Fooling Around Myrtle Beach

The weather was colder today, but sunny, so we walked a mile or so to lunch and then did some bicycling, resting our legs a little from our longer run on Sunday.

First thing, however, we took our daily coffee walk around the campground.  This KOA has a mobile home park section with more permanent residences, including this attractive one with a directional sign showing the way to all sorts of places:

Back from our walk, we decided to take a beach walk and find lunch at some beachside restaurant.  Our first encounter was with two bear cubs (sculpted, of course) climbing all over a stump near our rig:

Down on the beach, we spotted the boardwalk and Sky Wheel as we passed under the 2nd Avenue Pier:

Getting closer, we could spot the skyline and Sky Wheel along the beach.  The cold weather kept most beachgoers inside, but there were a few hearty souls out with us on the beach:

The wind was fresh, and it whipped the flags along the boardwalk:

Myrtle Beach's boardwalk is well designed and attractive.  For about half its length, it's really a concrete walk, much like Ventura, California's beachside walk:

We stopped for lunch at a gyro and pizza shop, but had Greek salads.  The salads were well made and yummy.  Due to the cold weather, we decided to top lunch off with decaf soy lattes at the coffee shop nearby.  This was a good choice.  The coffee was well roasted and tasted like it was loaded with chocolate, even though we had plain lattes.  The soy milk was nutty and full-flavored, but not sweetened.

After getting back to the RV, we decided to peddle back to the beach and order an air-brushed t-shirt for little William, to give him as a gift when we see him in late April.  We did that, then returned to the rig and decided to hold a Scrabble tournament.  Kathy whipped David's little butt, but David didn't mind that much.  Here's a photo of victor, enjoying her victory refreshment before dinner:

After dinner, we rode back to the beach to pick up William's t-shirt.  It's spectacular!  Here's Baxter modeling the t-shirt:

In case any of you are not fully tuned into the current cultural scene, the Minions sing the "Banana Song" in Despicable Me 2.  It's a take-off on the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann," and is worth hearing in its own right.  This is the movie trailer with the Minions Banana Song from Despicable Me 2.

Have a great day and we wish you warmer weather for 2014!

Discovering Myrtle Beach State Park

Hi Blog! Today we took a four mile bike ride from our campground, in downtown Myrtle Beach, south to Myrtle Beach State Park. The park was constructed back in 1935 by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Several of the original buildings are still being used today. The park has one mile of "relatively" undeveloped beach along the Atlantic Ocean. While there are old CCC buildings, camping office, gift shop, picnic pavilions and a fishing pier, there are none of the high rise condos and hotels that now line the beach in the rest of Myrtle Beach.  In the park, the tallest things are the trees.

First order of business - lunch time!

Here is the view from our picnic table.

We learned something new today. We always thought the trees near the beach were bent by the wind. The wind does play a part, but only so far as picking up salt from the ocean and depositing it on the leaves of the branches closest to the sea.  The salt inhibits growth.  The tree grows on the side away from the salt air, but does not grow on the side facing the sea, giving it that windblown look.

As this is Car Show Weekend and Spring Break, the campground was pretty full.  Many of the campers came down to the beach.

To the south, we see the Myrtle Beach Fishing Pier. For a small fee, you can get a day use permit and fish and crab from the pier.

To the north, we can see downtown and all those high rises.  Let's walk south.

We talked to a couple of fisherman. They didn't have much luck today, but that didn't stop them from having a fun day in the sun.

Here's the view from the pier.

Here Kathy contemplates how lucky we are that the State of South Carolina thought to preserve this area and keep it from getting developed into condos.

As we walked under the pier, the incoming tide gives an interesting effect.

Just past the pier, a small stream meanders through the park on its way to the ocean.  Luckily, the flow was small enough to allow us to leap over the stream bank without getting our sneakers wet.

Between the ocean and forest is a series of sand dunes. There are several boardwalks which take visitors over and around the dunes in order to protect this fragile environment.

After exploring the beach, we rode our bikes over to the campground. We would love to be able to stay in more state parks, but we find our truck and fifth wheel just don't fit many of the campground sites or roads. This park advertises full-hook up, 50 amp sites, but when we actually went into the campground office and asked how many, they had only three. "C'est la vie!"

More Hot Cars in Myrtle Beach!

Today was the first full day of the car and truck show in Myrtle Beach.  The parade of street rods only whetted our appetite last night.  So, today, when we found out that the car show doesn't cost anything to attend, we bicycled over.  We thought we would be there an hour or so, but we probably ended up spending three hours.

Here are just a few of the more remarkable cars, out of the 2,300 or so that were on display there:

Eddie and George Wake Up . . . WAY up!

Eddie:  Why is it so dark, George!

George:  We're not awake yet.

Eddie:  If I am not awake, am I dreaming this?

George:  No Eddie, it's not a dream.

Eddie:  We're moving, George.

George:  I know. We're inside a couple backpacks.  Dave and Kathy are taking us somewhere.

Eddie:  Cool! This isn't like our usual road trip.

George:  No.  It's a bike trip.

Eddie:  Do you know where we are going?

George:  I heard them talking about the SkyWheel.

Eddie:  SkyWheel?  What's a SkyWheel?

George:  Well, think really big Ferris Wheel.  It is over 187-feet tall and is the tallest wheel in the United States east of the Mississippi River.

Eddie:  Far Out!

George:  No, far up!

Eddie:  This is so cool.

George:  Look you can see the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk way down there.

Eddie:  Wow! You can see forever.

George:  Almost.

Eddie:  The beach is amazing.

George:  Thank you, Dave and Kathy. We had so much fun waking up this far up!

Vroom Vroom!

We arrived in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina today, just in time to learn that the town is hosting the 26th Annual "Run to the Sun" Car and Truck Show, sponsored by the Pee Dee Street Rodders.  Over 2600 hot rod cars and trucks have come to town and will be shown off by their owners all weekend.

We also learned that all the hot rods were planning to cruise Ocean Drive beginning at 5pm today.  Hey, just our luck!  We are staying only a few blocks from Ocean Drive!  We hastily ate dinner, packed our camp chairs and things, and pedaled over to Ocean Drive to catch seats for the big rolling car show!

Some of the hot rodders are in our campground.  We expect to hear the rugged sound of revving engines late into the night, as the revelers come back to the campground from their car show antics.  Those who are here but not involved in the car show are here for Spring Break.  Thank goodness the college students aren't here in the campground, but there are plenty of people who have kids off of school who decided to bring them down here for the week.

As a consequence, we expect a lot of "Camp TV" this weekend:  entertaining antics from the car show peeps and the Spring Break vacationers.  Tune into future blog entries to find out if we survive.

Until then, here are a few photos of some of the more "unique" hot rods we saw at the parade this evening: