Road Warriers

Yesterday Denny and I were settled fairly early into our campsite in the middle of Nowhere, Texas as I had the short drive of 170 miles of all highway driving. By late afternoon new fulltimers (on the road for 2 months) had pulled up near us, bustling about sweeping up all around the exterior entrance side of their rig. We thought that they were being anal about their parking area; it turns out when they stepped outside to register at the office for their campsite, their Plexiglas screen door exploded sending plastic shards all over. Never heard of that happening!

Denny and I were sharing a dessert of tiramisu (we highly recommend the tiramisu and bread pudding at the Pizza Shack in Willis, TX) when other folks started arriving-- at 8 o'clock at night! Understand that these folks pulling up aren't young, working couples; no, these are retired folks who should theoretically be relaxed and enjoying life and instead are apparently driving 12 and 13 hours a day. Why do I figure that? Because these same folks who arrived at 7:30 and 8:00PM last night were leaving at 6:30 and 7:00AM this morning! That's insane. Granted, Texas is a BIG state. It's almost 1,000 miles across Interstate 10 from border to border (we'll have put on 1,200 miles by the time we reach St. David, Arizona from Willis, TX). But to try to do it in one or two days? Crazy. Plus, it's never fun to try to navigate a strange campground in the dark--there's too many things you can't see, like overhanging limbs or stray decorative boulders that jump in your way.

I like our way much better.

Old Dogs

Our plans to head west today were canceled by predictions of gloom and doom, better known as rain/sleet/ice/snow. Up to 4 inches of snow were predicted in the area we were supposed to travel through today, and having lived through the great ice skating adventure of 2007 we decided to stay put in our current campground for another day. Temperatures tomorrow are supposed to zoom up to 57 degrees, so that should give any accumulations on the roads a chance to melt. So you CAN teach old dogs new tricks.

Denny and I are still acclimating ourselves to the new trailer. Most of the changes are good, but one caused us a great deal of frustration yesterday. Our new rig has hydraulic front leveling jacks as opposed to the electric jacks on our previous two trailers. I'm used to having about two feet of jack extension to work with in raising our trailer up high enough to hitch up to Black Beauty, so yesterday when I raised the jacks and they stopped about 3 inches short of being high enough to slide the truck into position I freaked. The jacks would go down, but stopped after extending about 14 inches. Not good. I immediately put in a call to the RV dealer service department, speaking to the manager who did some trouble shooting with fuses until we got it through his head that the jacks would go down and then back up, but only to a certain point. That's when he explained that we only had about 14 inches of extension available on the hydraulic part of the jacks. Crap! Do we haul out the hydraulic jack we use to change tires, meaning we'd also have to unload the air compressor to make it work? Denny decided to try to back the truck up and see if the angle of the downhill slope would allow the hitch to slide up the receiver and lock in. As he backed up I could see the receiver turning so far downward that I was sure the whole thing would jackknife and bind up so that we'd never get either hitched or unhitched, but thanks to the new Trailair hitch and some guardian angels, the receiver angled back up and the kingpin settled into place and we were hitched up. Lesson learned; no steeply sloped campsites for us, since the jacks don't extend anywhere near as far as what we're used to. It seems as though we are doomed to be stressed out for the month of December so I'm really looking forward to January and a new year.

Thus today we are snug in our new home while it sleets outside. Patches is curled up in the recliner, smart enough to know that today isn't a good day for walks. I've managed to make a few campground reservations today for the coming weeks and now it's time to go through a couple of cupboards in an effort to clear the clutter and arrange things in a more logical manner. Or maybe I'll just make a couple of mugs of hot chocolate for Denny and I and then sit and read a book. That would work too.

Our Christmas Present to Ourselves

This is the interior of The Beast. It's wet, cold and muddy outside so pictures of the exterior will have to wait.

Patches waiting to be taken out for a walk. The mirrored doors hide the controls for the lights and slides as well as a couple of coat hooks.
The dining/living room area.

Our TV watching spot.

