Fun in the Sun
If you ask me, I think autumn is probably the nicest time to go. Many of the tourists are gone, the weather (barring the occasional hurricane) is still beautiful and the majority of the kids are back in school. The hotels have also lowered their rates by a substantial amount and most of the attractions and restaurants are still open. All these items are definitely pluses.
Of course I’m talking about Myrtle Beach in case you might be still wondering.
My wife and I drove down there recently for a few days to soak up the sun, look around at a few attractions that we might have missed in our many previous trips down there and to enjoy a few days away from the same old, same old of home life. Yes, this is another “what we did on summer vacation” type of blog. Follow along if you’re curious.
Since Myrtle Beach is, per Mapquest, all of 700 miles away and 10 ½ driving hours down the road, we left early on our travel Sunday – around 6 am. It’s dark then this time of year, late September, so we carefully made our way down the highway, following the light from our headlights and munching on a few doughnuts to satisfy our vacation sweet tooth. I was smart and had borrowed a talking book from our local library the day before and we listened to it while driving. It’s amazing how the sound of a voice reading a book can make the miles melt away on those long road trips. All the familiar waypoints were achieved and then were soon lost in our rear view mirror. Marietta, Charleston, Bluefield, Wytheville, Pilot Rock, Winston-Salem and finally the long flat run across the Tidewater Plain to the Grand Strand. It was a long day for two old birds like my better half and me, but the payoff was the sight of the wide Atlantic and our roomy ocean-view hotel room.
We stayed at a place we’d vacationed at before, one of the many Best Western hotels, and a place we’d really enjoyed. This particular trip was going to be for five nights. We slept snugly Sunday night in our hotel room after the long day driving, listening to the quiet sounds of the ocean lapping on the sandy beach.
That Monday started out somewhat gray. There was a hurricane, as you may recall, still sitting out at sea, northeast from our vantage point, and it was still affecting our weather a bit. Luckily it was moving away from us and the proverbial Carolina blue sky would be returning later on in the afternoon. We ate breakfast at the hotel and it was quite decent for hotel breakfasts with scrambled eggs, a variety of meats, breads, waffles, cereals, juices, coffee, etc. We hit the place most mornings we were there and it was quite handy. In the early afternoon that day we headed down to Myrtle Beach proper (we were staying in North Myrtle Beach), parked the car and wandered around a bit. We noticed some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) damage around town from the near miss Myrtle Beach had suffered from the latest hurricane – some business sign and tree damage here and there along with some minor damage to some buildings. We rode the new Ferris Wheel they’ve erected there which is called the Skywheel and which extends almost 200 feet up into the now plentiful sunshine. The view from the top was quite extensive and we enjoyed taking many pictures from up there. Then it was lunchtime on the boardwalk at one of the local eateries. We also made time to shop at one of Myrtle Beach’s most venerable souvenir shops, the Gay Dolphin, where we helped support the local economy by getting the usual tee-shirts and a few other “must haves” from this multi-level institution on the main drag. We returned to the hotel then and I did some metal detecting on the beach. I’d looked forward to doing that for months, but was disappointed on how little I found out there. The beach seemed mostly devoid of any metallic “treasures” this trip. Not really sure why. I know they groom the beaches at night with machinery, to pick up the trash, so most of the dropped “goodies” might have been already scooped up. Supper was at a newer Mexican place. Very hip and contemporary, but the food was nothing to write home about.
Tuesday I’d booked us on a boat tour on the Waccamaw River. The boat we cruised on was of the pontoon variety, seated about 30 folks, two crewmen and a friendly Rottweiler dog named, appropriately, River! We motored down the Waccamaw and through parts of the Intercoastal Waterway, seeing various examples of the local wildlife and plant life and enjoying a very pleasant boat ride through some very nice scenery. The dog had obviously been on this trip many, many times and Judy enjoyed petting her as she walked up and down the boat checking out the passengers. The river area we cruised in is home to a lot of ospreys and we saw many of their nests. The majority of the birds themselves, however, had already flown south for the winter. We did however, see one osprey flying around and the guide on the boat said it was probably from somewhere “up north” and was itself, heading south. We looked hard for some alligators and did see a smallish one (six feet) from a distance swimming. The day was picture perfect, blue skies and puffy cumulus clouds, as were all the following days we were in South Carolina.
