SAND AND SEA

I grew up a couple of hours from Morehead City and Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, spent many happy weeks basking--and baking--under the summer sun. My friend Gene and I nearly drowned once as the undertow carried us out to sea.

Atlantic Beach at sunset.

Last Saturday Ron and I joined my brother Mack and sister-in-law Susan at Atlantic Beach for a few days. The old beach-front Pavilion, the gathering place for teenagers to dance and mingle when we were young, is gone. Emerald Isle and Salter Path, mostly sand dunes during my youth, are jam-packed with modern condos and houses and shopping centers. A modern, four-lane bridge over Bogue Sound has replaced the old drawbridge I liked so much.

 

A Place at The Beach III

The condo was small, but it had two bedrooms, two baths, a decent kitchen, small living room and covered deck. And it was clean. In the above picture, the water slide and ocean are visible in the distance. This was the second time we have stayed here. Click to enlarge.

We spent one day in Beaufort, one of my favorite towns. Ron and I considered retiring to Beaufort instead of  Smith Mountain Lake.

The boardwalk in Beaufort.

We ate lunch on the covered porch overlooking the water at Spouter Inn. If you crave really good seafood, eat here. 

Porch at the Spouter Inn on Taylor Creek 

which connects to Bogue Sound.

I miss the old Atlantic Beach. But the sand feels the same, the breakers still lull me to sleep at night, the air still has that indescribable beach smell with a hint of salt water, fish, and sun tan lotion, and the restaurants still serve scrumptious seafood. And no matter how it changes, I still have my memories.

It's Snowing!

I glanced out the window at 1:50 this afternoon, saw snowflakes, not many, but enough to bring back memories of growing up in Greenville, North Carolina, where it seldom snowed. A few flakes were enough to send me, all the neighborhood children, and Mother outside to enjoy the white stuff. Schools would close. If we needed milk, eggs, or any groceries, there were a couple of grocery stores that would deliver to your door. Greenville had only one really good hill for sledding. There was a problem, however. A train track stretched across the road at the bottom of the hill. When you hit the train track you screamed "Uh oh!" Or "~!+ @#%*&!!!"

I remember trudging about a mile, holding the handle of my portable sewing machine with both hands, to my friend Dot Davis' house. We'd sew all day and talk about boys, which ones we thought were cute (Ron was one) and which girls the boys liked. Then I'd pack my machine up and lug it home. I think I'll call Dot tonight, let her know it's snowing and I'm ready to sew.

Here's the picture I took at 2:00 today. You wouldn't know it was snowing, but if you look closely at the bird feeder and the trees across the water you'll see some tiny white spots. That's snow. Trust me.

The above picture was taken at 2:05. It looks like snow. And it is!

Taken at 3:30.

Taken at 3:40.

Taken at 4:00.

Snow has covered everything except our black-topped driveway. Ron is grateful; he doesn't want to go out in the cold and wet to put the snow plow on the tractor.

Edisto Island Memories

Once a year Ron and I pack the minivan with bicycles, suitcases, a cooler crammed with food, lots of sunscreen, and head off to Edisto Island, South Carolina, one of our favorite spots. Sometimes we tie our kayaks on top of the minivan so we can explore the marshes, but not this time. Besides, that’s another blog.

This year we invited our daughter, her husband, and their seven children (ages 9 months, 2 1/2, 6, nearly 8, 9, 11 and 13 years) to join us. By now, some of you are probably thinking hubby and I had lost our minds. Not so. The time with our family was a blast. I'm sure we'll do it again.

We met in Gretna, Virginia, and caravanned through North Carolina and South Carolina. With a newly- potty-trained child and a nine-month old baby who needed feeding, the trip was a long one. I don’t think we passed a rest area without stopping. Three grandchildren rode with us. We played old travel games and invented new ones that required vivid imaginations and good memories. And we laughed until our faces hurt.

Edisto Island, a shell-seekers dream and the complete opposite of crowded Myrtle Beach, is located about an hour south of Charleston. There are no high-rises, no Wal-Mart, no huge shopping centers. Instead, individual houses, condos and townhouses dot the landscape. Several restaurants offer scrumptious seafood. Bike trails wind through beautiful backyard alleys, alongside roads and throughout the island. The Edisto Book Store offers a huge selection of books; I always buy several by local and/or Southern writers. The Edisto Serpentarium—complete with poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, alligators, turtles, and other creepy-crawlers—is fascinating and educational.

An old Piggly Wiggly is the only grocery store on the island. Whatever you do, don’t go on Sunday check-in days to buy the immediate necessities or you’ll fight frustrated, hungry crowds and their carts in the narrow aisles. We’ve learned to either take enough food with us or to buy food in Walterboro so we can avoid the chaos.

Local produce stands provide fresh vegetables and fruit. King’s produce sells vegetables grown on land farmed by the same family for six generations. They also make and sell the best-ever key lime pies.

Every year since 1987, we’ve stopped by George and Pink’s to buy veggies and to soak up some of the local color. Live oak trees dripping with Spanish moss line the road. My daughter Christine and I rode horses down this soft, sandy road that passes George and Pink’s place. I can still remember the thud-thud-thud of the horses' hooves as we trotted and cantered down a road that looked two hundred years old, a road that seemed capable of leading us to Scarlet’s “Tara” in “Gone With the Wind.”

Charleston, one of my favorite cities in the whole world, is only an hour’s drive from Edisto. Our family lunched at the Fleet Landing Restaurant in Charleston, and visited the Charleston Aquarium for the first time. Not a gigantic facility, the aquarium is still well done, lovely and educational. Well worth the drive. While there, the children were allowed to pick up different aquatic critters. We learned how to handle horseshoe crabs, were told that they can’t hurt you. Later that day while swimming back at Edisto, 13-year old Jacob felt a horseshoe crab bump his leg. Because of what he’d learned at the aquarium, he picked it up, showed the crab to the rest of us, then returned it to the water. We watched the crab swim away.

At Edisto we made memories none of us will ever forget. During the day we picked up shells, biked, swam, played tag with the ocean waves, built sandcastles. Evenings we watched glorious sunsets, played silly games. Ron and I re-discovered how much each family member has to offer, how precious and different each of the children is. And we will continue to make memories as long as we can.