A little of this, a little of that

Huntington Beach State Park

Site #37

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

It was a brisk 45 degrees this morning when I got up so I elected to wait until 9:00 and 52 degrees to go running.  I started out running down the campground loop where our friends Gin and Syl will be since I hadn’t seen it before.  Nice heavily wooded deep sites.  I like them but I didn’t come back later to get a picture so you’ll have to take my word for it.  Huntington Beach State Park has a variety of site types: open more sunny sites near the beach paths and more secluded wooded sites as well as about 6 walk in tent sites that are also very wooded and secluded.  Something for everyone.

I then ran over toward the Nature Center and started down the Sandpiper Trail but somehow missed a marker, lost the trail and ended up back at the campground.   So I just ran back into the campground and down the path to the beach.  With the tide out,  the beach was wide and flat so I ran up to the jetty where the park land ends and civilization begins again and turned around ran back.  That totaled about 4.75 miles in all and that was enough.

While I was out David spent his time looking into some of Winona’s current problems like a leaking hot water heater, leaking rear hydraulics, replacing the slide toppers and awning.  Lots of on line information checking and phone calls.  He’s formulating a plan for taking care of this while we are in Charlottesville although the closest RV service center is 90 minutes away.      

After lunch, we went out on the beach for an hour or so before it got too cold and dark.  I know you’ll enjoy David’s solution to his far sightedness problem in bright sunshine.  He can see fine for distances through his sunglasses but needs his prescription glasses to read and hasn’t yet been willing to go for prescription sunglass bifocals.

We had grilled Salmon filets and a delicious salad for dinner and after I did the dishes we watched the documentary on Andy Goldsworthy entitled Rivers and Tides.  If you aren’t familiar with it or his work you are missing an amazing artist/naturalist. 
 http://www.morning-earth.org/artistnaturalists/an_goldsworthy.html

After that we were nodding off so it was time to hit the sack.  Should enable us to get up earlier and out when the birds are on the marsh boardwalk I hope.   Check back and see.

Huntington Beach State Park

Siter #37

Murrells Inlet, S.C.

It had rained last night and more was predicted for today.  I didn’t make it out for sunrise this morning but here’s a shot of our site #37.  The site was the most unlevel gravel site we've been in and required a hefty stool to make our first step. 

 And here's the traditional shot out our front window.  A bit too close to the road and other sites to be one of my favorite sites.

I did get out to see the ocean which we can hear clearly especially when, like today, the wind is up and the waves are crashing.  I like the ocean on its wild days and often went down during storms to stand and watch when I lived on the North End of Virginia Beach.  There are two paths to the ocean from the campground area and of course one of them is only one site away from us.   J   Here is the path as it leaves the campground. 

This fellow stopped on the path just in front of me to see if I was a problem I guess.  He sat here for quite a while considering and then sauntered (can a rabbit saunter?) off into the brush.

The path then goes over a boardwalk, back into the maritime forest, over another boardwalk and then onto the sand. 

Really great approach to the ocean.  Gets the anticipation up for those of us oceanoholics.  J

Gray cloudy day as you can see.  Windy and the surf was up.

 After breakfast, I took a walk over to the bathhouse to see about the washer/dryer situation.  And found that this is the first place we’ve stayed that doesn’t have washers or dryers.  Well now, that puts a crimp in the plans to hike today.  So we called the park office and asked about whether there were any laundry facilities somewhere else in the park.  Nope.  Was there a Laundromat nearby.  Well there was one 5 miles south.   Hmmmm  Myrtle Beach is north and not 5 miles away so there has to be a closer one than that.  Google Laundromats in Murrells Inlet.  Find one on the famous Route 17.  Ask our Garmin Nuvi to take us there.  Now this Garmin is just a joke.  David calls her Garmeana and she really seriously can’t tell you there is a Dollar Tree closer than 8 miles away when you are sitting in front of one.   And that’s just what happened today.  We gave her the laundromat address and she took us right to a place with no laundromat.  BUT we were near the Kroger from last night so we pulled in and David asked a woman in the parking lot about a local laundromat and she told us where it was.  Only a block or two away.  $1.75 to wash and $.25 for 7 minutes of drying.  Not bad at all so we got things started and then the owner decided to vacuum all the light fixtures on the ceiling.  I don’t much enjoy laundry anyway especially since I hadn’t brought a book to read and didn’t really have anything to do to while away the hour or so.  But now I had to go walk around the neighborhood to get away from the noise. 