A too dark photo of the desk area. I still have to work at connecting AV cables for the TV satellite sound and hook up the Wii.

The kitchen with the appliance garage/cabinet that went through five different proposed configurations before I finally caved in and met the manufacturer half way. But still not happy.

Water in the door refrigerator--if they could have made it with an ice dispenser Denny and I would have been in seventh heaven as we're ice water fiends.

The hallway houses a huge closet/cupboard area. I'm getting my exercise going up and down the steps to get food items for meal preparations.

The bathroom, obviously.

The hoity-toity glass vanity bowl.

The fixtures in the shower match the sink; brushed nickle, very modern.

Yep, it's a bedroom. I've already removed the original stiff-as-cardboard and poorly fitted bedspread and bought a new comforter. More warmth, more eye appeal. This is another area I fought over; our decor package is called Indigo. Do you see any Indigo in this room? Yeah, me either. Seems the manufacturer now makes every bedroom chocolate no matter what color package of the four offered that you choose. WTF?

Behind the louvered doors is hidden the stacking washer and dryer.

Glass paneled door to the hallway. The other door leads into the bathroom.

Darb's Christmas Present to Us

Ups and Downs

Denny and I arrived in Elkhart, Indiana on Tuesday to look over our new fifth wheel. I'll just say that when I walked around inside it after arriving Tuesday afternoon I cried. Unfortunately, they weren't happy tears. There had been many unannounced changes made between the 2010 model Denny and I looked at and the 2011 model that we ordered sight unseen. And they weren't changes for the better. It's a long and ugly story and I'm not up to telling it right now. I was so upset that I didn't even get pictures of what was wrong with the trailer to show you, all I'll have eventually is the rig finished more the way I wanted it. But right now, we're in transit to Texas and what with all the fixes the service techs had to do Denny and I were still transferring our stuff out of the old trailer and putting it in the new one at 11 o'clock at night on Friday night so we could get out of Elkhart early Saturday morning. That meant that we just piled and crammed stuff in any cabinet and nook and cranny we could find and I'll have to rearrange once we settle in Texas for a few days. So no pictures while this place looks like a hurricane just hit it.

There was an inch of snow on the ground and more coming when we pulled out of the service building Saturday morning and the truck slipped and slid pulling out onto the street. Fortunately all the main roads were just wet and none of the bridges were icy so we made it to Terre Haute for the first night where we hooked up to the campground's wi-fi to make contact with the world for the first time in 4 days. We had been so busy dealing with service guys, our RV dealer, insurance people, bank people, et al that for once we didn't miss not having access to TV or wi-fi (we were parked inside the RV dealer's service building while the guys took care of all the changes that I insisted upon) The service techs had to finish getting the rig ready for us (prepped) since the trailer had come off the assembly line two days later than planned and we almost beat the trailer to the RV dealer. We were all working on top of each other as the workers fixed and installed things while Denny and I were trying to carry our belongings in, so the guys never even had the opportunity to clean up the rig as is standard procedure; that's something I'll be doing once we're settled for a couple of days. I didn't ask them to finish their prep work because that would have meant hanging around in the cold and snow for three more days and we just weren't prepared to do that and us making the service techs make the unexpected changes threw off their scheduled work on other people's RVs. Everyone involved was pretty short-tempered at any given time over the four days we were there.

Emotionally, it's not been a good week. I have had to tell Denny (and myself) to take a deep breath several times to keep from blowing. In the season of brotherly love, I've wanted to tear the heads off several people and smile as I'm doing it. But tonight I'm sitting here with a cup of hot tea while the tiny table top Christmas tree twinkles merrily beside me and I'm finally beginning to relax and appreciate the features of the new trailer. I know it will be a while before the trailer becomes "ours" as Denny and I have several small modifications and additions to make/install to make the rig more livable and user friendly. It's what we've done with the four other RVs we've owned and so we'll do it with this, our final RV. In a few days, I'll post pictures, starting with one of Black Beauty and the Beast.

