Hunting the perfect shrimp… (SC NC SC)

Rain basically all day, growing harder at night. To clarify, the temperature drops but is still probably in the mid-70s, so it feels warm and very humid even when not raining.

Ed and Susan drove on this free day, this time to Calabash, a small coastal town just across the border into North Carolina. Calabash is famous for its shrimp, supposedly wild rather than ranched. We tested it at Ellas and found it to be superb, particularly fried; the sautéed shrimp (my order) less so. (Incidentally, so far on this trip we have always been given the choice of sweetened or unsweetened iced tea. At Ellas we were served large glasses of excellent iced tea, with a full pitcher for refills.)

Although it wasn’t raining hard, the power went out while we were eating causing us no problem, other than the minor one of having to pay with cash on leaving. Traffic lights were also out but eventually we wound our way around some back roads and took the freeway to Conway, an old county seat in inland South Carolina. The lady in the visitor center over-oriented us and we set out on a river-front walk in a light drizzle, checked out the old courthouse, a cemetery, and a couple art galleries. A nice old town with an interesting river front. It might have been fun to take the river tour.

Suck whaaat??? Myrlte Beach retail... (SC)

California fires...

Marcia hears the good news that at least as of today everybody we know in California is doing OK with the wildfires. We certainly hope that continues to be the case.

Pawleys Island, GAM#6, adult ’smores… (SC)

This was a free day, the morning taken up with Marcia doing laundry and my trying to get our WiFi to work at the campground coffee shop (1 hour free with purchase, no success).

In the afternoon we drove south a half-hour to Pawleys Island. Planters had summer homes here to escape the threat of malaria. It is now a strip of relatively modest cottages, a few dating to just prior to the Civil War. The island is a couple miles long and 100 yards to a quarter mile wide, ocean on one long side and marsh land on the other. Closely spaced wooden piers extend into the marsh, most ending in a small gazebo. Canoes or other flat bottomed boats hang from davits. Some gazebos are topped by egrets intently watching the marsh; others with fake owls, intently watching nothing. The tide is very low and no one is around, other than clusters of fishermen on the bridge connecting the island and mainland.

On the ocean side the beach is very shallow with probably a hundred yards difference between high and low tides. People are walking about enjoying the comfortable temperatures, some collecting seashells.

Pawleys Island looks like a delightful place to spend a do-nothing short vacation.

We had our final GAM tonight, organized by Marcia to cover the people missed in GAMs 1-5. Tonight we had Ed and Susan, he retired from the US Forest Service, and she from the schools. They live in Sonora (the only other Californians on the caravan) but had not previously done much camping. Then there is Ralph, who worked for several large industrial companies and is now retired, as is his wife Sylvia, an RN; they travel maybe 7-8 months a year, on their own and connecting with caravans when they can. Fred and Searcy are retired and also travel fulltime, although they each own houses in Texas; they and their spouses knew each other at least fifty years, and Fred and Searcy married about five years ago when their spouses died. Finally we have Jean who used to own a trucking company but has been full-timing for many years. His wife died and he recently met Carolyn, a widow of an Airstreamer, and they are now traveling together. Jean wears funny hats and cowboy shirts with souvenir-covered suspenders and polyester pants; although from New Jersey, earlier in the trip he would play Dixie across his CB PA each morning and evening. That has stopped, but he is now wearing a Confederate hat. This is Jean's second time on this caravan, and he plans to go again next year. Jean is always in good cheer.

After the GAM we all adjourned to a campfire social and made ‘smores. For dinner I had four, Marcia two. Airstreamers don’t usually do campfires. It was good to smell the smoke and eat the ‘smores as it reminded me of our years of camping with Andrew and Kevin and Brian and Erika. All it needed (aside from people under sixty) was a ghost story from John.

Carolina Opry - Take me H-o-o-o-m-e … (SC)

The group went to the Carolina Opry, a 1000-person theater. This is one of maybe a half-dozen theaters featuring tribute groups and country music with a bit of modern electronic flash.

The Carolina Opry had (1) a piano player comedian from England with kind of a tamed down Liberace act; (2) four whites in ghetto clothes doing a dance derivative of Stomp (which I also didn’t like); (3) a white woman belting out her best Aretha Franklin or maybe Tina Turner; (4) a mulleted singer looking at least 50 pounds heavier than his picture in the program; (5) a couple comedians that were actually pretty good if a bit corny; (6) the same comedians doing a total rip-off of the Abbot & Costello “who’s on first” routine; (7) a comedic country singing group called, I’ll admit amusingly, Run GMC; (8) a black guy singing a good black guy song of some sort with electronic assistance; (9) an emcee that also sang and acted as straight-man for the comedians; and (10) a large bloodhound that scratched and licked appropriately.

The program ended with a couple patriotic songs which brought everyone to their feet, and the firing of a confetti cannon.

Counting on stage and what I could see of the audience, there were three blacks.

At intermission several groups were acknowledged, including our group and lot of church groups, mostly Baptist.

The Carolina Opry is a Calvin Gilmore presentation, they never cease to remind you. His name and picture are everywhere, including in several puff pieces in the program. He is listed as producer and director and in the cast as “Vocals, Guitar”; the cast members are listed in the program alphabetically, formatted so that his name is at the top of the center column, and the center column is raised just a tad above the other columns. (As far as we know, Calvin was not here tonight. Probably at the bank.)

It was raining as we left. Since I drove it became my responsibility to get the truck and pick up Marcia and Ed and Susan. By the time I got back to the front of the theater, it was just pouring, and it poured most of the way to our camp.

Our trailer was a mess. The tiny bathroom fan was open and the WC area was soaked (my fault, Marcia warned me it leaks.) And during yesterday’s strong winds I manually closed the Fantastic Fan about half way, apparently disabling the rain sensor; Marcia’s art supplies and many paper items were soaked. The humidity makes it difficult to ever get things dry. The only good news: I closed the awning during the afternoon, so it was not damaged.

Brookgreen Zoo (SC)

This was taken in macro mode. The little guy is really only about 3 inches long.

The cattle in the background are supposedly descended from plantation-era stock, unaltered by modern breeding techniques.

Brookgreen Gardens sculptures (SC)

The collection is limited to sculptures by native born or naturalized United States citizens.

The sculpture at the top-left was by Anna Hyatt Huntington, the others here were not.