come vacation with me

After our intense morning of sand sculpting for the Piccolo Spoleto Competition in Charleston on Saturday, Violet and I got in my car with full bellies and heavy eyelids and headed up highway 17 towards Garden City Beach.  With the shoveling and sculpting behind me, a week of vacation was ahead.

We arrived to meet the rest of the family at the condo just around time to eat again.  Perfect timing.  

The place we like to stay in Garden City has gorgeous back porch views of the inlet and the sunset.  For the last few years, we've made it a daily priority to try to catch the sunset over the marsh.  The weather forecast for our vacation week indicated that this might be a tough week for clear skies.  Still, we got a little color on that first evening.

Balcony coffee is better than porch coffee.  The beach makes all the difference.  I got up without an alarm and ran on the beach.  The wind was insane.  Steady 20 mph winds and gusts higher.  It didn't look like it was going to be a good beach day.

Instead of lounging in the sun all morning, we had a bundled up beach walk in the wind.

...and then we went to some of our favorite cheesy area stores.

This was sunset on Sunday.  Bummer.  But, I will admit that it was nice to have a day off from shoveling and sculpting after Saturday.  

Monday morning I got up and ran in steady rain powered by a strong wind.  It was kind of a miserable run, but it was a run on the beach and because of that, it was gorgeous.  I waited out the rain and as soon as it stopped, I went out on the beach to begin sculpting.  It was already afternoon at this point, but I was happy to be out in the sand and even happier that it stopped raining.  I hate rain.  

The family joined me on the beach and as soon as they arrived, the clouds and rain came back.  With the radar threatening heavy rain, they ditched me.  I needed to refine the skeleton arm if I was going to be proud of this one, so I just kept working as the light rain fell.  Within a few minutes, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  I was able to take my time and finish this one and I was happy with it.  

Of course, the clouds came back in time for sunset.  

The weather returned to a more normal beach pattern on Tuesday.  It got hot.  As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm not much of a planner when it comes to sand sculpture.  I just go out and do whatever seems right at the moment.  Monday's skull was still mostly there on Tuesday morning, so I just piled a bunch of sand on it and a pelican came out.  

I had a lot of beach friends come out on Monday when I finished the first sculpture.  Many were friends I made over the last few years and our beach weeks just happen to overlap each year.  Some stay in the same condo as us and some are just nearby neighbors.  Everyone was so kind all week.

  

Violet and I walked to the point after I finished the sculpture and had a nap.  This was the first day we could make it on dry sand.  

I think we just missed this one.  It was cloudy but I think we could have caught some glimpses of color but we were a few hours too late and we just couldn't skip ice cream.

Fun fact about the beach:  Everything is closed on Monday.  When it was raining on Monday morning, we tried to go to a lot of the places we like to wait out the rain.  At least three of them were closed.  One was the Tie Dyed Coffee Bean.  We wanted to support them, though, so we made time to go back on Wednesday.  Good coffee, cool vibes.  

Oh, and my brother's comic shop, Tangled Web is open in Surfside this summer.  They have a lot of cool stuff, even if you're not into comics.  They're open on Mondays.  Put it on your beach list.

Wednesday was the part of the week when we all forgot what day it was.  I decided to take it easy and work small.  The tide was eating every bit of sand I left overnight, so every day it was like starting over.  I opted to make a very small dog and in my mind it was going to be about 4 feet long, about the size of the head of the dog pictured above.  As you can see, that didn't work out and I just kept adding sand and kept adding dog.  It got huge.  This was the biggest one I made all week.  It was pretty good, though.  

I noticed people were destroying the sculptures before the tide got to them.  That's cool with me, but there was a little boy who found me the next day and reported to me that when they were out on Wednesday night as a family and saw that some little boys walked on parts of the dog.  He and his siblings rushed over and spent an hour fixing the parts that were damaged.  It was so sweet.  Of course, the next morning lots of people had jumped on it and completely leveled it, but that's part of the fun of ephemeral sculpture.  

My reward for finishing a sculpture is a cool drink and a beach nap.  This might have been the first day the whole family stayed out together for a long time.  

