Travels with Snowbirds 2012 Huntington Beach SC SP

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Saturday March 3, 2012

Late last night I watched 3 families of Asian American’s pull in and set up their tents. Lots of adults, lots of kids. Oh boy, are they going to get wet.

Winston woke me up to go out around 6:30 this morning, and good thing he did. No sooner did I get back to the rig after walking him around 2 loops to make sure he pooped than the skies opened up. It was very strange watching the sky – it was like being in a hurricane. The campground was underneath a band of shower clouds. To the east, over the ocean was sunny. To the west, more inland was sunny. We were under rain. Needless to say I did not walk to ranger station to use internet.

Tim, Gret, Ben & Lilly arrived around 11 to the teeming pouring rain. They came all prepared for a great day outdoors, bikes, stuff to play on the beach, and it was pouring. We went out for a nice lunch, Creek Rats, all kinds of good seafood, and I had a pomegranate margarita, yummy. Then on to a gift shop, and back to the rig at 4 and it was pouring. We took a quick tour of the HBSP Education Center, and it was actually quite nice. Lots of hands on displays, and many aquariums with live fish, turtles, and even a baby alligator. The kids enjoyed these exhibits a lot. This park has an unusual feature for an oceanfront park. When Archer Huntington designed the entrance to Atalaya, he built one straight off the road from the Brookgreen Gardens main road. You can see from Atalaya’s front door to well inside The Gardens across US 17, certainly more than .75 miles. He also built a second entrance, a cement roadway dividing the marsh about .5 miles north. On one side was a small fresh water supplied stream, the other eventually opens out to the ocean. The fresh water stream filled up the marsh on that side of the road, and they put a few alligators in it. There are still alligators there on the one side of the causeway, and salt water things on the other side. This park is one of the premier locations in the state to bird watch, and this causeway site sits at the top of that list as it attracts birds that like fresh water and birds that like salt water. From what I heard, the big attraction in the summer is the painted bunting; I only saw a picture, but it’s a pretty thing, red, green, blue, yellow. When we got back to site 76, the kids took off, as it was still raining, and there is probably nothing worse than 5 people in a rig in the rain, made even worse by a wet smelly dog.

Good to see them, sad to see them go, but all are happy I will be home this week. Gretchen and I looked at the calendar to see if we could plan a short week day stay here once the kids get out of school, but by the looks of her calendar, we don’t have a lot of choices, but we will look again in a week or two and hopefully we can arrange something. Tim left me his Verizon mobile wifi thingy (mifi?); I was thrilled, back on the internet! And it worked like a charm. I honestly don’t care if I go over his data usage, I’ll pay him. I need some time playing Farmville and catching up with my fb friends.

The tenters behind me tried to get a fire going, but that did not work out real well for them. They must be so cold and so wet.

I didn’t need anything for dinner as I was still full from my oyster po-boy and fries, so just had some cottage cheese and fruit and munchies. Then the rain really started.

I found a tick crawling on me! It hadn’t started to dig in, I just felt it walking near my collar bone, picked it off, put it in my ashtray and put my lighter to it. Sadist. It popped. Then I checked the rest of me, clean, and checked Winston, also clean. This reminds me to tell you about my poison ivy. One night early last week I remember scratching what I then thought was a mosquito bite on my left pinky. When I woke up in the morning still scratching, I realized it wasn’t a bite at all but one HUGE poison ivy blister. About .25 inches around and seemed to be .5 inches tall; it was huge, just the one bleb, no more anywhere. So, I washed it and put cortisone cream on it and it gradually went down and now I just have a scab.

I watched an older couple back into the site across from me and hit the campsite number sign (#77). It made such a thunk! He ended up sitting on top of the blasted thing! I had to laugh. He was from NJ and his rig looked very new. I could tell from its configuration that it must be his first venture into RVing, 30 feet long, not towing a car, no slides – that definitely says to me ‘starter RV.” He got out of his rig barefoot, shirt, shorts, and had to jiggle the thing until it came out of the ground, then moved the RV into the site, then replaced the sign. What a riot. I should laugh, as I got out of my rig to check to see where I was relative to my sign, and I was almost on top of it, but at least I knew I had to look before going to far.

