Myrtle Beach - Day 6

Today was a movie day and it wasn't even bad weather.  We watched two movies in the morning, just sort of got hooked into them, one after the other.

• House of D - David Duchovny & Tea Leoni
• Sister Mary Explains it All - Diane Keaton

and at night it was a Katherine Heigl double feature

• Knocked up
• The Ugly Truth

I think it was just a break from attending all the planned activities during the week.
Of course we did our daily walk on the beach.  The Saturday beach crowd was out full force and there were even 2 people in the water.  It was even warm enough for me to go barefoot.  And of course we went in the hottub and were going to try the pool again so I could document it but by the time we went it was too cold for me.

On our first walk on the beach my natural instinct was to bend down and pick up shells.  Then I remembered I wasn't going to collect shells this trip since I still had shells in a bag at home.  OK - I didn pocket 6 of them and then today I added 3 more - oh well!  Lucky for me there weren't many shells this year.

Then we packed and ate our leftover restaurant food.  It was a mellow day as we got ready for our trip down to Hilton Head with a stop at Wadmalaw to see Jacqui and the new house.  Gerry has an early flight tomorrow.

Myrtle Beach - Day 5

This morning it was warmer at home than here but that was at 7:20 AM!

Later in the afternoon it was a different story.

Today was a real lazy day.  We didn't go to water aerobics, in fact we never left the room until after noon.  I worked on updating my blog and Larry read.

We went out for a walk on the beach around 1:00. and it was still windy as you can see from the flags on this house along the beach

but it was sunny and a lot warmer than it's been all week.  What was surprising was how the birdlife changed.  Instead of all the pelicans there were some other birds.

The tide wasn't low enough for us to walk down to the dock that we were trying to get to, maybe tomorrow.  There were more people out on the beach today

 and it was the first time we saw an advertising plane.  Probably because of the high winds or because there weren't any people on the beach to see what he was selling.

but heading back the beach looked deserted again.

We went back to our room to try and decide where to go for dinner.  After an hour we decided to either go to Tommy Bahamas or Nacho Hippo both of which are located in Market Commons which is our favorite area in Myrtle Beach with its cobbled streets, upscale stores, good restaurants and a nice Piggly Wiggly.  We had a hotel voucher to use so we were limitied as to where to eat.  After finally making the decision we decided to go down to the outdoor hottub.  It was beautiful out, it felt a lot warmer than when we went upstairs.  After being in the hottub and absorbing all that warmth we took the plunge in the Serenity Pool which had just opened this past week.  The only problem was could we take the walk over and back and survive.  Well, we did it and with no problem.  The temperature had gotten even warmer, it felt like it was in the 70s and sure enough, when we checked it was 72.

           (These pictures were taken before our trip down to the hottub.  I didn't take my camera
             or phone with me down that time so I have no proof of our actually being in the pool.)

When we got to Market Commons we walked all around the area enjoying the summer like weather for the first, and according to the forecast, the only day of our vacation. We walked by Tommy Bahama and it looked empty, although the restaurant next door was doing well with a lot of people sitting outside.  We eventually walked our way around to Nacho Hippo.  We went in and started with Margaritas, which were only and always $3 and made us think of Mexico.  We were going to start with the *!#(Bleep) Hole Nachos - Jerk chicken, mango salsa, shredded cheese, black beans, cilantro and then have a Quesadilla but the very smart waiter suggested he just start us with the nachos.  When we saw the size of the serving we could understand his suggestion. 

We took back half of it, although we did have seconds on the Margaritas.

We walked around some more and saw a beautiful sunset.  From our resort we've only been seeing the sunrises.

These are now our two favorite restaurants in Market Commons.

Myrtle Beach - Day 4

This morning we went to water aerobics and it was "Fun Day."  It was Larry and the girls.  We split into two teams and did a bunch of different relay races, all running time back and forth - none swimming which would have been easier.  Then there were the individual ones like gathering rings from the bottom of the pool using feet only or ping pong balls from the surface without using your hands.

There was only one winner and it was Larry!  An insulated bag including an energy bar and a bottle of water.

He did distinguish himself by being the only man.  All week Harry was there, even when we weren't.  He'll be sorry he missed this one.

After a warm up in the hot tub we had to get ready to play golf.  We went to Waterway Hills which was a couple of miles down the road.  The first time my golf clubs rode on a gondola with me and not skiis.  The ride took us from Route 17 over the Intercoastal Waterway to the golf course.  I was able to play (and get charged for) 9 while Larry played 18.

 Here you can see that the gondola goes over the parking lot and the intercoastal.

 Since we didn't have an event to go to we had our own Happy Hour in the room and then when we were thinking about what to have for dinner I was of course too full.  We had vouchers that we could use at restaurants so we decided to pick one that had something healthy (salad) and something that would be good for leftovers.  We found the perfect place.

