Up a Lazy River

Treehouse B&B is a Charmer Sunday Telegram, Cambridge, MA

If given the opportunity to stay in a treehouse, I'm going to stay in a treehouse.

This I discovered when researching plans to canoe for a couple of days on one of the rivers in South Carolina's sprawling ACE basin, which encompasses about 350,000 acres in the state's coastal plain and gets it name from the area's three rivers: the Ashepoo, the Combahee, and the Edisto.

My wife, Christine, and I flew down from New England in early March for a wedding and had some extra time. Looking online, all three of the basin's rivers looked beautiful. But our decision turned out to be an easy one when I stumbled across Carolina Heritage Outfitters.

Scott Kennedy, his wife, Anne, and son, Beau, owners of Carolina Heritage, built their first treehouse in 1995 on a hairpin turn in the Edisto River surrounded by a wildlife sanctuary. Consulting an arborist, they chose three stout oaks and a cypress to hold the house and its dining deck. They has been a popular attraction since.

"I think everybody, when they were little kids, either experienced some sort of treehouse or tree fort or wanted to," says Scott Kennedy. "It's adventurous."

I fell in the wanted-to category.

We parked our car at the outpost and were shuttled up river about 12 miles beyond the treehouse. We'd spend a day paddling there and the next day paddle back to our car. We launched at the junction of Highway 21.

The Edisto is one of the longest blackwater rivers in North America, winding 300 miles from its headwaters in Edgefield and Saluda counties to the Atlantic.

But unlike the yellow-bellied slider - the Edisto's ubiquitous turtle, which is, in fact, yellow bellied - the river's famous blackwater is not black at all. It's a reddish brown, the color of strong tea. It's colored by tannin released from decomposing organic matter in the surrounding swampland.

In early March, trees are still denuded from winter, and the moss-draped cypress looming over the dark, slow-moving water creates the sort of Southern gothic portrait that makes outsiders feel there's something eerie going on.

The river carries a canoe at a lazy pace, which was just fine by us. The sun was shining, the bugs and humidity were still a month away, and we hoped to get a glimpse of the river's wildlife, which just might mistake us for two of their own out sunning ourselves on the Edisto.

The river's birds obliged us nicely. Great egrets and their cousin the great blue heron waded in the shallows or burst from their perches in the pines.

Belted kingfishers, the Blue Angels of the Edisto, swooped inches above the water, maneuvering with a quick bob and weave around fallen trees. Wood ducks skimmed their wings along the water as they raced away, quacking like madmen the whole time.

But the river's most prominent species, the yellow-bellied slider, proved a much less cordial host. Fifty feet away we would see five turtles sunning themselves on a half-submerged log. And they'd see us. Like Navy SEALS on night time reconnaissance, the turtles would slide their camouflaged bodies silently into the drink. Every time we would even begin to get close enough for a good look, they would disappear.

But then, coming on a turn in the river, one actually let us get close. We soon realized that he was stuck on the log, unable to gain a footing to slide into the water. We helped him off the log and paddled on to the treehouse.

Few vacation destinations look better in person than in the pictures. This was one of them.

Docking the canoe nearly at its steps, we carried our gear up. My wife walked in first. "Oh, it's cute," she said earnestly.

If this same structure were on the ground, it would be cramped. But 20 feet in the air, it's cozy and special. You are up in a tree - and here's a little couch and a table.

We adjourned to the spacious dining deck and had drinks. After trouncing my wife in a few games of gin, we grilled the chicken we'd brought and had more drinks.

As we finished dinner and cleaned up, the solar lamp on the side of the house came on and lightning bugs started flashing. We went inside and read by gaslight until it was time to climb into the sleeping loft.

An owl hooted in the moonlight, something shuffled in the brush, and I locked the door despite myself. Out in a swampy flood plain, I fell asleep imaging how I would defend my wife against our attackers. I felt sure the cast iron skillet above the gas stove would come in handy.

The next morning was calm, a light fog hanging over the babbling river. The Kennedys leave a cooler with breakfast fixings for their guests: sausage, eggs, bagels, juice. We cranked up the stove and cooked a big meal. We washed it down with piping hot coffee and orange juice. Sitting there on the deck overlooking the river we had that vacation moment you always hope for: pure relaxation.

When we had loaded up and gotten back on the water, the Edisto gently took hold and escorted us down the river.

Sam Smith, a frequent contributor to the Boston Globe's Health/Science Section, lives in Maine.