And to cap it all--Myrtle Beach

While the other two legs of the vacation were plenty of fun, it was all leading up to this, the third leg of the journey--a week in Myrtle Beach.

We drove from Charleston about two hours up the South Carolina coast. I think we were pretty close to the ocean much of the way, but the highway was lined with forest. We couldn't see very far, but it was still pretty. One thing I like about the east is how lush and green it is.

Our GPS had a little trouble getting us the to right spot at first, because it turns out the town just to the south also has some Myrtle Beach addresses. So we kept driving up and down a little residential street with the right name and the right numbers, but not finding the right place AT ALL. We called the Westgate Resort timeshare , where the clerk said, "It's impossible to miss us--we're right across from Family Fun." Nope, no Family Fun anywhere to be seen. Finally, we went back out to the highway to try again. And called the Westgate again. That's when they figured out what the trouble was, and where we really were, and gave us very clear directions. Shwew! And yes, once you get in the right vicinity, it was impossible to miss, with the small Family Fun amusement park across the street.

 

We drove down to a state park section of beach and walked out on the pier. What a beautiful day!

 

The big buildings in the background are the Myrtle Beach hotels.

 

 

The hotel was nice and RIGHT on the beach. I enjoyed going out on the balcony and watching (mostly listening to) the roller coaster and other rides from across the street while also waching the water with the banana boats (banana-shaped air rafts being pulled by speed boats) and parasailing on the other side. Myrtle Beach sits on what is called the Grand Strand, an uninterrupted stretch of beach about 60 miles long! The little section of sand by the hotel is their own private beach. To someone with California sensibilities, the idea of a private beach seems strange, kind of like a private bit of sky. We didn't see any barriers to keep out non-hotel guests, though, there's just no direct access from the street. So it was a less crowded than the public areas on either side.

One thing we liked about the hotel, along with the location, was the kitchenette. Eating at restaurants is great, but it adds up and even loses its appeal after a while. So we found a regular grocery store and enjoyed cooking and eating home food.

 

For a change of scenery, we also hiked around in the forest at the state park.

 

Golf may be the main attraction at Myrtle Beach. There are many courses around, and many types of courses, from traditional 18-hole to par-3 to over-the top mini-golf each trying to outdo each other for lights and oversized structures (dinosaurs, pirate ships, what-have-you). We're not golfers, but we kept meaning to try out some kind of golf. We just never got around to it, because there were plenty of other things to do.

 

We saw a couple of shows at night, including the 3D version of Titanic, a musical revue, and (probably my favorite) Le Grand Cirque, a circus in the style of Cirque du Soleil. When it was about time for the circus show to start, the house lights hadn't yet come down and people were still finding their seats. We noticed one of the performers, a clown, showing people to their seats. Except he led them to seats where people were already sitting, or led them up to the stage where he left them sitting on the floor. Or he just tore up their tickets and tossed them in the air. As he went on to the next group of hapless theater-goers, real ushers would discreetly show the last confused group to their actual seats. It took us a minute to realize this was in the fact the start of the show. I could tell you that they had fun performing dogs, and all kinds of acrobats, some strong men and daredevil motorcycles that zoomed around inside a round cage, but that doesn't quite get it across. We really enjoyed it.

 

 

Outside the theater after the musical revue.

 

The name of the theater here looks like half the lights are burnt out, but we just caught it in the middle of lighting up, which it did every couple of minutes.

Another theater across the parking lot--I think they did a sort of pirate dinner-entertainment.

 

 

The hotel had chairs and umbrellas to check out, which always improves a beach experience--except when the wind catches hold of the umbrella. Only happened once, maybe because we put it down.

 

 

Ooh that water's cold! I know the east has the Gulf Stream, which generally keeps the water warm, but this was early April after all.

Posing after the circus show--I'm holding the photo of ourselves that we broke down and bought and had the cast memebers sign. We were surprised at how young most of them were. 

 



On our last day, the time share people tried to talk us into converting our one-week stay to a full membership. We might have been tempted, with the huge discount they offered compared to the first time we sat through the sales pitch, but we had a hard enough time using this one--almost didn't make the deadline. The problem for us is the cost of traveling to the destinations, plus there are usually events with family or friends that take our travel time and budget. We can see, though, that for a bigger family who wants to take the whole crew on vacation it could be a good option--more space than a hotel, kitchen, lots of activities available, etc.

 

Anyway, after enjoying our seven-night stay and fending off time-share offers, we headed back to Charleston to catch the flight home. And drove through a forest fire to get there. Remember I said the highway was lined with forest? Well, in one section it was ablaze. Fortunately it was back from the road enough that they didn't have to close the highway, but it was sure smokey.

 

This was our first experience with South Carolina, and we really enjoyed it. For anyone looking for a new vacation destination, we'd recommend either Charleston or Myrtle Beach. In fact maybe we'll swing back by there sometime, after exploring a few other places, like London and Africa. And we'll bring our new camera so (hopefully) more of our pictures will turn out.