And we'll be fine.

We're Off

Today we start our trek to Indiana to pick up the new fifth wheel. It will take us four days of driving to get there and we're hoping for dry weather with temperatures above freezing while we're en route. I have little hope of decent temperatures in Elkhart; it's just too far north for that.

Poor Patches will hate all of this; being tossed into the truck daily for the long drives and then once we arrive we'll be set up inside the RV dealer's service building where she won't be able to wander around. It will take us a couple-three days to haul our belongings from one trailer to the other and then we'll once again be on the road for four days returning to Willis to title and register the new trailer. Everything will be a mess until Denny can get some shelves built and installed in the cabinets and closets and we get everything put away to our liking. There will be frustration, because for weeks we'll not be able to find anything--we've been through this three times already so we know. It doesn't make for the best of holiday seasons and I've been struggling to find my "ho,ho,ho" this year.

I'll try to remember to take pictures of the new trailer before we toss all of our "stuff" in and maybe a few pictures of the mess in the process of being stored away. This is what it looked like when we moved from our 38 foot motorhome to our 36 foot fifth wheel.We ended up hauling a convertible full of stuff to my mom's house to be sold in a garage sale, plus donated bags of unneeded items that had been sitting unused in the cupboards. This time around I've been sorting through cupboards over the past couple of weeks and dropping things of at local charities before we make the switch. It took me a while, but I do learn!

Check back in a week to find if I still have any hair or if I've pulled it all out.

The Cutest Video Ever

Blah

Lord love a duck! That's an ugly one, isn't it? It's a Muscovy duck at a campground in Louisiana. In case you wanted to know.

Yesterday Denny and I officially became Texans. Well, not really, because we have yet to own cowboy boots and hats. That will come I suppose, since the new fifth wheel will have a larger closet. We celebrated at a small restaurant in Coldspring, TX; a tiny town with a huge courthouse. It was the kind of place where the locals got their own table settings and autographed pictures of George *. Bush lined the walls.

Gremlins are still affecting our lives; yesterday we stopped at the post office to pick up our mail and when we returned to the truck it wouldn't turn over--it acted totally dead. I'm searching through the owner's manual trying to look up a symbol that appeared on the electronic instrument panel while Denny sat there cussing (always helpful). Eventually the truck started and we had no further problems for the remainder of our day. I've become a little frustrated with the weirdness, though.

One thing that did go well was the upgrading of Denny's new laptop to Windows 7. When we purchased the computer it came with a coupon for a free upgrade so when the DVD arrived yesterday I girded my loins and installed it. Perhaps it's because we haven't put a lot of our own programs in the laptop yet, but the installation went flawlessly and all the programs still work. Big sigh of relief!

Since the weather forecast is for more rain, I'll get back to rooting through drawers and cupboards to see what else we're hauling around that we don't really use. Now if I could just get Denny to go through his stuff....

The Rain Isn't Helping

Nice sunset, huh? Haven't seen one of those for a couple of days. It's been raining like crazy here in Louisiana and we've been experiencing a lot of frustration with our trailer gremlins.

