Myrtle Beach State Park – July 25-July 31, 2016

By 9:45 Monday morning we were on the road again, this time to Myrtle Beach State Park just 37 miles away from Sunset Beach, North Carolina. Located just a few miles south of the main downtown area, Myrtle Beach State Park is beautiful and right on the ocean. Our site is secluded with plenty of room to maneuver. Temps were in the low 90s when we arrived with humidity just as high. Trees, trees, tree--therefore no satellite and no cable. Antenna it is.

Myrtle Beach State Park: the 312-acre park was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corp, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Program, designed to provide employment during the Great Depression and, to help address national needs in conservation and recreation. The Corp was instrumental in the development of many of South Carolina’s state parks, and in fact, quite a few buildings built by the Corp in the 1930s are still in use here. It opened to the public in 1936.

The campground is located within 300 yards of the beach, and has 6 cabins available for rent as well as 204 campsites. 66 of the campsites have full hookups (water, electricity, sewer), and many can accommodate 40’ RVs. For sites without full hookups there is a dump station in the park. All sites are convenient to bath house, restrooms and laundromat facilities, and all sites have complimentary WiFi access. The park also has 1 mile of undeveloped beach (with a life guard!), a fishing pier, 3 playgrounds, and 7 picnic shelters.

Top right is the Ranger station. Bottom left is our site, and the right is a view of one of the road in the campground.

Tuesday morning brought temps at 77° at 7:30 a.m. We stayed close to the campground on Tuesday, so while Dick worked on computer stuff I baked a fresh peach pie. We had to have ice cream to go with it, and we did need a few grocery items, so off to Walmart we went for our only outing of the day.

By Wednesday we decided to investigate the park a bit. It was already 80° at 7 a.m., so we were hoping it would at least feel cooler at the beach. The beach is within walking distance from our site, and a nice walk through the park. Beautiful! The beach is home to hundreds of loggerhead turtles so we were on the lookout for signs they were ashore overnight. We were there during low tide so the beach was wide, hard packed but offered very few shells. And no, we didn’t see any signs of turtles. There were quite a few folks on the beach already at 9:30 (we decided to walk the beach before breakfast). The heat index was 109°; the ambient shade temp was 86°. I spoke with the lifeguard, Martin, for a few minutes. He’s from the Czech Republic, on a work visa here for 2 months before going home and back to university, where he’s majoring in history. 

After breakfast we hit the first of the places we wanted to visit: "Wheels of Yesteryear." But first, a quick stop at Tanger Outlets for a bit of shopping.

Wheels of Yesteryear: Opened in September 2009, this car museum showcases over 50 vintage American muscle cars owned by Paul and Carol Cummings (no relation) of North Carolina. They own over 100 vintage automobiles and trucks that have been restored over the past 45 years to preserve the original spirit of the vehicle, keeping all VIN numbers matching when possible. The museum closes for 2 weeks every year, usually in January, to rotate and change the inventory to better showcase their spectacular collection of American-made cars. By the fall of 2017 an addition will be added to the museum so all cars will be able to be shown at one time.  (There is one car that doesn’t belong to the Cummings: it’s the Joe Dirt movie car, which is on loan.)

Top: 1951 Ford Club Coupe.  Middle: 1955 Chevy Bel Air.  Bottom: 1958 Chevy Impala

Top: 1966 Ford Mustang.  Middle: 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Bottom: Shots of museum.

As we left Wheels of Yesteryear the truck thermometer read 103°! By the time we got closer to the beach, it had dropped to 97°. Still hot, though… Whew! It was a short drive to Fuddrucker's for an early dinner. Yum! Dick had a mushroom and Swiss burger; I had a BBQ burger with bacon and grilled onions. Mm-mmm good!

That was it for the day, except we did have peach pie with ice cream at home, for dessert. YUM!

Thursday we again stayed at the camper. With the heat index reaching 110°. Dick worked on installing Windows 10 on his computer, but first had to back up everything. Took rather longer than he expected.

Brookgreen Gardens was another item on our sightseeing list, so Friday morning we drove south about 18 miles. We arrived just before 10:30, just in time to purchase our tickets, be welcomed and given maps to the gardens, and watch an 18-minute introductory video. This is a place not to be missed!

The Welcome Center at Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens, founded in 1932 by Archer M. Huntington and his wife Anna Hyatt Huntington, is a 9,100-acre property sculpture garden and wildlife preserve. It’s built on 4 former rice plantations, the Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield, and Laurel Hill.  (The name was taken from the former Brookgreen Plantation.) The current gardens and facilities lie completely on the former Brookgreen Plantation grounds (which was owned by Joshua John Ward, the largest American slaveholder in history).

A fountain occupies the site where the original Brookgreen Plantaion home was located.

The sculpture gardens contain over 1,400 works by over 350 artists, who worked from the early 19^th century to the present, and is the most comprehensive collection of American figurative sculpture in the country. I didn’t have an appreciation for sculpture before this visit, but I certainly see its appeal now. It was difficult to select just a few of the sculptures to share with you, but I hope you enjoy our selections. You may need to visit the gardens yourselves!

The top right sculpture is of the Huntingtons, to honor them and the work they did to increase awareness and appreciation for sculptures. As a sculptor, Anne's work is shown in the bottom photos: the left is Don Quixote done in aluminum; the right is Diana of the Chase and done in bronze.

Top left: Pegasus, the largest of all the sculptures in the garden, created from 3 pieces of granite over a period of 8 years. Top right: Baryshniov in Flight, done in bronze. Bottom: Evening, done in bronze.

Top left: Call of the Bison, in bronze. Top right: Circle of Life, in bronze. Bottom: The Saint James Triad in bronze.