Last night was probably the worst night’s sleep I have had on the entire trip. It poured. Fortunately there was no wind, no thunder, and no lightening straight down rain that never let up. On my thin metal roof it sounded like hail. All night long.

Sunday March 4, 2012

I was up at 6. It was raining so hard, still straight down, but just so hard. The tenters were all packing up. I dressed as warmly and as dryly as I could to take Winston for his morning constitution. He was not any happier than I was, but we managed to walk around 2 loops, both of us drenched when we returned. I hate the smell of wet dog. Yuck, not his fault he’s so dirty. Bath and a haircut for him this week, must remember to call on Monday to get an appointment.

The rain stopped very quickly and the sun came out. It just went away. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees, too. I bundled up, jeans, sweat shirt, warm socks, winter fuzzy hat with ear flaps, hoodie, gloves, and went for a walk on the beach. When the sun was out it was gorgeous, but it went behind clouds every now and then, and it was cold. I found another shark’s tooth! Not as glamorous as the first one I found, but nice just the same. I did some reading on shark tooth fossils and learned quite a bit. I learned enough to know that the first one I found is really a prize specimen. The second, not so much. One shark can lose 1800 teeth in one year, so no wonder there are so many in the ocean!!! The black ones, older ones, are easier to find than the newer white ones, as those easily get overlooked because they blend in with the shells. There are no good shells here either. I want to display some in my sun room – Denise, got any you could spare?????? This trip has been a dud for me as far as shell collecting. I will have to go to Old Time Pottery and buy a bag!!! And, Nanny D, just heard about your events of the week, and glad to hear you are recovering nicely. Want to catch up with you next week when I get home. Girls’ night out??

By 11 the sun was out brilliantly, warming up the rig nicely. The rig was so damp inside, the temperature had dropped some, and the inside of the windows were heavy with condensation. I cranked up my furnace; that made it worse. I opened all the windows and took another walk, and after about half an hour it dried out. Then I washed the inside and outside of all the windows, wiped down the dashboard, swept, lots of housekeeping stuff.

As I sit here and write this I have watched a Honda CRC with 4 college age girls put up a tent on a campsite, unload their car into it and drive away. They just came back and are now walking everything from the tent to the campsite across the street. They are carrying the tent (picture). Their new chosen site is much more protected from the wind; it is really starting to pick up now and the temperature is supposed to go down a little more tonight. That’s probably a good thing, as I have many more clean clothes for cool weather left to wear than I do for warm weather.

My late afternoon walk on the beach was bone chilling cold. The wind was shipping out of the south, the sand was blowing and stinging. Winston HATED it. No shells, no shark’s teeth, nothing but a runny nose and a sandy dog.

Nancy is very anxious for me to check out her bikes in the morning; she really wants to barter the bike for my 12V TV, so I am hoping that at least one of the 2 bikes has some type of gears and hand brakes. We will leave here around 11 and go to her ‘house’ to check it out. Then I have decided to go to Myrtle Beach Travel Park, about 25 miles north of here, again on the ocean. The weather will stay sunny, get progressively warmer as the week progresses. I will stay 2 nights, maybe 3, depending on I don’t know what, but I will be back to Wilmington no later than Thursday.

Kat out

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Photos

Seen on the Beach
Yucky Portugese Man O' War. This was about 9" top to bottom, almost a foot across

Seen on the Beach
This one was smaller, but not much

Archer Huntington's RV
Picture hung in the garage. Maybe the first ever conversion bus

Taken in Atalaya Visitor Center
Organizations that benefited from Archer & Anna Huntington's wealth

Butt bucket
that's how much it rained last night