Wednesday was our “trip to Charleston” day. We ate breakfast at the hotel again not long after they opened at 6 a.m., then drove down the hundred-plus miles to Charleston for the first of two tours I had scheduled. It was a horse-drawn carriage ride around downtown. Our carriage carried about 10 of us and was pulled by two spotted horses named Yogi and Boo-boo! They weren’t full draft horses but were bigger than just standard horses. Our guide told us many stories about the city as we clip-clopped around. It was quite interesting seeing the things she was talking about and hearing about the history of the area. We also noticed evidence of some hurricane damage – a lot of construction going on at some of the residences and also some plywood sheets still on the windows that hadn’t been removed yet. After that we drove to the Ft. Sumter pier and caught a ferry out to the island. The fort and the pier are both U.S. National Parks. We ambled around the old fort for a hour or so and checked out the little museum and the gift shop they had there. Lots of history in those crumbly brick walls and old cannons and the great view from the top encompassed most of Charleston Harbor. We were hot and thirsty when we returned to the ferry, so we bought some VERY welcome soft drinks for the run back to the mainland. After returning back to North Myrtle Beach and our hotel, we ate at a local restaurant we remembered from a previous trip and it was just as good as we recalled. (Remember the name “Hoskins” if you’re ever in the area.) Fresh seafood was their specialty and, since it was kind of a local hangout but still serving lots of tourists, not too expensive! Flounder for me and shrimp for Judy. Yumm! Myrtle Beach and South Carolina really showed their stuff today!
We had nothing formal planned for Thursday, so we woke a bit later than normal and had breakfast at a “real” restaurant for a change. After eggs and pancakes and bacon we drove down to Broadway at the Beach – a big shopping/restaurant/entertainment complex some miles south of where we were staying. We walked around there for a while, but it was REALLY hot that early afternoon, so we spent most of the time in the stores where the a/c was very welcome. We ended up just getting some fudge and taffy to take home with us and then adjourned back to the coolness of the hotel. We enjoyed watching some parasailors floating behind their towboat out in the ocean from our balcony. And also some banana boat riders being bounced around on the Atlantic. I hopped down to the hotel’s pool for a while, cooling off mainly, and then lay out in the sun to dry off. And to get a bit sunburned as I discovered when I returned to our room! Myrtle Beach is semi-tropical and the sun is quite strong there. We had Sonic for a late lunch and when we returned to the hotel, we saw someone was setting up a flowered alter on the beach for a wedding! We watched from the balcony as the ceremony progressed and when the minister finally pronounced the happy couple man and wife, everyone applauded and hollered including most of the folks staying at our hotel who’d been watching from their balconies! It was a nice finish to a sweet week on the beach. Supper was at the K&W Cafeteria, a local chain we’d been eating at since the mid-70’s. Then we did some packing for tomorrow’s departure.
Friday was another early day for us. Checking out in the humid semi-darkness of a beachside morning and back on the road again, north this time. We listened to the rest of the talking book driving back and it was very instrumental in making the many miles go by quickly.
Going to Myrtle Beach was a bit of a pilgrimage for us. We’d started going there not long after we got married, in the mid-70’s, and probably had a dozen or more trips under our belts over the years. We drove around one day this time and kept remembering places where we’d stayed, restaurants we’d eaten at, how this and that had changed, how much this sort of sleepy seaside town of 40-some years ago had grown and grown over the intervening years. It was nice to see it again and to enjoy the welcoming of the people and of the place itself.