I should have brought my camera so you could have enjoyed the Monkey Bar next door complete with monkey statue on the roof dressed in bikini bathing suit , the dog grooming “Salon” beside it and the little street side snack bar that claimed it had the “Best Philly Cheese Steak in Myrtle Beach” .  Across the parking lot from the snack bar was a miniature golf course which would have been a great way to get away from the vacuum cleaner and to spend the time but of course with it being November and the tourists mostly gone, even though it was in the mid 60’s outside, the course was closed.  

That was the longest 90 minutes I’ve spent in quite a while but finally we were finished and thinking about possibly going up to camping world.  But I was  short on patience (not a commodity I have a lot of under the best of circumstances) by  that time and it was determined that we should go home and have lunch and take a walk on the beach. 

And that’s what we did.  Pizza for a late lunch/early dinner  and a walk until dark up the beach and back by the education center which of course was closed.  But we’ll get over there tomorrow to check it out.  No sunset pictures today.  If there’s a western view, I haven’t found it yet.   Thanks for checking in on us.  We’ll be up to something tomorrow you can bet. 

Moving Day- so sorry to leave

Hunting Island State Park

Site #90

Beaufort, S.C.

Today is moving day.  I was up for sunrise

and as I was coming back I again ran into Dave and Carolyn who are also leaving today.  They had wanted to come over and see Winona so the three of us headed over and they got the “tour” before we packed her up to move.  I gave them the RV-Dreams website as well as our blog address.  They gave me their email.  They seemed very interested in potentially coming to the spring rally so perhaps we'll see them again there.

I went for my last run on the deserted beach at Hunting Island State Park.  I’m going to be very sorry to leave this isolated place.  It was moving toward low tide so I had a wide beach to run on and it was as good as running gets for me.

Then back to shower, breakfast and finish the packing up.  While up on the roof to sweep off the slide toppers David noticed that the awning had dried up to the point that it had cracked and the vinyl finish started separating from the structural fabric.  Can this be “repaired”?  Will the awning have to be replaced?  Maybe we can get some advice from our friends Gin and Syl who also own a Winnebago Brave of this same year.  Or from some of the great folks on the RV-Dreams forum.

By the time we were dumped and out of there it was 11:50, check out is noon.  J   And then it was onto the two lane Route 21 into Beaufort and the two lane Route 17 out of Beaufort.  Other than the by-pass around Charleston it was route 17 all 171 miles to Murrells Inlet and Huntington Beach State park.  We got checked into Site 37 and inquired about extending our stay another two days beyond the 3 we had reserved so that we can overlap with fellow RV Dreamers Gin and Syl who are coming in from Raleigh on Friday for 5 days or so.  Site 37, not my favorite site anyway, was booked for Thursday and Friday nights,  but we could move to Site 31 which I like better anyway. Although normally we don’t like to go to the trouble of changing campsites within a campground, but we signed up so we could see our friends and meet up with another couple of RV Dreamers who live here, Bill and Nancy Mills.  Really looking forward to spending time with all four of these great folks on Friday.

Once we got that settled,  we got set up in the site and I went down to check out the beach.  It’s 3 miles of beauty sandwiched in between urban development on either end.  But when you are here, you hardly know the city of Myrtle Beach is just around the bend.  With this time change (grumble, grumble, grumble) it was dark before I knew it and I came back for dinner, pot roast done in the slow cooker.  mmmm good.

Since it was still early, we went for a grocery run since there is a Kroger near by and we find that they have more organic produce and better prices than other stores.  We aren’t big fans of Walmart or Mallwort as I refer to it, although sometimes that is our only choice.  There was a McDonald’s right next door conveniently so I went in and got Saturday’s blog pictures uploaded without having to use my air card.  Whoopee!  I hadn’t been to a McDonald’s in years before going on the road and having GB troubles.  But they seem often to be one of the only public places with free wi-fi.  Thank you McD.

Got home and managed to figure out how to get all the food into the refrigerator.  That was one of my worries about full timing in Winona, the size of her fridge.  Most full timers I’d seen had double door refrigerators and ours is only an 8 cu ft but it has worked out great for us.  In fact Winona has turned out to be pretty perfect in terms of size.  Most full timers seem to have larger RVs than our 34’ but this is just right for us.

As you can see, nothing exciting today.  Just the regular stuff of life.  But, tomorrow is laundry day so I know you won’t want to miss that.  J