We got a salad and the "LITE WORKS" pizza.  Rosemary whole wheat crust, Ultimate Red Sauce, low fat mozzarella, roasted chicken, red onions, mushrooms, roasted red peppers & sweet golden pineapple.  It turned out to be good and we brought more than half of it back with us.

Myrtle Beach - Day 3

I couldn't believe that it was warmer in NH this morning, where Nadine lives, than in Myrtle Beach.

Somehow or other, I haven't cooked a meal yet!  Can't say that we've been eating great dinners, but with wine receptions and tonight we had wine tasting we just aren't hungry for much more after that.

We managed to be pretty busy today just hanging out around here.  I never did make it to the exercise class.  It was just too cold to go out so early and walk over to the building where it was being held.  But we did go down to water aerobics which is held at the indoor pool in the building next to ours.
It turned out to be water yoga which was too much standing around and not enough motion so that even though the water temp was 85 it felt much better getting into the hottub at 103 after we were done.

I wanted to go in the steam room but the ladies locker room had been cleaned and it was shut off.  I didn't want to wait for it to warm up so I went back to the room to eat breakfast and watch The View.

We decided to take a walk on the beach, but on our way we decided to have a putting contest at the putting green.  We went to the car, grabbed our putters and balls and on the way stopped at the basketball court when we saw 2 balls on the court and the court was in the sun.

 Larry's shot is going right in the basket!

And mine probably did too but I was more impressed by how thin I look in this picture!
After shooting lots of baskets and getting nice and warm we moved on to the putting area.

 And then finally the walk on the beach.

 At the other end of these little islands is the area where you need to cross barefooted - at low tide.  Needless to say, this was not a barefoot day.  More like sweaters, jackets and sneakers.

Looks like Larry is the only one on the beach!

When we came back it was so warm we decided to go to the outdoor hottub which was so nice and I didn't even feel cold walking back to our building with just a towel around me.

At 5:00 we had wine tasting and then back to our rooms.  Two glasses of wine (or more) make me so tired.

Myrtle Beach - Day 2

This morning it was really cold, only in the 40s but we still had sun and no rain.  We had our owner update this morning where we learned more about the Destination program in which we graciously declined to increase our ownership.  But then the third person we saw offered us a deal we couldn't refuse.  A week at the resort, a cruise and 45K points.  What a deal!!

We took another walk on the beach in the afternoon going south this time.  The pools on the way to the beach were deserted.

The beach was pretty deserted too.

It was cloudy when we started out and the wind was coming right at us.  Coming back the sun came out and all of a sudden we were really warm.  Not too much of a need for beach toys this week.

At 4:00 was the owners cocktail party and we met one of the couples from last night's newlywed game and enjoyed talking to them.

Back at the room we ate something and Larry took a quick nap.  (I won't post that picture - just like I didn't post the one from the other night when he nodded off.)

Tomorrow my plan is to go to "Morning Stretch with a twist of Yoga"  and then to pool Aerobics.  We'll see how good I do.

Myrtle Beach - Day 1

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise as we watched the horrors of Sandy on TV.
While they were talking about evacuations it wasn't at all surprising that Greta needed to evacuate.

I knew Aunt Harrie was in Zone C, but gave her a call to make sure she was doing OK.  She assured me she was fine.  Friends got her fresh batteries and her cupboards were stocked.

There was a beautiful sunrise, even though it was cold.

We took a walk along the beach after the tide went out and saw a lot of washed ashore horseshoe crabs and my favorite pelicans.

Later on we went to the Tanger Outlet Mall on Rt 17.  The two stores we wanted to go to was the Timex store for Larry and the Naturalizer store for me.  Neither one was there anymore.

On our way back we stopped at Subway for a sandwich, we got their new Tuscan chicken melt.  We had a sliver taste of it but weren't hungry enough to eat it.  At 7:00 we went to the Not So Newlywed Game planning on being part of the audience since you had to call by 2:00 if you wanted to be a contestant.  We had no desire to be contestants so we just showed up.  As it turned out, they didn't have enough contestants so we became them.  We had a lot of fun playing with the two other couples that showed up.  One guy and his two daughters were the audience.  It was a very tame version compared to the ones we've seen on cruise ships.  We played a second game but lost in both.  Larry knew better than I that my answer for favorite non alcoholic beverage should have been coffee but I said Fresca.  And he shoud have known that my favorite food was ice cream. not oatmeal, even though I eat it every morning.

Leaving Virginia

We got on the road before 9:00 and should be in Myrtle Beach around 3:00. According to the weather forecast we shouldn't have any rain from Sandy but 3 days of winds.

This pumpkin was a decoration at breakfast this morning.

On the drive down we saw so many Davey Tree trucks as well as other tree companies heading north a well as warning signs about the storm but we never ran into anything.

Unlike last year, after we got into our room we headed to the grocery store for some breakfast things since we had our leftovers from the night before for dinner. 

While the storm was heading north, we guiltily enjoyed a sunset.