Day 3

07.22.2003 Tuesday

We arise from bed to eat our Cheerios and decide to head over to Barefoot Landing, which is a big slew of stores and restaurants on this swamp filled with alligators and dragonflies.
We walk around some shops at first, and we purchase a pair of sunglasses. I'm not really a fan of wearing them, but you really needed them down there. It was awfully hazy.

We continue in search of Alligator Adventure, which is a zoo-type place filled with bears. No seriously, it's filled with alligators, but they kept advertising this bear show. Huh? We pay for tix, which were an economical $12 each even after my trusty coupon. The place is very uneventful, as every alligator, crocodile, and turtle were dead to the world, because it was hot as balls out. We took pictures of a bunch of immobile reptiles. We saw 2 albino alligators, which were outstandingly creepy. We then went over to the bleachers at 12:45 because they were supposed to feed the reptiles at 1 pm in a show. So we wait and wait. Then this employee struts over and says "uh, the feeding is taking place at the main boardwalk today." Well, that's nice to know now. We unemphatically trudge to the main area and immediately turn around for the exit. I believe everyone in that place was huddled over the fence to watch the feeding, so we had no chance of seeing a glimpse of anything. We flee.

Hungry. We are relatively close to the House of Blues. I wasn't even aware they served lunch, but Kim guessed they did. Luckily, she was right. It's pretty cool inside. I had never been to one before. I had this pulled pork bbq sandwich with sweet potato fries. Good stuff. In the process of eating, I pull out the map of the area, and we decide we should give it another chance and hit the shops across the lagoon thing. After lunch, we drove around to the other side and walked around a bit, and realized that indeed, this place did suck. We left.

I have no recollection of the late afternoon. I remember we tried to go to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner, but found they had a 55 minute wait, and there was a line of people wrapped around the perimeter. Oh crap, let's go elsewhere. We get in the car and fade into the horizon down King's Highway as the rain begins pelting our windshield. Everywhere had a line, so we hit good ole' Pizza Hut. No wait. We're in.

Everyone stares at us. I stare back and give some really evil looks. We eat half sausage/half plain stuffed crust pizza. I have to relieve myself of the 3 iced teas I have. On my way to the restroom, a weasel-looking lady in line seems reluctant to move and stares at me. I pass through and on my way out I encounter the rodent woman again. "Excuse me please." No movement. I burst through her and give her a glare. "I said excuse me."

It's still raining, so we can't do anything outdoors, like swim in the pool or play some mini golf. I say, hey let's try the mall by our hotel. It's Tuesday, and the new 311 cd came out today. We enter and see a FYE store-"For Your Excrement." This store sucks. I hate the ones up here, so I know I'll hate this one. I ask the plump clerk at the counter if they have the new 311, since it was nowhere to be found on their new release shelf or in the section. "Three-leven?" "Nah, the only new releases we gawt are Now thirrrtain and (some other crap I don't remember)." Wow, you've been a help. Bye. We continued through the mall to find NOTHING of interest. We leave.

Back to the hotel room. We drink some JD and eat pretzels and peanuts and watch Road Trip on TV.

Tomorrow we'll try the Outlet stores. There's a whole mess of them, and at night I have tickets to see the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, a minor league baseball team. See if you can find out what will go wrong.

Day 2 of our trip...
07.21.2003 Monday

We had planned to do all of the Ripley's stuff today.(Like the Believe it or Not! Museum, etc.) I had purchased a combo pass to four of its attractions a while back on the Internet. The included things to do were: Ripley's Aquarium, Believe It or Not Museum, Haunted Adventure, and Moving 4-D Theater. I was informed to pick up the passes for all events at the aquarium, so that led us logically to the aquarium first.

We started with a breakfast at the hotel eatery, which was ok, but I noticed their OJ sucked. Anyway, we made our way to the aquarium, where we found proof that the people down there were rude, as they cut in front of us with families of 8, bumped into us without saying "excuse me," and stared and stared at us like we were living in the 1800s because of our mixed cultures. Ignoring these issues, the aquarium was a pretty cool place. It had many fish, rays, turtles, and sharks. Its main attraction was a tunnel with a motorized walkway which led you through a sea of sharks and fish. The sharks were swimming all around you, and you could see their teeth up close. Needless to say we used our first roll of film at this place. Of course, you had to exit through the gift shop, so we walked through and glanced around, and then the power failed. It gave me an image of a Jurassic Park-esque adventure. The sharks had been scheming to take over this place and escape into town. They were tired of tourists gawking at them. But the backup generator took over and lights on. We left.

