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Published: December 6th 2015
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Hi Everyone
Hope you are all happy and well. Just to update you on the last 4 weeks of our trip. We have been chilling! Life has slowed for a little while and it has been good. The weather has been kind in South Carolina and our base has been Myrtle Beach, an enormous stretch of sand that is impossible to see the end of. Myrtle Beach is an American holiday and golf resort with over 90 courses to choose from and restaurants and bars are plenty. We are staying in a lovely 'condo' on Arrowhead Golf Course. Outside the window is the fourth green with a stream running in front of it which must contain an amazing amount of golf balls as not many players appear to get over it onto the green, fun to watch. More fun to watch are the little turtles that try and get out of the stream and fall, very ungracefully back in. They are very sweet though. Dave has been running along the beach and Ann has been power walking. We have been avoiding 'dunkin donuts' as much as possible and trying our best to keep up the fitness levels. Golf beckons and
we have played a couple of times and enjoyed the manicured american courses, buggy mandatory, get in the hole not! Ann is happy though, so much choice for ladies golf wear its unbelievable!
We had a brilliant day at Myrtle Beach Speedway watching nascar racing, a first for both of us. Got chatting to a couple of the locals who told us what was happening. The noise, smells, hot dogs, incidents and the actual racing was fantastic. Turkey buzzards were flying overhead looking for some dead meat! Would definitely go again, it was a lot of fun. We have visited Charleston which is about a 2 hour drive away. Had a good guided tour around the beautiful antebellum homes, slave markets, churches with individual prayer pews for families and markets which sell amongst other things, sweetgrass baskets, a local industry continued by the ladies of Charleston which originated from the african slaves. Also saw a 'joggling board', google it! Another day we went to a working plantation just outside Charleston that has beautiful gardens, live oaks draped in spanish moss, something flowering all through the year, lots of magnolias and azaleas. Swamp areas harboured alligators, blue herons and turtles.
And annoyingly mosquitos!
Most of our time here has been about taking it easy though. We have wandered down the coast to Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island, both of which have the most amazing beach houses and some have jettys on the other side of the house that lead into freshwater creeks and are ideal for fishing and watching the wildlife. We saw a couple of horseshoe crabs washed up on the beach, quite strange to look at. We have been here for Thanksgiving which as you will know is a big holiday here. We spent the day on the beach and we were wished 'Happy Thanksgiving' by practically everyone we saw. There was a really nice atmosphere and it helped as the weather was so good. We have walked for literally miles along the beaches enjoying the beautiful fine sand and gentle waves.
So far a few things have caught our attention. Although illegal, mobiles are used all the time for talking and texting whilst driving. Apparently the law is not enforced. This explains the many cars we have seen drift off the road and into ditches! Trucks are also not limited to a certain speed as
they are in the UK. Here they can go as fast as they like (within the speed limit but sometimes over) and because they are not allowed in the outside lanes on interstates they will come right up behind you, real close, and get you to move into a different lane so they can carry on, very intimidating but we are used to it now. Fuel is amazingly cheap. The cheapest we have paid so far is $1.66 per gallon or £1.10. Makes travelling so much more economical and could explain why everyone drives everywhere. Did you know there are drive thru dunkin donuts, drive thru ATM's, drive thru Pharmacies, drive thru Starbucks and all the fast food establishments and unbelievably today we saw a drive thru Nativity! Yellow school buses are tricky! The first one we saw was on the opposite side of the road and Dave made the mistake of carrying on driving. Big no no! He had fists shaking at him from the bus driver! When a school bus stops, red lights flash, and traffic stops on both sides of the road so the children can just run across the road in any direction without worrying about
looking first. It seems to work but not sure at what age they have to start taking responsibility for crossing the roads safely! Have you ever heard of a 'cup of joe'? That is a cup of coffee and the name relates to an officer in the Navy whose first name was Joseph who banned alcohol in the prohibition years and the sailors had to make do with coffee, hence the name. Another thing we have seen on our travels are stars on some houses and wondered what that meant, good old google came to the rescue yet again, its a good luck symbol for the house. All down the east side of the states, right round to New Orleans are intracoastal waterways. Some of these are man made, some natural and used by barges, pleasure craft and fishing vessels to avoid going out into the ocean. Somebody had a good vision to make sure these waterways were in place and are to this day, very well used.
So apart from sometimes being thought of as australian or canadian we are mostly deemed quite interesting by the americans we have come across. Which is better than being ignored we
think!
One more observation that unfortunately we didn't get a photograph of but it was a great sight. On one of our drives we saw a lady who kind of epitomised how strong some american ladies have been bred. She was riding a three wheeled Harley Davidson with her long blond hair flowing out behind her (helmets are encouraged in this state but not mandatory and hardly anyone wears them) and when we pulled up beside her at the traffic lights her barely lined tanned skin hid the fact that she was probably in her early seventies and she was enjoying the ride and her life. We liked to think that somewhere in amongst her ancestors was a brave woman from the early settlers searching for a new life who had worked hard in the swamp infested South (romantic notion but we liked it!). She looked brilliant, in complete control of the road and encased in leather. Not sure you would see a senior lady in the UK achieving this look but if you know differently let us know 😊
A couple of evenings ago we went to an event entitled 'Night of a Thousand Candles'.
This was held in a huge public garden area. For those of you who know what our house looks like at Christmas you will know how excited Dave was to be there! The place was amazing and Dave took his hat off to them (and picked up some tips!!). There were at least one million lights in the trees, 72,000 alone on the huge Christmas tree, 4,500 candles, 500 floating candles and loads and loads more. Thankfully most of them were white but there was a colourful corner 😊 There was even a train set corner for the big boys!
And so that just leaves us to say we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year. We will be leaving here next week, spending a couple of nights in Savannah, then jumping on a train to head for Orlando in Florida and our sons are joining us for Christmas week so we cant wait. Stay safe and see you again in 2016.
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Christmas Greetings
Hi you two - what a wonderful time you are having - how do you remember all you have done. Looking forward to Dave's decorations when he gets back. When you get to New Orleans you should see all the hankies/ pieces of material hanging on the trees - what a site. Have a superb time with your family - I shall be heading that way in two weeks time - just a tadge further though.