This past Labor Day Josh and I decided to take a trip south to Myrtle Beach, SC. While we researched and tried to find someplace to go that we would both enjoy that wouldn’t take a lot of money and we wouldn’t have to drive, the prices of some of these places were just crazy!!! So we decided to go to Myrtle Beach since neither of us had ever been there before… and drive!!!

With Myrtle Beach being a lovely 10 (plus) hours away, we decided to leave work Wednesday and drive about 1/2 way leaving the remainder of the trip for Thursday morning ((Oh yeah we took Thursday and Friday off from work, well I did, Josh put his final day in at AEC on Wednesday and didn’t start his new job until Tuesday after Labor Day)). This worked out rather well, but we did manage to get stuck in Philly traffic on 76 even with waiting a good hour plus before starting out on our journey! Once on 95 we had pretty smooth travels all the way through Richmond VA, where we stopped for the night.

We stayed at a Fairfield Inn on the southern side of Richmond. Pulling off for the night at about 11pm, we were told by the lovely front desk clerk that she had 1 room left and it was going to be $135.00 for the night. Not having much of a choice, unless we wanted to spend time hotel hopping to find the cheapest rate, we decided to take the room. Entering our room we noticed we had the Fairfield Suite, meaning the room had a sunken jacuzzi tub, not bad – maybe worth the money, but there was water on the bottom of it from someone else!!! YUCK! While we could complain we didn’t ((besides where would they have put us they were 100% occupied, hence the $135.00 we paid)) and just passed by the waterlogged tub looking the opposite direction every time! After getting a good nights sleep, we had a quick breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which by the way was just across the parking lot from the hotel, and got back on the road for the 2nd half of our trip.
 
Our drive on Thursday wasn’t bad, honestly it went rather well and rather quick. Parts of 95 were long and very barren with not much to look at, but we had the company of each other and the entertainment of “musical radio” ((flipping through all the radio stations finding something of interest to listen to)) to keep us occupied for most of the trip.
 
Arriving in Myrtle Beach at our hotel/resort, Breakers, we checked in and decided to go to our room figuring we’d take our luggage up a little later. Good thing we decided to do that for the elevator was stuck on the 7th floor. The thing about Breakers is they had 3 or 4 buildings, the building we were in was the oldest of the buildings having only 1 elevator. We had booked one of their two Roof Top Terrace rooms so we had to go up to the 7th floor. The room was nice and the roof top terrace was a plus for you could look out at the ocean but didn’t have to be bothered with sand, water, or other people. It was a private ocean front spot for the two of us!
 
While not trying to complain or down our trip, Josh and I were both disappointed in the fact that you had to drive everywhere worth seeing. Walking wasn’t a real option unless you wanted to go somewhere really close, which to us was just other hotels, a Starbucks, an Ice Cream shop, an Italian restaurant, a convienience store, and a couple restaurants/bars. Not knowing this at first, Josh and I ventured out to find something to eat. We walked a few blocks one direction, then a few blocks another direction, coming to the main street in Downtown Myrtle Beach, we still hadn’t come across any places to eat. There was a grocery store which had a catchy name of Piggly Wiggly, but we passed that by. We did pass a few seafood restaurants, but they only open for dinner, so we didn’t luck out with those as options. By this time Josh and I were both drenched, yes literally drenched, from perspiration it was that hot and humid outside.  We turned back down the street towards our hotel and decided to try out one of the small yet very cute eateries that had outdoor and indoor seating. We chose to eat indoors!!!
 