On to attraction #2. The museum. The next 3 places were all located together, but at a different location, so we had to drive a bit to get there. We hit the museum, and it was what I expected. It was kind of hokey-pokey in that it was cheesy like that tv show, but it did have some cool things in it. But there's only so much I could take of seeing the bearded woman or the cow with an arm growing out of it's back. Freak show.

We walked slowly down the road to our #3 stop, the Haunted Adventure. This place was just a haunted house that you may see around Halloween, but it was pretty neat. It started in an old elevator stuffed with 8 people. You are then instructed by the guy in makeup to form a chain and walk through the house, which we did. Much of it was total darkness, so it was difficult. A few little scares, but nothing major.

A few door down was the last place, the 4-D Moving Theater. We went in to this waiting room with about 20 other people with nothing to do but wait for the next showing. They had this tv that kept spooling the safety rules over and over and over again. It was poison for your eyes. Finally, we were let in after about 20 minutes of waiting. We were definitely looking forward to this part because they have one of these in Universal Studios, and it's like the Terminator coming at you and there's smoke and mist. It ended up being lame. We were a log that moved through a mine on one of those mining carts, and it looked like the tracks were a roller coaster, and we, as the log occasionally fell into water and got mist-ed. Why a log? Couldn't they come up with a more interesting idea?

We left the final attraction and saw a gift shop across the street known only as "The Gay Dolphin." I wondered what definition of the word gay was implied. I still don't know, but the shop was garbage.

We left for the hotel, but decided we needed some snacks and drinks for our room, so we cruised down King's Highway and found a CVS. We snagged Cheerios, bowls, spoons, milk, OJ, iced tea, a big-ass jug of water, sweet roasted nuts, and a bag of pretzels. We headed back to our room with a plentiful booty. Yarr.

As usual, we did not know where to eat lunch, so we utilized the in-room guest book and found a tiny Italian place. We jumped there and ate salad, raviolis, and a broccoli roll. Pretty good food.

Since it was still a nice day, although a bit late, we decided to head to the beach. It was about 4, and I figured I wouldn't get burned by the sun at this time as badly as noon. We got set up on our spot around 4:45, and hit the water, which was warm and comfortable. We stayed in wave after wave until almost 8, when we decided we should probably eat some dinner.

We got back to our room, showered, and found out it was 8:30 and we didn't want to eat anything big, so we'd get BK. I first hit Green's Discount Beverages for some JD coolers-Lynchburg Lemonade and Hurricane Punch...Well, we waited in the drive thru for about 20 minutes and then when we got our food, my chicken sandwich was blackened, and we were missing a fry. Bloody savages. This resulted in my kicking and cussing back at the room.

Thus concludes day #2 with a pissy outlook for the rest of the week based on rain in the forecast and the ending of day 2.

My, it's been a while since blogging, partly due to vacation which occurred last week. There's plenty of stories to tell, so I will do this as a recap-by-day blog. For example, I will blog our first day today, our second day tomorrow, and so on. Here goes. Enjoy...

07.20.2003 Sunday

Wake up at 5:30 am. Our flight departs at 9:30 for Myrtle Beach, and I'm told to get to the airport at least 2 hours before departure. I get ready, finish packing, and my ride gets here at 6:45 am. We get to Newark Liberty International Airport at approximately 7:05 am, after passing briefly through the lovely town of Irvington. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Irvington is like New Jersey's Compton. We jump in line outside by the skycaps forContinental Airlines. The line moved rather quickly actually. The dude checked our bag and gave us our boarding passes and inside we went.

There's a side note to this story. I had made our flight reservation in February. Since that time, I had received 3 different notices in the mail stating that our flight time had changed, with the latest notice changing my seats as well. I called their "customer care" number and they said I would have to tell them at the ticket counter inside the airport.

