The Beaches of the Grand Strand

We headed east in the motor home this year because our oldest son and his wife wanted to meet us at a beach on the east coast. He is finishing his first year of residency in pediatrics in Kansas City, and has a rare week off. We haven't seen Luke and Jordan since Christmas, so we were excited that they wanted to spend this precious time off with their families.

Besides Luke and Jordan, we also get to spend the week with Jordan's parents and her brother, Conner. They all flew in together, and we thought it was interesting that both of the fathers were dressed alike.

Just to introduce the cast of characters for this week, we've included the following picture. Thanks Claire, for taking the picture of the two families that were joined when our children got married a year and a half ago. On the left side of the couch is Jordan's family with her Mother (Lisa), Father (Matt), and brother (Conner). On the right is Denisa and Mark with our two sons, Luke and Blake.

Our children really enjoy each other, and they were already wading in the surf minutes after they arrived.

We spent the next two days playing on the beaches around Myrtle Beach. This area is called "The Grand Strand," and we had a grand time here. Our first day was spent at Surfside Beach, just down the street from the beach house they had rented for the week. We had an arsenal of toys for playing in the water, including four boogie boards for shooting the waves.

Denisa loved riding these boards, and they had a hard time getting her out of the water.

We also had a beach football, but there are no pictures of the football games. We were all too busy designing fancy passing plays to think about getting out cameras. But the favorite beach game of all was spike ball. Luke and Jordan brought it on the plane in one of their carry-on bags, and we used it a lot.

The goal is for you and your partner to spike that little yellow ball into the net in such a way that the other team can't return it. We had many people stop by to watch this unusual game. We had different combinations of partners, and it was fun to play a game with Denisa and Luke vs. Mark and Blake. We played two-on-two games of all types for all those years that the boys were growing up, and it was fun reliving some of those sweet memories. Matt and Mark played the champions (Luke and Jordan) over and over until they finally won.

There's lots of jumping and running in the sand in this game, and Mark discovered that this kind of friction can cause a large blood blister to develop on the bottom of a foot.

Our second beach day was at Pawley's Island. South of Myrtle Beach, we crossed over the causeway to get to this little island that is separated from the mainland by a river. Pawley's Island was once a summer retreat for wealthy plantation owners that used it to get away from the malaria-carrying mosquitoes around their in-land rice fields. We tried for a group picture at this beach, but only got seven of us in the picture.

That's because Jordan and Claire were already taking twinkie pictures together. With their black swim suits and floppy hats, it was hard to tell them apart when we played football on the beach and they were on opposite teams.

The new toy of the day was a skimmer board. This is Blake trying his maiden voyage on the new slippery board.

The goal is to throw the board out onto the shallow layer of water as the tide is receding. Then you must run and catch it in order to plant your feet on it for a ride as it skims across the water. If the water gets too shallow, the board comes to a quick stop in the sand. That leads to an even quicker dismount.

There probably should be a warning label on a skimmer board, limiting its use to people under 50 years of age. Just guessing that Mark probably wouldn't have heeded that warning, as he definitely tried the skimmer board too.

Another day we headed north and across the state line to experience a North Carolina Beach. We also wanted to go to the town of Calabash, North Carolina. Since we have been in this area, we have consistently seen restaurant menus with listings for "Calabash Sea Food." We found that this little town in North Carolina is the founder of a special combination of seasonings and light breading technique that has grown to be wildly popular. We ate a great meal in Calabash, and spent some time on the beach as well.

We had lots of fun playing in the water and on the beaches of the Grand Strand. We went to five different beaches while we were staying in the Myrtle Beach area, but our over-all favorite was . . .

Pawley's Island has no high rise hotels. The number of people on the beach is limited to the residents of the sparsely spaced beach houses and a small parking lot at the south end of the island. We were lucky enough to snag one of those limited parking spots both of the times we visited Pawley's. Also, there were enough sea shells on the beach to spell out the name of our new favorite beach.

But most of all, it was so good to have the whole family together. Blake and Claire had to return to Oklahoma too soon, but we were so pleased that they went to the expense and trouble to spend this time with us too. We have been grandly blessed on the Grand Strand!