Later ’Gator – Huntington Beach State Park, Murrell’s Inlet, SC [November 30 – December 2, 2015]

We first visited Huntington Beach State Park in April 2014, and loved it so much that we decided to return for another visit after we left our rental house in Surfside Beach, just 10 miles away.  Huntington Beach State Park was originally the home of Archer Huntington, scholar and philanthropist, and his sculptor wife Anna Hyatt Huntington.  They loved nature and built their house Atalaya based upon Moorish designs on the large and secluded estate.  They created a fresh water pond, where alligators and other fresh water animals thrive, near to the salt water marsh that separates the island from the mainland.  In fact, you can observe the animals in both bodies of water along a causeway that separates the two.

We took a 2 mile bicycle ride around the freshwater pond and got to watch an alligator moving around, and a baby alligator basking on a small island.  Interestingly in both cases, birds swam or waded near to them.  Signage around the pond stated that the wading birds nested near the 'gators because their neighbors ate potential predators.  Both the pond and the marsh had gorgeous vantage points for photographing wildlife.

We also visited Atalaya, the Huntington home.  The home is empty now but the story behind it was fascinating.  It was built during the Depression, and the Huntington’s hired local workers for the construction providing employment for many families in the area.  The house is eccentric yet casual and unpretentious.  We were happy to see that there is a designated oyster room set aside for shucking oysters and processing other seafood.  Interestingly, Anna Hyatt Huntington sculpted animals, and so kept a menagerie of bears, dogs, horses and other animals for her to observe in life.  The audio tour was fascinating and worth the extra $4.

And, of course, the park has a gorgeous, wide, 3-mile long, white sand beach.  We didn't do everything we hoped to do, so we will just have to return!

Thanksgiving in Surfside Beach SC [November 22-30, 2015]

Surfside Beach SC is a lovely community and beach town located south of Myrtle Beach and north of Charleston.  It has a lovely beach that is narrow at high tide and spacious at low tide, and a nice pier.  There was a full moon while we were there, and so we saw very high King Tides on several nights. 

The houses along the beach vary from older one story beach houses to cracker box identical newly built beach homes.  However, we did not see anything like the enormous beach villas that you can find at OBX.  Away from the shoreline, the homes look more like houses you would find in any neighborhood in any town.  The town has several small lakes that collect rain water and drain by way of canals to the ocean.  You use bridges to cross the canals as you walk along the beach.

We found Surfside when we were looking for a more southern beach location for our annual Thanksgiving beach house vacation.  Coincidentally, our neighbors own a home there as well and were able to direct us to the grocery store and seafood market – Fishmongers.  The house we rented was 2 blocks from the pier.  It was different for us to be staying “downtown” with a handful of shops, restaurants and bars within walking distance.  We had a good lunch at Bubba’s Fish Shack – Russ had an oyster po-boy, Dana had Carolina BBQ.

Our house was an older beach house with a huge central room, and spacious bedrooms crammed full of multiple beds.  It has a porch overlooking the beach with comfy rockers for sitting and enjoying the parade of beach walkers.  Our view included daily gorgeous sunrises.

The weather was glorious with temperatures each day reaching the mid-70’s.  We were joined by Leslie, Natalie and Daisy (their dog) for the long holiday weekend.  Together, we spent many sun-drenched hours walking on the beach, playing with the dogs, or just reading a good book on the beach.  We also cooked and ate a delicious Thanksgiving dinner, fished, swam, played cards and completed a jig saw puzzle.  A wonderful beach Thanksgiving vacation.

Headin’ to Carolina – Emerald Isle and the Southern North Carolina Coast [November 20-22, 2015]

Shrimper followed by gulls at sunset

Over the years, we’ve enjoyed and explored the Outer Banks of North Carolina numerous times, but we’ve never spent time on the NC coast south of OBX.  We were going to South Carolina for Thanksgiving, so decided to leave a few days early and see what we’ve been missing.  It really is a lovely area, and worth a “look-see”.

Our first stop along the Crystal Coast “North Carolina’s Southern Outer Banks” was Cedar Island, where the Ocracoke Ferry lands on the mainland.  The Ferry terminal is at the end of a narrow, windy, residential road.  From there we wound our way southward through tiny towns and larger burgs like Beaufort and Morehead City.  This is also the location of Cape Lookout National Seashore, which we didn’t visit, but will certainly come back to see.

Just south of Morehead City is a long barrier island called Bogue Banks, that runs almost due east and west.  The western most town on the island is Emerald Isle.  Emerald Isle was developed in the 1950s when a bridge was built connecting that part of the island with the mainland.  Its name comes from the striking green of the maritime forests present on the island at the time.

We stayed in the Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort, an immaculate campground that stretches from the central Coast Guard Road all the way to the beautiful white sand beach.  Our campsite was at the top of a hill (in generally flat coastal Carolina, no less) with an unobstructed view of the ocean over the top of the protective dune system.  Since the beach runs east and w
est, you have a beautiful view of both sunrise and sunset over the water each day.

On the first day of our stay, we bicycled along a bike path that runs through the town to the town pier.  It was a Saturday so the pier was full of fishermen.  It gave us a great view of the coastline.  Emerald Isle has quite a few mobile home parks.  Many of the neighborhoods have older mobile homes that are being torn down to build lovely beach homes.  The town is really in transition.  We stopped at Willis Seafood Market for fish and oysters to cook at home, and ChowdaHeads for clam chowder.  About a block from home we stopped at a shrimp stand by the side of the road for locally caught shrimp, sold to us by a culinary school graduate who described several ways for us to cook the shrimp.We certainly eat well when we are on the road!

We had rain on the second day, so stayed inside and read and watched football on TV.  During gaps between squalls, we walked to the beach.  It was a nice, restful day.

On Monday, we headed south leaving the Crystal Coast.  Our first stop was Surf City, NC.  The houses here are built very close together with steep staircases over the dunes to the sand beach.  We were surprised that the houses had been built right on top of the dunes.  From there we went to Oak Island and the genteel town of Caswell Beach, near Cape Fear.