Greetings from Myrtle Beach. I found a hotel on the beach with a balcony. Right in the middle of Myrtle Beach. A nice place with fridge and microwave too. Right in the middle of it all. We've decided to stay 3 nights. Of course our swim suits, our beach towels, our beach umbrellas and our sand chairs are all back in Memphis. We only took 2 days to plan this trip and obviously we didn't put much thought into packing! But we'll make do. Actually it's a bit chilly here - nice breeze from the ocean. We bought tshirts today, I might go back and get a sweatshirt instead!

We left Charleston this morning and went to Sullivan's Island where Ft. Moltiere is - it figured in the Revolutionary war where the British were unable to take the fort, and the Civil War where Confederates fired on Ft. Sumpter where the Union soldiers were. Sullivan's Island is also the place where thousands of Africans were brought between 1700 and 1775. It is a barrier island that is mostly residential with just a small shopping area. 
 

 
From there we headed north to Isle of Palms, another barrier island with a bit more commercial but still a lot of residential - beautiful mostly new but some old houses too - the new ones are so well done sometimes it's hard to tell which is which.
 
   
 
 









 
Then on up the coast we stopped at Georgetown which has an old riverfront downtown, a big International Paper plant and a lot of beautiful old homes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 








 



















 










 





















Finally we arrived in Myrtle Beach. We walked in the sand awhile and enjoyed the afternoon on our balcony.
 
 
 


 
Something I forgot to tell about Charleston. Before the war their economy was based on cotton, rice and indigo. They said the cotton was incredibly long fiber - the closest we have today is Egyptian cotton. After the Civil War the plantations were ruined and they were never able to grow that kind of cotton again. 

Driving along the highway today south of here we noticed there were several big shopping centers along the way, but they were behind a bunch of trees, so all you saw were trees. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they had built all the ugly stuff on Germantown Parkway behind a shield of
trees?

I haven't been keeping up with the promise of at least one kitchty place every day but I think here we'll find more than enough to make up. Here are a few: a shark statue in the middle of nowhere, some goats in front of a shop in Georgetown (they look like goats we saw at the Fish Art place on Tybee Island), some scary looking fish painted on a restaurant window, and the restaurant where we ate all-you-can-eat-seafood tonight certainly qualifies as tacky. The food was good though.