Not wanting to go into our daily log of events ((did that with our Vegas post and that was a nightmare to write – not doing that again)), I am just going to give a brief overview of some of the things we did while in Myrtle Beach. With the weather not really working in our favor, Friday we went to North Myrtle Beach and took some time walking around a cute area known as Barefoot Landing. This was really fun and neat, it consisted of shops, restaurants, & things for kids to do, all along a boardwalk and over a manmade lake. One of Josh’s favorite moments I think was taking pictures of these cute baby birds that were on the lake. We bought pellets to feed to them and it was so cute seeing the mommy and daddy birds retrieve the food and take it back to feed the baby birds. We did manage to get some pictures of this so you’ll have to check them out, once in the photo album. We had lunch at Johnny Rockets, which I felt wasn’t all that great, however I think that was do to the service we received, no one seemed to be from the planet earth who worked there. So I’ll let that experience go and if presented with a chance to try another Johnny Rockets I’ll try again. 😉 Another food highlight or maybe lowlight was at the Italian restaurant across the street from our hotel. We had gone to Happy Hour at the bar/restaurant located next to our resort and had a fun time listening to a band and sitting out by the water. After about 4 beers though we decided we’d stay local for dinner and went to the Italian restaurant. We were greeted by a man who just seem disgruntled and wasn’t happy with being at work, so it seemed. He reluctantly seated us and returned to take our drink order, but wasn’t very savvy with his customer service skills. Josh tried to joke around with the guy telling him to order a drink on us, he didn’t find it humorous at all and said he doesn’t need a drink. The evening continued by waiting for over 20 minutes for our drinks, not that difficult when a glass of wine and a Captain and Diet Coke are the drinks that were ordered….. When our drinks finally arrived we ended up each with an extra glass ((two glasses of wine and two glasses of Captain and Diet Coke)). Hey we weren’t going to complain, although with the amount of beer we had earlier I couldn’t get through the second glass of wine! Our food arrived and wasn’t all that bad, but dessert was much better! In the middle of the night I woke up sick and ended up throwing up in the bathroom ((A not from drinking too much, Mother!))…. 🙁
 
Broadway at the Beach is unique but quite similar to Barefoot Landing, we did decide to go though with the weather being non beach-like again on Saturday. Broadway at the Beach seemed to be a bit newer than Barefoot Landing, but very similar with some of the same shops. Tons of restaurants to choose from and even a Johnny Rockets. We went to lunch at Senior Frogs, which is a unique Mexican restaurant. They are known for partying and literally presenting shots of alcohol in the wee hours to customers. They are open 11am to whenever daily!!! Josh and I enjoyed lunch and drinks before walking around the rest of the “beach”. One of the major things Josh wanted to do while in Myrtle Beach was to do an interactive experience known as Magiquest. Basically from what we learned you get a magic wand and you have to master different levels through a whole journey (for lack of another word). When we went to check it out, it was really geared towards the younger crowd and I can’t think that Josh reliving his youth would have worked out so well this time. I can only imagine the kids who were playing this interactive magical experience would have been very unhappy if Josh would have played, so we passed.
 
We saw the show Le Grande Cirque which was very cute, it was based on the circus ((in case you couldn’t tell by the name of the show)). Josh and I really enjoyed the show and probably would have even more if we hadn’t just gone to the circus recently. It was entertaining and we were in the 5th row, so we had great seats!!! During the intermission children could pay and have their picture taken with the dogs and cats of the show.. I think Josh and I both almost enjoyed this more so than the show!!! It was so funny watching the dog and cats while getting their pictures taken. Oh and who could forget Miss Pinky! This was a women who stood at the front right in front of the cats and just watched as everyone was getting their pictures taken, she was a big lady and blocked all our views. I could see okay, but the people seated next to me and directly behind them couldn’t see that well. They all started saying stuff about her standing there and how she is blocking everyone’s view. They were yelling for her to sit down and started to say they were going to throw popcorn at her… turns out, she was sitting directly behind Josh, and the man she was with heard everything these people were saying ((he didn’t say a word))…… Glad I kept my mouth shut. Turns out she was obnoxious, continued to talk during the show – we don’t think she was all there!
 
Sunday we spent some time on our Roof Top Terrace, it was so nice to sit out and to see the sunshine! I managed to get a red nose and a bit of sun in the time spent on our Terrace. We went back to Broadway at the Beach and had a nice dinner at the same place we ate at on Saturday evening (it was that good!!!). Our second trip though wasn’t as good as the first, but still overall it was a good place to eat! Oddly enough the place was called Tripps, known for their steak. Josh had steak our first trip there and I had steak our second time. The food was good, but again the wait staff wasn’t all that great. Our first experience we had a fun, cheerful, waitress , although for our second experience we had a guy who came up to our table for the first time and said his night would be better if he makes a lot of money. Way to make a good first impression!!! The experience just went downhill from there. We did enjoy our dinner though, so I guess it was worth it. Hopefully our pal will learn how to win over tables rather than practically beg for money and complain the entire time.
 
Overall Josh and I had a great trip. While Myrtle Beach wasn’t completely what we thought it would be, it was still a relaxing and enjoyable trip. We took some pictures which we plan to get put onto our Photo Album in the near future. We did have a great time even with the weather not completely working in our favor, but somehow Josh and I seem to have fun no matter what the weather is like!!!