We did all of the regular touristy things at night.  Broadway has a new haunted book shop.  Edgar Allen Poe themed, I guess.  He was stationed at Fort Moultrie for a bit, so we claim him as our own down here.  Maybe this was Anabelle Lee?  I wasn't really paying attention.

I checked all the photo booths several times and this is the only orphaned photo I found all week. 

Cross country summer mileage began on June 1 and so did Violet's real return to running.  She's had a tough recovery from last August's hip surgery, but she's making her comeback now.  This meant I got a few extra miles during vacation week.

Violet and I got to kayak around the inlet on Thursday and during that adventure, we got a special treat.  Side story time!

There's a "pirate ship" in the inlet that takes kids and parents out on a pirate adventure.  We've never done it, but we have observed it from the water a few times on our own adventures.  They have pirate ladies who teach the kids cool pirate songs and teach them how to do pirate attacks.  They have water cannons on the sides of the ship and during the voyage, they get to attack the evil Pirate Pete.  Pirate Pete is sleeping in a small boat in the inlet (for reasons we do not know from a distance) and the pirate ship sails up and attacks Pirate Pete with water cannons.  Pirate Pete fights back with a Super Soaker but eventually lies down in his boat and "dies".

 

We were able to see Pirate Pete anchor his boat in the inlet not far from our kayak and then we saw the ship sailing in for the attack.  The pirate kids sang sea shanties and then manned the cannons for two drive by waterings.  When Pirate Pete lost, he laid down "dead" in the boat and the big ship sailed away victorious.  

As they sailed away, we watched Pirate Pete discretely remove his pirate coat.  Then he took off a rain suit.  Then we realized that Pirate Pete was not a dude.

Pirate Pete was actually a beautiful young lady in a bikini and when the pirate ship was far enough away, she pulled out her phone, relaxed and got some sun.  It was hilarious to us.  After a few minutes, Pirate Pete took a bucket and dumped the extra water out of his boat and then chugged back to port.  "He" grabbed some clothes out of a bin on the dock and by the time the big ship came back in, Pirate Pete had turned into one of the cool pirate lady hostesses and she welcomed the kids and parents back to shore.  I guess, let's just keep this between us.  I don't want Pirate Pete to get in any trouble or any kids to see behind the curtain.

We took pictures of things other than Pirate Pete.  This guy was getting fish tossed at him from a boat that returned from the ocean.

This guy was very photogenic but he didn't like us getting too close to him.

One of our traditions is that Violet and I get our favorite seafood after we kayak in the inlet.  Crab for her and the hot lobstah roll for me.  Oh my goodness it was sooo perfect.

We felt like we missed too much beach time with the early week weather, so Violet and I made plans to be back on the beach as soon as our seafood was devoured.  I decided the sand sculpture machine would be closed on Thursday.

It was very hot, but otherwise gorgeous all day.  We all got some afternoon beach time and relaxed.  

The sand though, it called to me.  I couldn't just leave it alone.  I took 5 minutes to make this little heart and it was so funny to hear how many people noticed it and loved it the next day.

We got to have dinner with my brother and his wife around sunset that night.  We finally got our sunset view.

The food was good but the view was better.

An update on the UFO house:  Blue and I have always wanted to trespass and see if we could see inside.  I've read about the interior and I really want to see it for myself.  For a few years it seemed abandoned behind a fence and locked gate.  Last year some people came in during our vacation week and stayed.  This year, the same thing happened.  Several cars appeared, they cut the grass and hung out.  No trespassing for us again this year.

Friday was our last beach day.  I took it sort of easy with this one and kept it simple.  Working fast gave me more beach chair time.

I think we've mastered the last day of vacation.  We were able to get in all the things we wanted to do and eat and still get home before midnight.

We're lucky to have a great dogsitter.  The dogs love her and this year they didn't get sick or act crazy.  We missed them, though, and it was nice to get to see them again.  

Because of the general timing of everything leading up to vacation and the schedule of events planned for the week after, I did have to break down and do some actual work on the computer.  There was some student advising issues to handle, a FedEx return label for a couple of sculptures and a few emails I had to send.  I was able to do those on a rainy morning so that was fine.  