When we arrived here our landing jacks wouldn't lower, which meant the batteries weren't working on their own. Trying to replace special batteries in a small town isn't easy but I found a business that said they had what we needed. And here's where the fun began. The owner of the business and Denny didn't hit it off for some reason; they were like two junkyard dogs confronting each other. Then the man tells us that his credit card machine isn't working and so we have to pay in cash. Great. These are expensive batteries and there's a limit to our ATM withdrawals to prevent fraud. We manage to come up with enough cash to pay for the batteries, go back and pick them up (now the guy is trying to be nice to us) and we get theme home. The rain is pouring down the entire time as we're going in and out, mind you. Denny gets the batteries in, I make lunch but notice the refrigerator light is glaring bright, as are the overhead fluorescent fixtures. All of a sudden one fixture goes out. Okay, the bulbs went bad. Then the other light fixture goes out. Uh-oh, this isn't good. Denny goes outside to look at the batteries, I call the store where we bought them to confirm he sold us 6 volt batteries. Nope, he sold us 12 volt batteries, so instead of 12 volts going through the system we have 24 volts going through. So we zapped the light fixtures. Okay, re-cabled to hook up only one battery, the owner is special ordering two 6 volt batteries and now I have to find new light fixtures, otherwise it's going to be pretty darn dark in here at night. Call the Camping World that's 35 miles away, ask if they have the lights in stock. No, not the same model number but some that would work. And so we drive over there (still pouring rain) only to find that no, these will not work AT ALL! Drive all the way back home and call the manufacturer. There are two distributors; one in Indiana and one in California. Of course. I call the one in Indiana and reached a very nice man and we did some reminiscing about a local celebrity that had the last name of Braun. The man did have our lights and will be shipping them to Texas for us. It will just be a bit dark in here for a while, we can swap out the fixture in the bedroom for one of the living room fixtures so it won't be quite as dark as it is now.

Therefore, the lesson is; don't make assumptions that store owners know what they are doing. Check and double-check. And ask if they can take credit cards. *sigh*

And please let this be the end of the weirdness going on now that we've found a buyer for the trailer??!!!

Men Are From Mars

I should have gotten a picture; we had a repairman out fixing a broken spring latch in our awning. It's a repair you don't want to do on your own due to the danger of the tightly wound spring, plus there are no RV parts places nearby. So the gentleman who works out of our campground got the part for us and stopped by with it today to install it and before long there was a crowd of men in front of our trailer. Just supervising, of course. Bored, curious, just wanting to help or wanting free advice from the repairman while he was "in the area" as it were, there were five or six guys there at any given time for the duration of the repair.

This gathering of men is a routine phenomenon in campgrounds; raise the hood of your truck and two or three guys will wander over, one of them offering a bigger, more powerful version of whatever tool or device you have in your hand. Climb a ladder and wax your rig and there's a discussion of oxidation removers, the best wax/polish or dry-washing system or chamois versus microfiber as polishing cloths. It's as if men need an excuse to congregate and chat, whereas women will just stop and be neighborly because you step outside for a moment. It tickles me every time I see it happen.

It takes so little to entertain me.

Not There

I see y'all were checking in yesterday; still looking for the Lazy Sunday posts? Yeah, that ain't happening. This year I took relatively few pictures since we really haven't traveled; we were in one place in Ohio for eight months dealing with my mother and afterwards her estate and that didn't make for shots of scenic vistas, believe me.

Lately we've been preoccupied with the old and the new trailers. En route to our current campground we had a tire blow on the interstate (fortunately we both heard the "pop" and stopped quickly before the tire self-destructed) and the gremlins have set in now that we have found a buyer for the old trailer. You know, little things have started to go wrong that we'll now have to fix before turning the trailer over to the new owner. Seven years of constant usage and thousands of miles of road travel will do that; things are bound to jiggle their way loose.

Therefore we're going to be busy ordering a new tire, fixing the glitches, finding campgrounds in Illinois and Indiana and Arkansas that will be open mid-winter for our trip up and back to Indiana (campgrounds close due to the fact that their water lines freeze up if not properly buried, insulated or drained) and digging through cupboards, closets and drawers seeing what we can get rid of before we have to transfer items out of one trailer and into another. Because carrying boxes and drawers full of "stuff" down three steps from one rig and up three steps to another for hours gets very wearing. This will be the fourth time we've switched belongings from one RV to another and it ain't fun. You think you lead a simple life with very few belongings other than the necessities, but it's pretty amazing how many necessities there are. Each transfer has taken us two days just to move everything from one rig to the next and that's just hauling the stuff out and in. That doesn't include having to put it all away in a new place, and then moving a lot of it again later because you rushed it to get out of the dealer's lot and back on the road and wherever you put it at the time is really not convenient or logical. Yeah, been there, done that.

All of which should explain the lack of scenic photographs and lyrical posts about the beauty of the area. At least for now.

