Moving day. We departed Givhans Ferry State Park at around 10:00am for our 120miles trek to Huntington Beach State Park, SC. Huntington Beach is about 11 miles south of Myrtle Beach right on the coast. As is getting more common than we wished for, we were assigned to a back in site in the camp ground. On some accounts Bill is getting better at backing this land based whale but mostly not so much. After some real struggles we were parked and setup.
Our little piece of near ocean front
We are scheduled to be here at Huntington until Friday. Now Myrtle Beach area, as many of you may know, is not a cultural, educational or historical center, it is plain and simple a top rated tourist destination. The year round population is 29,000 but it is estimated 14 million visit each spring/summer/fall. Our goal while here is to enjoy the beach, finish getting ready for Christmas and get out before the 14 million show up.
Hotels and condo's along Ocean Highway
On the first point, 'enjoying the beach', we started that on Monday morning. Since Stephanie's hip was hurting, Bill took the dogs for a walk on the beach. As it turns out, this was one of may trips to the beach for them. On Tuesday Stephanie was feeling better so we all went to the beach for a short walk. While the fog was pretty thick the air temperature was very nice.
Gulls on the beach
On the second point, 'finish getting ready for Christmas', we pulled ourselves away from the beach to go and finish our Christmas shopping. Going back to the previous comment of 'top rated tourist destination', Myrtle Beach has 2 outlet malls, 2 regular malls and local shops line all the major streets. One of the off shoots of this is that during the 'off-season'. like right now, there is no one in the stores. We were able to get in and out with no crowds. A pretty pleasant experience as far as shopping goes. On the other side of that coin is that since there are no real number of tourists here right now, most of the locally owned restaurants are closed until spring. We wanted to go to a seafood buffet, which there are a plethora of here, but every one of them was closed. Our only choices were the mainstays of Red Lobster, Landry's and the sort. What a let down.
Interesting building along our way, Wonder Works, built to look like it flipped upside down
Wednesday we wanted to take the dogs for a longer stay on the beach, so we took our chairs and headed back out. It was really a nice day and we all had a great time just enjoying the waves and watching the dogs.
It looks stormy but it was a beautiful day
I can still hear those waves breaking
Cara Mia after a day of playing at the beach
When we got back to the trailer, Stephanie didn't want the dogs inside until they had a bath. We cranked up the outside shower and went to work. While they didn't really appreciate the bath, we did.
On Thursday, Stephanie started wrapping presents so we could get them mailed out. When she finished we went to the post office and took care of the shipping and then enjoyed the rest of our day. Towards evening we wanted to take one last stroll on the beach. It was high tide and the beach area was fairly small so it was real difficult keeping the dogs out of the water. The temperature had dropped down in the 40's so there were going to be no outside baths.
Path leaving campground going to the beach
Looking back toward the camp ground
Cold breezy day, still beautiful
Gull posing for Stephanie
Tomorrow, Friday, we leave for North Carolina where we will spend Christmas at Bill's Sister and Brother-in-laws house. They have graciously prepared a site with hook ups for us on their property.
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