North Myrtle Beach 2013

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net forever." -Jacques Cousteau

Back in mid-June, David, Joseph, and I, took our annual trip to North Myrtle Beach.  This is our 4th trip there since we got married, and our first with Joseph.  This year, we headed down on a Wednesday morning and came back Sunday afternoon.  We stayed at Ocean Drive Beach and Golf Resort, which is legendary in North Myrtle due to it's decades-old nightclub, the Spanish Galleon.  Clearly, a child keeps us from being nightclub type people, but we love staying there nonetheless.

On Wednesday, we continued a tradition we've had since David and I got married - to intentionally take a very back road, cooky route to get there.  We've very much gotten into the concept of "slow travel."  If you aren't familiar with that concept, you can easily look it up on Wikipedia.  But to give you a short description, it's pretty much the idea that the "journey is just as important as the destination" and a concept that encourages one to go "off the beaten path" on their way too and from somewhere, both for enjoyment and education.  It's something we very much want to continually promote with our children, particuarly since we are planning to homeschool (thus making EVERYTHING an educational opportunity).  So we have figured out the trick to getting the GPS to take us some crazy ways in order to take in a little local culture and scenery.  Here we are, literally driving down a DIRT ROAD that went between two farms/fields right after we crossed into SC.  This is a "public road" but you wouldn't know by looking at it for sure!  I had a good time pointing out the cows to Joseph...this child loves to learn already!

 Growing up, my family had a tradition of stopping at the Flying J Truck Stop in SC as a bathroom/snack break on the "last leg" of the journey.  David and I like to combine traditions from our childhoods, but we also like to make some nuclear family traditions of our own. So early in our marriage, we made our regular "on the way to the beach" stop Sparky's Fireworks in Marion, SC.  It's super tacky, a major tourist trap, and the bathrooms aren't nearly as clean as the Flying J.  But it's our tradition, and we love it.

I cannot really tell a lie in writing this - Joseph wasn't the most content baby on this trip.  A number of factors I think threw him off, and my sweet little "high needs" man was pretty fussy the entire vacation.  He wouldn't even sleep in the pack and play and had to sleep with us every night.  Not to mention all the crying.  All that being said, it made for a memorable trip and one we will look back and laugh on for years to come.  We did manage to get some good pictures of the happy moments...

We played on the beach every day.  Joseph loved the sand...

He wasn't 100% sure about the ocean itself.  He is so small still, and I think the noise and vastness of it made him nervous.  He'd put his feet in it, but other than that when we'd hold him in the ocean he'd cling to us very tightly.  He comes from two ocean-swimming, wave-riding parents, though, so I think he will grow to adore it when he gets bigger (incidentally, David and I took turns riding waves while the other one held Jojo)...

He enjoyed the outdoor pool and lazy river, as well as sitting beside them and people-watching...

The indoor pool was REALLY his thing. It was a little warmer, and he had an absolute ball (not sure why we got so many pictures of him sitting on the indoor pool steps...maybe because it was easy to get pictures there)...

We went to Barefoot Landing a couple of nights while we were there...always love to go walk on the bridges and browse the stores.  Also, we practice babywearing in the Boba with Joseph so much that he hardly ever rides in a stroller.  But it was a bit too hot down there for much babywearing (except a little at night), so he had so much fun in the umbrella stroller...

One of the nights that we came back from Barefoot, I snapped a picture of my two loves outside of our hotel...
One of the trademarks of our Myrtle Beach trips is that we eat out for dinner every night.  We eat in for breakfast and lunch, but it's just easier to go out at night.  And it is nice not to have to cook after a long, fun day.  So, out of four places that we ate out at, we managed to get pictures at 2 of them...Carolina Roadhouse (a regular for us)...

And Key West Crazy in Little River, SC (just north of N. Myrtle).  This was a place we'd never eaten at before, and I'm SO glad we did.  The food was wonderful, and we sat on the back deck RIGHT on the river.  Here is the view of the boat parked right beside us...

What an eventful trip!  Thanks for reading about our summer vacation!!!  We can't wait to go back next year!