to San Antonio! We split the drive into two days, but we still didn’t arrive in San Antonio until after 10 p.m. You may be thinking, “You skipped three states - Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana?” That is correct, we did skip those states. Our original plan was to spend February visiting those three states, but we had to pivot our plans due to final preparations taking longer than expected. So, instead of shifting our plans back, we had to skip them for now and will return to them later to explore them 😊
We stealth-camped downtown and spent a couple of days exploring the city! As the 7th Largest City in the United States, San Antonio has lots to offer. We wanted to get some bearings on this new region, so we learned some history about the Missions and the beginning of San Antonio. We also ate some FANTASTIC Hispanic food. It feels great being in a new region of the US! Added fun fact: San Antonio was where Elliot was born!
This Week.
This week we are visiting Fredericksburg and Austin before heading to our third National Park of the trip.
"Remember the Alamo"
Videos.
In-case you missed it, here are all the vlogs we’ve released since our last Sunday. Summary:
Blogs.
After the Everglades and before we filmed our Van Tour video, we stopped for a weekend in Punta Gorda, Florida. We LOVED visiting this small town and worked with Punta Gorda/Englewood Beach to find the best spots!
From the Eyes of Ollie.
Congaree National Park was my favorite National Park so far! I got to see some wild pigs, and while Dad calls me a little piglet sometimes, I look nothing like them.
Gratitudes.
This week we’d like to say we’re grateful for Ollie and how she has been able to keep up with us on our hikes. If you didn’t know, she’ll be turning 10 in a few months. She was first in line when we hiked out into the Kingsnake trail for over 8 miles!
Peace and love,
Jen + Elliot
P.S.
If you are new to our Sunday Summary, you can take a look at previous issues here.