Who would have thought there could be too many beaches? As were walking the last day the thought came to both of us: another long, wide, flat beach: another long wooden pier: another damp, blustery day. Our thoughts were more generous when it wasn’t grey or rainy. They are beautiful beaches.
My first impression of Myrtle Beach was that it was a tacky tourist haven. My tastes definitely are more about quiet places with subdued colour schemes.
The State Park was quite good. It was just located in the midst of the wild family entertainment stretch heading north to towards the town. It was treed, bucolic and had good services and staff undergoing training for the coming season. Once we were in the park, it seemed quite removed from the other establishments along the highway. It was also under the flight path for the airport.
Once I got out riding, my opinion improved. Like all the stretches of beaches, it is geared towards tourist and retirement living and there are lovely areas with amazingly new and refreshed builds to choose from. We saw a lot of construction and renovation activity, perhaps due to constant storm damage. It is a little more crowded than some of the other areas and I think all of the Gulf Coast tourist spots could do with more consideration for cyclists. Even the true geriatrics (that’s not us, yet) are carrying bicycles these days.
This is golfing country. We played my style of golf, a nice little par 3 one day, but were unable to get a tee time on the best day, so the driving range sufficed. I may need some refresher lessons from Brent next year.
We found some good places to eat when we couldn’t be bothered cooking. One bagel shop was attractive enough that we went back two days in a row. On our last night we decided to have dinner at a restaurant somewhat removed form the tourist areas and went inland to a newer oyster focused neighborhood boutique. Grilled oysters are now my favourite preparation and we had a Viet Cajun Fish Boil that I would like to emulate once we’re back home.
We really enjoyed the off-interstate route we took up towards Charlotte. Of all the places we have been so far on this trip, this is the first time I’ve really liked the countryside. I’ll speak more about that in the next post.