Deciding to take a real vacation after the Con was the best idea ever! The Con is a ‘vacation’ of sorts, but it’s a stressful, balls-to-the-wall kind of vacation. Going to the beach after the stress of the Con, especially this year’s con, was awesome.
I’d not been to Myrtle Beach since 1984, but when I read about the Pavilion being torn down for condos, I really wanted to go see it one last time. Nick had never been to Myrtle Beach at all, so off we go. If you want a CHEAP beach trip, go to Myrtle Beach! A beachfront room was $60! Now, granted, I will only stay in oddball old 1960s era Motels, so I can’t tell you what the Best Western charges! We stayed in the Diplomat Motel on Wed and then the Emerald Shore Motel for Th and Fri.
We got in late Wed night so Thu daytime we spent shopping and walking around. We found a cool store with hooker clothes and sharp/pointy things! I got a blow gun! Watch out squirrels! We checked into our second motel, the Emerald Shore and proceeded to start drinking.
We drank too much on Thu night. Our dining experience had a lot to do with that… Well, that and the champagne! There’s no decent food in Myrtle Beach, sadly. It’s all deep fried “calabash” style, which means deep fried and served on paper plates. YUCK. We were told to try out Creek Ratz over in Murrells Inlet and drove all the way over there only to find that we’d been calabashed! The food was fried and on paper plates, but we stayed due to the surreal atmosphere of this place, such as:
1. A duo came in and started playing Jimmy Buffett covers as an old taped SuperBowl game was showing the hoochy-mama halftime show on the TV above them.
2. A large party of old people were ACTING OUT the songs that the duo sang. Scaaaary!
3. Did I mention that the food sucked? I ordered grilled tuna that was overcooked to grey! Nick’s crabcakes were ok, but how hard are freaking crabcakes?? OH and eating off paper plates and plastic baskets is such a TREAT.
Just damn. We tipped the poor waitresses $25 out of pity. We went back to the motel and proceeded to drink. And drink. It was raining, so we stumbled to the beach only to find that wind driven rain is not fun, so we came back to the balcony and drank some more! Tee! We overserved ourselves!!
When we drug our hungover asses out of bed Fri, we got some magazines and laid on the beach (under an umbrella, natch) for hours Fri afternoon. It was great. By late Fri afternoon, we were starving, but not in the mood for more crap food. I’d seen a coupon for Islamorada Fish Market, which I recalled from going to the Keys with Andy, so I decided we’d go there. It was a bit of a drive, but I was determined to find a decent seafood meal! This restaurant had little in common with the Keys version. It is a VERY nice restaurant. We were so famished we ate 2 apps, 2 entrees, dessert AND coffee! The food was awesome! The yellowfin was cooked to a perfect med-rare, as was the steak. It was worth the drive and every penny! Our tab for food and drinks was $80 ($100 with tip). Not bad for such high quality food. I highly recommend it if you go to Myrtle Beach.
We drug our stuffed carcasses out of Islamorada and headed back to the beach. On the way, Nick spied a bunch of old cars in a strip mall parking lot, so we whipped in there to see what’s up. It was the Myrtle Beach Car Club! We dawdled with the old cars and old people for a bit (I got to drool over a 1965 Mustang 2+2 Fastback! YUM!) then headed to the Pavilion.
The Pavilion was great fun even though I couldn’t ride any grown up rides due to Nick’s aversion to being flung (Weasels don’t like being flung!!). I got him on the Tilt a Whirl and he almost hurled, so we changed the name to Tilt a HURL and avoided all grown up rides after that. ::sigh:: He is SO funny on grown up rides! He screams like a girl and gets nauseous! It’s only funny if I have other people with us who CAN ride the grown up rides with me, otherwise I end up stuck on the pussy rides all night. Wah! Well, anyway, we rode the Haunted Hotel, which was an AWESOME version of that ride. Six Flags could certainly use a decent haunted house ride, maybe they could buy that one?? We also rode a Treasure Hunt ride where you ride in a small cart and you shoot laser guns at targets. It’s slow but fun to whip Nick’s ass twice! :-) There is also a gorgeous carousel that had been refurbed last year AND a German Band Organ from 1900! Fortunately, they are keeping the carousel and the band organ at the beach – they are being relocated to the Broadway on the Beach area (where ever that is).
Saturday morning we got up early and headed to the Pavilion Yard Sale! It’s the largest yard sale in SC, held once a year at the Pavilion parking garage. Four layers of CRAP! W00t! We got some groovy retro 60s plates, an ugly 70s ashtray and a set of Russian nesting dolls! Fun!
We thought that our friend Danika was having a going away party Sat night, so we grudgingly left the Beach around noon to get back. The drive back was not as loooong as the drive down, of course, but we discovered no party once we got here. Bummer! However, we were entertained by meeting Lou, Red Heather’s mom. What a treat she is! Shoutout to Lou!
So, that’s the vacation wrap up. We WILL do this again next year!