I took a book to read, you know, with all my extra vacation time, and managed to make it through only one chapter.  I sketched a little, but mostly I made sand sculptures and rested on the beach between meals.  It was nice.  

I didn't get to surf and I'm bitter about it.  We had strong rip current and no swimming warnings for most of the week and then we had no waves.  Bummer.

At the moment, I don't have any other vacations planned for this summer.  If you'd like to take me to the beach, let me know.  I'll bring the surfboard.

 

a vacation, sorta

 
Our annual family beach vacation was last week and what a week it was.  We've had plenty of perfect beach vacations over the years with beautiful weather, no rain, great temperatures, awesome places to stay, beautiful views and lots of fun.  Keeping that in mind, along with the very awkward weirdness going on daily in our world and our country, I'm very grateful to have had the week we had.  And while I'm grateful to have had any vacation at all with family, I'm sure at least G would have wanted a couple of things to have been a little different.  So let's have a look at a few of the week's happenings by category:

Playing in the sand...

Yes, I'm a grown adult man and I still love playing in the sand.  I'm sure this seems weird to other adult men on the beach, but I think it's just as weird to stand in the sun fishing for Lord knows what or drinking your red belly larger by consuming all the cans of beer in sight while your evil spawn squeal and scream all day.  (Please note that where we have been staying the last several years, we don't have any of this nonsensical behavior.  Our beach neighbors were stellar, even the kids!  But I've seen it and it's one of the reasons we've continued to migrate south on the Grand Strand.)

My internal clock wakes me up early on vacation.  I don't understand it.  Maybe it's because I've always been very excited about going to the beach and my brain is so happy it just wants me to be up to enjoy everything.  Either way, around sun-up, I'm up and headed out for my run.  When I get back, I shower and have a nice little breakfast on the balcony.  Then I'm out on the beach early to beat the heat and I spend a few minutes (hours) playing by myself in the sand.  

The family trickles out on their own schedule and they take over the chairs and umbrella spots while I bask in the sun and make some sort of sand sculpture.  This involves shoveling a ton of sand and carrying 5 gallons of water from the ocean multiple times to pack the sand before I then stand awkwardly in front of the heap of sand trying to decide what I want to make.  Sure, I could plan ahead and probably save myself some time and embarrassment, but I'm on vacation and preparing feels more like work.  Then there's more moving of sand as I carve with my fingers and hands.  Sometimes I have to get the shovel back out and move a big chunk to another area because I didn't plan ahead, but in 2 or 3 hours, I'm washing the sand off my hands and taking a few photos.  

After the photos, I get to drink water, sit in the chair and relax for the rest of the day.  Most days I'll go in for lunch and from the balcony I'll notice people walking by and taking photos of whatever I made.  It's a nice feeling.  I'm sure some of them don't know exactly what it is or why it is, but they seem to smile and enjoy seeing it.  The last couple of years I've been signing them with my IG handle and sometimes I'll get nice messages and even a photo from strangers like the one above.  It's really nice when strangers go to some trouble to thank you for doing something like this.  

When we get to go back out on the beach in the evening, most often the sculpture is still there.  It's always nice when people like it enough to not destroy it.  Last week, we had the pleasure of recognizing some of the families from previous years and they felt comfortable talking to me about things.  A few asked if I was the guy from last year and some will ask me what I made on a certain day.  The truth is, I have no idea.  The days blur together on a good vacation and once I make them, I turn them over to nature and forget about them.  I understand that after that photo, they don't belong to me anymore.  

When we went out on our last night of vacation, we found this note on the back of my final sculpture.  It made me very happy.  Make no mistake, making these things is hard work.  I started the week thinking that I'd make maybe 4 sculptures.  I had a sand sculpture thing planned for the day after vacation and I didn't want to overdo it.  Oh, another fun little note is that Walter the crazy puppy dog somehow destroyed my pinky finger a week before vacation and it was still very swollen and painful when vacation started.  