Oops, I Did It Again

I said I wasn't going to plan our routes well in advance again. But it's hard not to in the wintertime when there's a ton of snowbirds out there vying for the same campsites that you are. So I plotted and planned and mapped and routed and made reservations and.....three days ago we ordered a new fifth wheel which will be ready December 17. In Elkhart, Indiana. And we'll be in Conroe, Texas, getting our driver's licenses changed over from Ohio (mine expires in December). Distance from Conroe to Elkhart, IN? 1150 miles, more or less. 8 days before Christmas. So much for spending Christmas in San Antonio visiting the River Walk. That ain't happening. As a matter of fact, Christmas may be spent inside a service facility moving things from one trailer to the other and testing all the pieces parts to make sure everything works as it is supposed to before heading back towards Texas. And crossing our fingers that the typical Midwest winters hold off until we can get out of Dodge.

I knew better.

While You Were Sleeping

In no particular order--dawn at Myrtle Beach on two different mornings.

The Party's Over

What a great looking group, eh? (That's a nod to our new Canadian friends in the group). Gary, Donna, John, Denny, me, Dee, Dan, Don and Vicki. We were apre' Happy Hour and pre-dinner at this point. John and Gary cooked ribs on the grill, Don grilled burgers, and we all brought side dishes. It was our last hurrah, as Denny and I, Don and Vick and Dee and Dan all left Myrtle Beach today. Denny and I headed towards Savannah, the other two couples were going to northern Georgia to sit facing a lake and continue the party.

We're talking about all meeting up same place, same time next year. Denny and I would still be in Seattle, Washington in early September and that's a long haul to get to MB by the first week of October. But oh, what a month it was here at the beach, even if it was a month of not really doing anything. And that makes that prospective cross country trek sound awfully tempting despite the miles.

Adios, Myrtle Beach.

A Day Brightener

I wish I had had the nerve to ask the lady if I could take her picture.

Denny and I were at the post office sending some items off which necessitated a rather involved transaction. Suddenly I heard this syrupy voice behind me teasing the postal employees at the counter and was intrigued, but too busy to look behind me.

As we left the post office, however, the owner of that thick Southern drawl was in front of us and what a vision she was; black gauzy skirt covered around the hips with a pink lacy shawl, black sparkly knit top, pink and black tooled leather boots and a pink straw cowgirl hat with a big, glittery pink flower on the hatband. Pink eyeshadow, catwoman eyeliner, full makeup, long dark hair pulled back; the complete package. I complimented her on her colorful outfit and she replied that she owned a dance studio for many years and was used to "costumes" so she continued to wear them to make people smile. Make me smile she did, and I thanked her for brightening my day. She said she knew if I saw her again, I'd remember her and I said yes indeed I would.

I wish I had a little of that courage or that joie de vivre myself.

There Are Places

Our Happy Hour group gathered for a Low Country Boil tonight; good friends, good food, good times. Talk turned to places we would live, maybe, if we were to settle down eventually. Where would it be?

There are town and places we like, places that are beautiful, places that have have good climate, places that are affordable. But as I was walking Patches after leaving our gathering, looking up at the stars here at Myrtle Beach, I realized there there are a few places where, once I arrive, I literally feel my heart expand. It is a physical feeling of my chest opening up, my heart enlarging, my soul becoming at peace. Three places come to mind where that feeling is strongest; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Perdido Key/Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Gold Canyon, Arizona. Two places on the ocean, one at my beloved Superstition Mountains. We have not yet traveled to all 50 states so I may yet find more places that tug at my heart but these three come to mind as places where I can sit for weeks without feeling the urge to move on. Will there be more? Undoubtedly. Will we settle down? Not for a while.

What place tugs at your heart?

Moments at Myrtle Beach

Our time here at the beach has passed so quickly. We gather nightly to share drinks, food and stories with a group of six to nine people, sometimes around the campfire, sometimes at a restaurant, sometimes at a bar. We come from different backgrounds, different occupations, different countries, but it doesn't matter. We're on the beach, we travel in RVs, and we're friends. It doesn't get any better than that.

