Off to Myrtle Beach. It was a gorgeous, sunny day and the 85 miles went by quickly.
We made a stop at Camping World. It was filled with people over 55, mostly couples, wandering the aisles picking up “stuff”. Meanwhile, 50’s and 60’s music played in the background.
We opted not to go to one of the 5 or 6 huge “family campgrounds” in Myrtle Beach and headed to Huntington Beach State Park. The park was the only piece of property not completely overrun by ticky-tacky hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. It was beautiful- wooded campsites with trails directly to the ocean – all for only $19/night.
Since it was Friday night, we decided to go out for dinner. We stopped at Pawley’s Island Tavern and Restaurant- expecting a cheap dive. We got the dive part, but the cheap wasn’t part of it. It obviously catered to the northern transplants with $5 wine and $4 beers. But, the fish was fresh and wonderful.
Pawley’s Island claims to be “arrogantly shabby”. It was a mix of old and new style houses. The houses on the island itself weren’t anything to write home about, but they had both an oceanside and an inlet side with slips on the inlet side.
Georgtown was adorable- another Mayberry RFD town. The main street ended at the steel mill and the waterfront had a view of the paper mill. The housing was a mix of 1800’s and 1930’s architecture with only one street (2nd street) with any real charm.
We decided to look at one of the gated communities and get some sense of price and atmosphere. We stopped at “deBordieu”. It was awful- manicured grounds with a serious security system. They wouldn’t even let us drive through the community. Prices ranged from $600K and way up. We decided that even if resale would be good as babyboomers retire, we couldn’t live in a community like this.
We grabbed a pulled pork sandwich at Hog Heaven restaurant before heading north. We drove through Murrell’s Inlet which was basically one long row of seafood restaurants. Garden City was a mobile home park – streets lined with mobile home “communities”.
Myrtle Beach was the worst of Florida beach front. They even had mobile homes on stilts.
Note- The honky-tonk ocean development starts in NJ and goes all the way to Florida. The only exceptions are state parks and gated communities.
We drove through one of the family RV parks and were promptly horrified. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it would be like in the summer with every one of their 1400+ sites filled. In addition to the RV sites, they also had a trailer park where they added permanent additions onto their mobile homes.
We stopped to take a photo of the classic southern restaurant- SBB Burnout Saloon (the “Suck, Bang, Blow” – “Thaaatts Right”….
We made a stop at Camping World. It was filled with people over 55, mostly couples, wandering the aisles picking up “stuff”. Meanwhile, 50’s and 60’s music played in the background.
We opted not to go to one of the 5 or 6 huge “family campgrounds” in Myrtle Beach and headed to Huntington Beach State Park. The park was the only piece of property not completely overrun by ticky-tacky hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. It was beautiful- wooded campsites with trails directly to the ocean – all for only $19/night.
Since it was Friday night, we decided to go out for dinner. We stopped at Pawley’s Island Tavern and Restaurant- expecting a cheap dive. We got the dive part, but the cheap wasn’t part of it. It obviously catered to the northern transplants with $5 wine and $4 beers. But, the fish was fresh and wonderful.
Pawley’s Island claims to be “arrogantly shabby”. It was a mix of old and new style houses. The houses on the island itself weren’t anything to write home about, but they had both an oceanside and an inlet side with slips on the inlet side.
Georgtown was adorable- another Mayberry RFD town. The main street ended at the steel mill and the waterfront had a view of the paper mill. The housing was a mix of 1800’s and 1930’s architecture with only one street (2nd street) with any real charm.
We decided to look at one of the gated communities and get some sense of price and atmosphere. We stopped at “deBordieu”. It was awful- manicured grounds with a serious security system. They wouldn’t even let us drive through the community. Prices ranged from $600K and way up. We decided that even if resale would be good as babyboomers retire, we couldn’t live in a community like this.
We grabbed a pulled pork sandwich at Hog Heaven restaurant before heading north. We drove through Murrell’s Inlet which was basically one long row of seafood restaurants. Garden City was a mobile home park – streets lined with mobile home “communities”.
Myrtle Beach was the worst of Florida beach front. They even had mobile homes on stilts.
Note- The honky-tonk ocean development starts in NJ and goes all the way to Florida. The only exceptions are state parks and gated communities.
We drove through one of the family RV parks and were promptly horrified. It wasn’t hard to imagine what it would be like in the summer with every one of their 1400+ sites filled. In addition to the RV sites, they also had a trailer park where they added permanent additions onto their mobile homes.
We stopped to take a photo of the classic southern restaurant- SBB Burnout Saloon (the “Suck, Bang, Blow” – “Thaaatts Right”….
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