Clockwise: Actaeon in gilt bronze; Dionysus in 23K gold; Young Centaur in bronze; Shark Diver in bronze (Note: the sculptor of this piece, Frank Eliscu, also designed the Heisman Trophy).

Clockwise: one of 2 jaguars  in bronze by Anne Huntington, done from memory; Mares of Diomedes in bronze; Narcissus in marble; Time and the Fates of Man in bronze.

Diana in gilt bronze; Man Carving His Own Destiny in limestone.

The gardens have been awarded numerous awards and honors. These are just a few: named one of the Top 10 Public Gardens in the U.S. by Coastal Living magazine; named one of the Top Five Favorite Gardens by readers of Southern Living magazine; and, “One of the seven wonders of the Carolinas” by the Charlotte Observer.

We also ran across many, many “Eastern Lubbers,” which essentially are huge, brightly colored grasshoppers. They are incapable of flying, since their wings are rarely more than half the length of their abdomen. And, they can only jump short distances. They’re quite clumsy and move very slowly. It appears the name “Lubber” is derived from an old English word “lobre” which means lazy or clumsy. Is it any wonder that the term has come to mean a big, clumsy, and stupid person, also known as a lout or lummox. Today the term is used mainly by seafarers, who give the name “landlubbers” to novices of the sea.

Halfway through our visit to the gardens we had lunch at the Pavilion Restaurant, onsite, where we dined on a tri-salad plate (chicken, tuna, and fresh fruit), and their signature sandwich: turkey, bacon, avocado, apple, provolone cheese, lettuce, and a honey-mustard dressing on a lightly toasted and thick-sliced wheat bread. YUM-YUM! That really hit the spot! We needed a bit of respite from the hot sun anyway, as temps were in the mid-90s most of the day. 

After lunch we again boarded the park’s shuttle to the onsite zoo. The zoo holds domestic animals that may have been on the plantations back in the day, as well as native animals and waterfowl including foxes, alligators, otters, bald eagles, horned owls, and deer. However, we were more interested in the special exhibit that was interspersed with the animals, entitled, “Nature Connects: Art with LEGO® Bricks.” This special exhibit is there March 5 through September 5, 2016, and I’m sure glad we didn’t miss it!

Yellow Corn Spider: 16,492 legos; Pansy and Bee: 29,314 legos

Clockwise: Grandfather gardening with child: 46,940 legos; wheelbarrow: 29,900 legos; Monarch Butterfly: 37,908 legos; Peacock: 68,827 legos.

Clockwise: Ant Hill Mosaic (photo op piece): 12,990 legos; Deer Family: 89,442 legos; Dragonfly: 27,788 legos; Galapagos Tortoise with Finch: 23,317 lego.

This exhibit has been breaking attendance records around the world since 2012.

Sean Kenney, the LEGO® artist, is an award-winning and “professional kid” who uses and has used LEGO® pieces to create contemporary sculpture for high-profile clients, major corporations, and venues around the world for over 10 years. Sean’s work has been featured in national and international publications around the world, as well. (He has 2 kids—wouldn’t it be a kick to have him as a father?)

We then caught the shuttle to take a private tour of The Oaks Plantation owned by the Alston family. There are no buildings left at this site, but recent archeological efforts have unearthed the foundations of several buildings.

At the remains of the Brookgreen Plantation with Don the tour guide. Top right is all that's left of the main house, the chimney bricks; bottom right is of the dairy shed, cooled by waters from the nearby river; bottom left: pole markers of the outline of the house.

The Alston cemetery still stands on the grounds. Governor Joseph Alston and his one child are buried there. At the same grave is a memorial to the governor’s wife Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr under Jefferson), who was tragically lost at sea. It’s said that her ghost haunts this area of the Carolinas looking for her father. 

The top 2 photos and bottom left are of the Alson Cemetery grounds. The bottom right shows the areas where slave homes were; there were 18 slave homes found in all.

Notice how the grave markers are monoliths above the ground. Bodies are actually buried in the ground, but these mark the graves. The tops are marble, engraved with their epitaphs. The epitaph on Governor Alston’s grave is an indication of how revered he was.

We were pretty zonked by the time we got home, after spending 6 hours in the hot sun and humidity. We slept well that night!

Saturday was another day of computer catch-up for Dick, while I worked with the photos for this blog. (I think Dick took about 500 photos at the park yesterday!) 

That evening we drove to North Myrtle Beach, to the Alabama Theater, for “One – the Show.” We were entertained for 2 hours, with singing, dancing, acrobatics and comedy. What a wonderful evening! We had great seats, too: Row 4 in the center section. Sweet! No photography or recording of any kind was allowed, sorry. Guitars, saxophones, piano, fiddles and banjos accompanied the singers and dancers to music from the ‘60s to today, and included show tunes, pop, oldies, blues and jazz, as well as country, gospel and patriotic. Wonderful stuff!

And, the comedian, “Ricky Mokel,” (real name Grant Turner) was hilarious! We had tears running down our faces! That night he was a “stage hand” that introduced the evening. Click here for a short video from youtube.com. He’s clean, funny, and so easy to listen to!  We loved him! For more info on him, check his website: www.rickymokel.com

Sunday morning we enjoyed a late leisurely breakfast, followed by 18 holes of miniature golf at Jurassic Golf. Talk about HOT! 93° with a heat index of 110°. Sweat was running and dripping off our faces by the time we were done. Oh, and Dick shot a 46 and I shot a 49. We’re blaming it on the heat, although Dick did get a hole in one

We considered driving to the Sky Wheel for a ride, but the crazy traffic and hot weather we nixed that idea, and went instead to Walmart to pick up a few items and fuel the truck for our departure Monday morning. 

That’s it for this week. Next week we’ll be visiting Charleston, South Carolina. Stay tuned!

Hugs,

RJ and Gail