An Update

SkippyMom mentioned she needed an update on the Happy Hour menu for tonight. Tonight a group of 8 of us will be going to the Liberty Steakhouse to partake of their BOGOF offer on entrees. So I'm not sure what the drink of the day will be until we see their menu.

In the meantime, over the past two weeks we've had: Calypso Margaritas, Blue Moon Margaritas, Blue Chouters, frozen margaritas, Mojitos, Amaretto Sours, Jellyfish Shooters, Cabernet Savignon, Bourbon and 7, beer (for the guys)Drunken Arnies, Palisades, Tequila Sunrises, Beachy Keens and Cosmopolitans. I'm sure Vicki will remind me of any I have missed; we've repeated the Amaretto Sours a couple of times. I have to come up with a new one for tomorrow since another couple will be arriving tonight to join the crowd. Plus a new hors d'oeuvres to go with it.

Hmmmm. I think perhaps some Honolulu Hammers might hit the spot.

I Don't Normally Do These

These survey/questionnaire thingies, that is. But because I'm sitting here with a cat on my lap and can't get up to refresh my cup of coffee, here goes.

1. Where is your cell phone? Umm, in my purse? I need a tether for it.
2. Your hair? Bedhead spiky at the moment.
3. Your mother? Lost her this spring, carry her in my heart.
4. Your father? Deceased
5. Your favorite food? In which food group category? There are so many!
6. Your dream last night? No clue.
7. Your favorite drink? Whatever is up for our Happy Hour group for that night.
8. Your goal? No regrets.
9. What room are you in? Office/living room/dining room/kitchen. It's an RV, remember?
10. Your hobby? Making jewelry.
11. Your fear? Falling.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Still on the road, healthy and having fun.
13. Where were you last night? Scatori's for subs (aka heros or hoagies, depending on where you are from)
14. Something you aren't? A math wiz
15. Muffins? Pistachio from Lowe's Foods
16. Wish list item? To go back to Hawaii some day.
17. Where did you grow up? Ohio
18. Last thing you did? Watched the sun rise.
19. What are you wearing? A fuzzy bathrobe.
20. Your TV? Off.
21. Your pets? The evil Miss Patches Mae.
22. Your friends? Close by.
23. Your life? Pretty darn good at the moment.
24. Your mood? Laid back.
25. Missing someone? Oh yeah.
26. Vehicle? One
27. Something you're not wearing? Makeup.
28. Your favorite store? Any place with diamonds.
29. Your favorite color? Depends on my mood.
30. When was the last time you laughed? Last night.
31. Last time you cried? Hard? In March. Watery-eyed? At least every other day.
32. Your best friend? Big D.
33. One place that I go over and over? Myrtle Beach.
34. One person who emails me regularly? Vic.
35. Favorite place to eat? Santino's Pizzeria, Clermont, FL

And that is that.

2009 Heart Ride on the Beach

Mea culpa, mea culpa. Yesterday we spent much of the day with friends and I lost track of which day it was, so I missed the parade and costume contest for the annual Heart Ride on the Beach. Today it was miserable with a misty rain and fog, which muted the colors of the horses and riders so I didn't take even 1/3 the photographs that I did last year. Those pictures that I did take you can find on Webshots here. If that doesn't work, look for tags of horses, or heart ride on the beach or albums by vagabrauns. I'm currently working on uploading photos and they should all be online by tomorrow evening.

This evening was Halloween at the campground; our group of five rigs full of campers had happy hour together and we gathered at one site with our bags of candy for the campground "beggers" to visit. It would have been better if they had come earlier so we could have seen them; by the time they got to our location it was pitch black and we couldn't appreciate their costumes. But we had fun and the kids made out like bandits with the candy so everyone was happy.