Including this one, which is obviously not the best, I still made 6 sand sculptures during the week.  This one is what it is because the day started out rainy and we ditched the beach in favor of a day of shopping.  When the sun came out, I escaped the shopping and spent a couple of hours on the beach in the afternoon.  This one only took about 45 minutes.  So yeah, they're a lot of work, but there's also a lot of satisfaction knowing that you made someone smile when they saw it.  

Running like a crazy person...

My running insanity is well documented.  You know I run 3.1 miles every day.  One of my favorite things about vacation or travel is being able to run in new and beautiful places.  I mentioned we've stayed at this location before and one of my favorite things about it is it's proximity to Murrell's Inlet.  This little stretch of beach is the last bit before the big stone jettys and the inlet.  If you leave our little beach walkout and head south, you'll run just around the edge of the peninsula when you hit the 1.5 mile mark.  

Fewer humans go this far down so it's quiet and I'm often one of just two or three people out during this time.  The views there are almost other-worldly.  I often see dolphins in the ocean and all sorts of birds out looking for breakfast.  

The running is also cool, but it's the time alone out there with the surf and the sun rising that does it for me.  It's the best.  

Everyone in our family appreciates their own time and space.  We all know that during vacation, we're stuck a little closer than we want for a little longer than we want.  We love being together and we're a pretty tight family, but we need our space.  This is the time that keeps me from going off on the family on these trips.  It's so beautiful and so quiet.  I love it.  The running is also good for me, I guess.

We all have those moments when we question our life choices.  I've ran during some crazy and I do mean CRAZY times.  All sorts of weather conditions, including hurricanes on the beach and all sorts of weird times of day.  I've been up at 4:00am running before but each time I do something like that, I wonder if I'm really not well.  I don't have an answer on that just yet, but I do know that I had to get up at 4:00am on the last day of vacation.  The beach was so dark I couldn't run there, so I went out onto the street and ran the roads in the dark alone.  

You wanna go out in the ocean?...

We've taken our tandem kayak with us on our beach vacations for the last several years.  First, Blue and I would kayak the inlet and explore on a day when we had grown weary of sunburn.  Then Violet started loving the kayak and Blue took the opportunity to escape.  For the last couple of years, I've woke up one morning of vacation and looked out on a very calm and flat ocean from the balcony.  I've done my best on those days to talk one of the kids into going out into the ocean with me in the kayak.  They've always emphatically declined.  This year it was early in the week and I sent the text to Violet telling her I was going out in the kayak and asked if she'd like to join me.  As I was talking Blue into helping me carry the kayak out to the beach, she responded "yes".  

It was on.  Now, if you're not a kayaker, here's the significance of this:  Our kayak is an open kayak with no spray skirt.  This means it's just a little plastic boat that holds people.  Which means it also holds water.  So if something like a wave crashes over your boat, it fills with water and you sink.  Violet knows this well because once, a million years ago, Blue sank his kayak in a lake.  Thus her reluctance to go out in waves.  

Whatever made her say yes, I wasn't questioning it, I just went with it.  Blue and I dropped the kayak in the sand and I had Violet in a life jacket and holding a paddle before she could second guess herself.  I knew the biggest danger was getting out past the surf and I simply told her that when I said go, she needed to get in and start paddling fast.  She did, I followed quickly and we paddled as hard as we could...right into a breaking wave.  It crested right over Violet's lap and filled the kayak about half full of water.  We paddled a little more and we were safely in the open water.  I hadn't thought about bringing anything to bail water, so I used my hands to get a few gallons out.  

Apparently it was quite the show for those on the beach.  We were told that everyone was watching us and they all seemed surprised when we didn't topple over or sink.  We didn't really have a plan past getting out in the water, but we quickly decided to paddle down to the inlet and back.  We didn't see any dolphins but the view was incredible.  These photos and a couple of funny videos are from Blue on the shore.  When we decided to go back out in the ocean a second time, we grabbed an old disposable waterproof film camera and took it with us.  It was Violet's first time using a film camera and it was a little different from the ones I remember, so we'll see if we get any photos from that in the next couple of days.  On our second trip a few days later, we rode the waves into the shore and they kept crashing over the back of the boat before we could get out.  We were already beached but the boat filled with water and we had to get Blue to help us turn it over the dump the water out just so we could pull it ashore.  10/10 amazing experience.  Highly recommend and would do it again.  

