Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Myrtle Beach Vacation....Part I

Day three of the Myrtle Beach vacation '12 finally has brought rain. Listening to all of the breathless weathermen down here for the past several days, we half expected to see an ark floating down the street with downed power lines,cows flying by and martial law having to be declared. But alas, tropical storm/depression/really annoying storm Beryl was mostly a nighttime event that featured brisk winds  and some heavy downpours. Now that the sun is up, the rain has stopped, the wind is dying down and I think I see some blue sky south and west of here. In other words we have lost approximately ..um, er..zero hours of beach time. Oh wait, there were horrible RIP-TIDES. How could I forget the "potentially deadly" rip-tides? Meteorologists are great...weather geeks who get paid to bloviate hysterically every time an upper level disturbance hints at being formed.

So far we're having a blast. The weather has been great, the condo is perfect, and since it's still the month of May, Myrtle Beach is not yet crowded. We can actually drive down King's highway in the middle lane at 40 mph! Last night we pretended that it was Patrick's birthday since we missed his actual birthday a few days ago. Pam fixed him his favorite meal. The main course consisted of a colorful frying pan full of onions, yellow, orange and red bell peppers, stir-fried to the perfect tenderness, mixed with sliced and fried polska kielbasa and some other kind of smoked sausage. Along with this heavenly concoction, there were baked cinnamon apples, and home-made macaroni and cheese. To wash all of this down, Patrick had taken it upon himself to buy a ridiculously priced bottle of some Italian red wine he had discovered on his trip there last year. We all agreed that red wine tastes  like cough medicine no matter what country it's from, but he insisted that we all try it. He even served it totally by the book...only slightly chilled, waiting 15 full minutes after opening the bottle before it's poured etc..etc..I felt like those sherry-sipping Crane boys, Niles and Frazier! But, I must admit, it was excellent. Once again, I've had my sights raised by one of my supremely refined and educated children.

Today the plan is to head out to the Golden Griddle for breakfast. There will be no wine glasses anywhere to be found at GG. The only thing you'll have to wait 15 minutes for is a table. An ample-bossomed middle-age woman named Gladys will wait on us. She will refer to me as either "Honey" or "Darlin'", and we will be served three pancakes slathered in butter and maple syrup. The bacon will be the thick, smokey kind that one imagines was served on cattle-drives out west in the 1880's. The coffee will be thick and strong. There will be no  granola -yogurt- parfait- fruit cup nonsense going on here. Gladys will see to it that we don't leave hungry, and she will hand out coupons as we leave for "25% off your first by-pass operation".

After this late breakfast, despite meteorological guarantees that the entire day would be a washout, the sun will probably be shining. We will head down to what seems like our private beach to work off this 1,000 calorie meal by sitting in beach chairs for several hours. Then it will be back to the condo for showers and then out to dinner then we have front row balcony seats for the variety show at the Alabama Theatre. There are worse ways to spend a day.

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