Highlights of a Day on the Beach

Horse owners from all over the eastern part of the U.S and some from Canada have arrived at Lakewood Campground in Myrtle Beach for the annual Heart Ride on the Beach. The campground donates the camping fees to the American Heart Association and the riders pay a fee to attend which is also donated, along with any donations they collect for riding the ten miles up the beach on Saturday. Horses and riders of every shape, color, breed and form are here and it's fun to just haul a lawn chair to the beach to sit and watch the riders pass by.

Notice how this pretty fellow posed for me?


Look closely to see the Jack Russell terrier riding on the back of the second horse.


Some people walk their dogs when they ride, others walk their ponies.

It appears this young lady's mount is a small mule, the first I've ever seen.

Horses can be like dogs; they like to roll on their back in the sand. Which can be unfortunate for the rider on its back.

When a rider is thrown (her horse was the one that rolled above) other riders gather 'round to make sure both the rider and horse are okay and will stand by until the rider is mounted once again.

A blue-eyed beauty.

It looks like the horse is puzzled by the fishermen, doesn't it?

Beach Weather

Yes indeed, we've been having beach weather here and it's been wonderful. Denny and I are backed up to Don and Vicki's site so that we both have a view of the ocean from our living area windows. Mornings I'm up early enough to watch for a good sunrise and will call Vicki if I think the view will be worth her getting up that early (at her request, of course). We walk the beach, looking for shark's teeth and beach glass, spend a little time apart in the afternoon (okay, Denny and I take a nap) and then we meet up again for happy hour and dinner either at one of our trailers or out somewhere. So far, Denny and I fit in a round of golf with former work friends who were visiting in North Myrtle Beach, we've shopped, gotten hair cuts, done some maintenance on the trailer and spent an afternoon at the big outdoor flea market buying bits of jewelry, luxurious shea butter body cream, "magic" shammies and whatever strikes our fancy. In a way, when we come down here we're "on vacation"; we spend much more money on our campsite and shopping and dining out than we normally do. Patches begs to go for walks every half hour because of all the wonderful smells here, which includes those of feral cats that live here.

While the majority of people here are in the senior age bracket, there are some young families camping so you don't feel like you're living in a world of "blue hairs", something that is common in Florida and Arizona in the winter. Folks have been friendly and we've enjoyed our week so far. And the best part is that there's still three more weeks here to enjoy. Yes!!!

Speaking of Happy Hour, I never showed off Denny's liquor cabinet that he created when we pulled out our old TV and replaced it with a new flat screen TV which left a large empty space. Voila'...a place for the liquor bottles and wine glasses. The socks are on the glasses to keep them from chinking against each other when we are traveling.

Vicki is the ultimate hostess; our libations are not only tasty they are served in a tasteful and decorative manner. Me, I just plunk them down with a bowl of chips and dip. 'Cuz I'm classy like that.

Our first nice day on the beach we walked the mile distance up to the state park fishing pier because they have really good ice cream there. So we treat ourselves to a double dip and hope we walk off some of the calories on the mile-long walk back to our trailer.

That's the south end of Myrtle Beach in the distance as we are approaching the state park pier. If you stay in the area in September, you may catch the baby sea turtles hatching and working their way to the sea from their nests at the edge of the beach at the state park. There is also a pair of nesting bald eagles that have made a home in the park in the last few years.

You don't need Photosh*p or any picture tweaking software here. Even on mornings when there aren't a lot of clouds the sky turns a beautiful peachy-pink just before the sun rises above the horizon.

When we first started staying here in MB, there were very few sea oats and native plants along the beach at the campgrounds and there was always a lot of erosion. Now the businesses have worked very hard at creating dunes with native plants to hold the sand in place, which also makes for nice photo ops.

There are normally only a handful of people on the beach for the sunrise, which is a shame because the weather has been cool but not cold in the mornings and the tide has been out so you can look for sharks' teeth while awaiting the sun.

The sun sets over the campground and so motorhomes and trailers are always in the shot so I just did a picture of the clouds for this sunset photo. I'll have to do better for the next sunset photo I post.