Random family moments...

We've developed habits when we go to the beach.  After beach things in the sun during the morning and early afternoon, we all go inside and get cleaned up at various times.  Then we often head out to find food and visit some of our favorite places.  Violet and I usually walk a good bit to look for sharks teeth and to people watch but her hip injury kept the walking to a minimum this year.  We did accidentally walk to the inlet one day.

We all have different favorite places to eat and we spread those out through the week.  I love a good lobster roll and Violet loves a crab pot.  We always pick the place on the inlet that has both along with great views.  

The lobster roll is so good.  I can still taste the butter.  Mmmmmmm.

Part of the fun is walking around the inlet.  There's a Marsh Walk and a little pier.  Lots of pelicans around and I do love a pelican.  It's a beautiful place.

This was our first time seeing my brother's new place.  My brother owns The Tangled Web in Spartanburg and he's getting ready to open the second location in Surfside Beach.  We stopped by to see him and to see the new place.  Later in the week we got to have dinner with him and see his apartment.

We're always on the lookout for fun sunglasses and great mirrors for photos.  This was going to be a family portrait until Blue and G took off across the store.

It was a good trip for stranger photos.  Every time I walk by a photo booth machine, I check the bin to see if someone left a copy of their pics.  From the looks of my collection, most people do.  If you want to bring me some joy, be sure to leave one of your copies in the bin for me to find.  Or, if you happen to find some strangers' abandoned photos, send them my way.  

After the sand sculpting is done, this is my view for the rest of the day.  I've had enough sun at that point, so after lunch on the balcony, I settle into the shade of the umbrella for a nap or a long, quiet meditation.  I can just sit here and stare out into the waves for hours.  

I apparently do weird things in public.  When we took this photo in Drippy's Ice Cream, I noticed my head looked like the second scoop on Violet's cone.  

So I spent the next few minutes trying to recreate the idea with my own cone.  It was deceptively difficult to line it up.  The whole time, Blue was taking photos of me trying to take my own photo.  This led to a whole rabbit hole of a conversation about making stickers with photos and being able to drop them into text conversations.  That led to all of us trying to add stickers to the family group chat at once.  The activity locked up my phone and then Blue's phone.  Messed them up so bad we both had to delete the chat and shut down our phones.  

We've driven by this place for 15 years or more without ever trying it.  Last week we found out it also has a bakery inside, so we finally stopped and tried it.  It was amazing.  Tiramisu, cannoli, and all sorts of really great sweets.  We also tried a pizza and were impressed.

One of my favorite things about where we stay on vacation is the sunsets.  The sun goes down over the marsh and it's beautiful from our door.  Our week started out with an odd haze that hid the sunsets completely on the first couple of nights.  Then there were a few nights we were out later and missed the sunset.  There was a cloudy night.  Over the first several days, this was the only sunset I got to see over the lake at Broadway.  

But at the end of the week, I finally got my marsh sunset.  I know, it sounds like a perfect week and like I said at the beginning, I have no room to complain.  The part I left out was that our little brown dog Timmy started getting sick just before we left home.  His sickness worsened while the dogsitter was there and we got pretty worried about him.  So much so that G had to get up very early one morning and drive home with the intention of taking him to the vet.  She got him some medicine and he started to improve so she was able to come back to the beach the next day.  As soon as our worries started to fade about Timmy, the next report from the dogsitter was that now Walter was sick with similar symptoms.  A new medication was prescribed and luckily the dogsitter was able to pick it up without us driving back home again.  By the end of the week, we were exhausted from worry and the dogs were both exhausted from the sickness.  

But also, we're lucky to have those goofy dogs.  Even when they break your pinky finger and interrupt your beach vacation.  So there we are on our last night of vacation.  A little more tan, sort of rested, kinda tired and full of ice cream and cannoli.