Myrtle Beach, S. C.

9-27 thru 10-11

Somebody is falling behind in doing this blog. The good news is that good touring is happening.

After leaving Fredericksburg, VA we drove south of Richmond to stay at a very nice Pocahontas S P.

The next day we drove out to Appomattox Court House where Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant.

The National Park Service has done a wonderful job of restoring the buildings and grounds where this occurred. The rangers and volunteers are very knowledgeable who give talks throughout the day about what occurred here. There is an excellent movie that explains the time frame of the surrender.

We also drove to the town of Petersburg, which is only 25 miles south of Richmond. It's a very historic town with an informative visitor's center. We toured a restored mansion and learned about the 10 month siege of the town during the Civil War.

We particularly enjoyed taking back roads through the Virginia countryside. It's a beautiful state with rolling hills, large forested areas and plenty of local fruit and vegetable stands.

We next drove south through North and South Carolina. We started to see the vegetation changing. There are fewer hardwood trees and more pines and scrub oaks. Something new are the cotton and tobacco fields.

We've been lucky on the weather in that it hasn't been too hot nor humid, but that is starting to change.

Our destination was Myrtle Beach, S C. We booked sites at the Myrtle Beach S P, which is located adjacent to a beautiful white sandy beach. It's a great park with sites in the trees and room between the sites. It was a bit noisy, however, as it was bike week (motorcyles) with hundreds of the bikes. The only other problem was that we were warned that copperhead snakes were indigenous to the area . Welcome to the South. The ranger emphasized that we probably wouldn't see any because they are more afraid of us than we are of them. Yeh, right.

Our campsite was within walking distance to the beach so I spend a lot of time sitting on the beach watching the osprey drive for fish.

We located several fresh fish markets and we were in seventh heaven with the local fresh shrimp, fish and particularly the blue shell crab.

We moved 15 miles south to the beautiful Huntington Beach S P. Yes, South Carolina, not Southern California. It was the former estate of the Huntington family. We think it's the most beautiful park that we have stayed in. The problem is that the “snowbirds” from up North and Canada also think so. So we could only get in for 4 days. The CG has grassy sites, many under majestic trees, within walking distance to the beach, a marsh with alligators and many tropical birds, plus one of the best nature centers that I've ever seen.

Since we had to leave the S P, we went to a private park just a few miles away on the Intracoastal Waterway. It was nice to have a spot right on the waterway and watch the boats going up and down. The waterway was only about 100 yards wide in front of the CG, so it made for easy viewing. It goes all the way from Maine to Texas. I'm adding a trip down the waterway to my bucket list.

We particularly enjoyed the town of Murrells Inlet, just a few miles south of Myrtle Beach. It's a quaint town with lots of wonderful restaurants and a boardwalk overlooking a large marsh. No minimalls, tacky tourist shops, nor fast food here.