So we make our way to our terminal and make it through security. I had to take my shoes off, but no big deal otherwise. We get through and make it to our gate rather early, and notice our flight is not on the computer screen yet. We head over to the book shop to peruse their selection of reading and get back to find a place to sit for a few hours. When we came back, I was able to change our seats so we were together. Well, the flight finally shows up and we board pretty much on time. We find our seats and the plane begins moving towards the runway, and suddenly the lights and engines stop. Hmm. "This is your captain. We are having some problems with our generator. Sit tight briefly while maintenance takes a look at it. Meanwhile, the air is not working, and we are sitting in the plane oh, for about 2 hours before we find out that we have to switch flights.

The flight we are switching to is across the airport, at gate 124 or something. So we rush across, and have no idea when the flight is leaving, so we eat some Teriyaki chicken at the food court, which was excellent. The flight begins boarding around 12, and we finally take off soon after. The flight was pretty smooth, and we landed after 2 sometime.

Now it's time to get the luggage and get my rental car. I head over to the Enterprise kiosk, and they tell me they don't have any cars left for my reservation, so the guy at least hooks me up with Thrifty for the same price, and probably a better car.

We get to our hotel, the lovely Patricia Grand. We check in at 3, and find our room. We go in the room. We realize this vacation is going to suck-diddly-uck. There's a huge puddle on the rug by the ac and balcony, probably from the ac leaking. It's not just a little damp, but it's like when it downpours and you go play mini-golf afterwards. It sloshes like that. I call the desk and they say they'll send a guy up. Meanwhile, we examine the room to find mold on the walls, probably from the lake in our room, a smaller room than advertised, and an ash tray, even though I reserved a non-smoking room.

Knock. Hey guy, come look at this oasis in our room. Dag, yall, that's about 5 gallons of water, probably cuz the ac froze up. I'll be back with a vac. This is all said in the South Carolina accent. He comes back up very quickly and sucks up the water with a monster shop vac. He was a real nice guy at least, and quick.

We decide to go out because we're getting hungry and don't want to stay in a moldy room. We head for Broadway at the Beach, which is a big cluster of restaurants, shops, bars, etc., all around this lake thing. We stroll around to see a long line at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is fine with me, because I didn't want to spend $10 for a burger anyway. We find a keen place called the Key West Grill. There's a line, but we decide to see what the wait will be. The dude says, well there's no wait if you want to eat outside. Of course! We're hungry. We sit right on the dock of this lake, eat some dirty salmon and potato skins, and enjoy a nice breeze. All right, maybe things won't be so bad after all. We walk around a bit and decided to hit the Imax theater. We saw some adrenaline video with dudes who jump off planes and fly.

We head back to the hotel and decide to take a night swim in the pool, which was freezing it seemed, but there was no way I was going in the heated indoor pool. That's where pee lives.

An interesting day one with a not-bad ending after a rather horrible beginning. We'll see what Monday brings.

Five more days till happiness.

This past weekend was spent down the shizzore, but none of which was at the beach or boardwalk. Saturday night, we attended a minor league baseball game for the sake of my uncle's club. The game was ok and the stadium was beautiful, but the food was atrocious. How can you screw up a hot dog and Italian ice?

Day 2 was intended for the boardwalk/beach, but we could not get to that area because there was a line of cars backed up to the parkway practically. So we did an about face and headed back to our retreat area, where we ended up hitching a ride with my bro and sis-in-law to a crafty place we call Blackbeard's Cove. Yarr. It had mini golf, archery, batting cages, etc. It had a pirate's theme, keeping up with our viewing of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie on Friday nite.

Yesterday was pretty much be a slug day, but I did bowflex, run, and make a cd. The night was capped off by visiting former co-workers and friends John, Brandon, and Kate. It was nice talking to them, and I'm glad to see they're having a blast since leaving a certain working hell. (It sounds like "Damn Hoody" and it's a place where cds are sold). I think I handled that pretty well, and escaped any copyright infringement.

Is it going to rain or what? I started out by morning by running, and noticed the sky was not looking very inviting. It's been grey-ish for the past few days but no rain really, yet the folks at the weather channel have been "predicting" thunderstorms for the past 2 days and thru Friday.

Today should be an enthralling day of taking my grandmother to the doctor and waiting. I guess while I wait I'll finish reading my book. I'm a little more than halfway thru it. It's Summer of Storms by Judith Kelman. It's really drawn me in so far. I'm on page 200, and the only reason I'm not further is that I read it at night, and my eyes start getting lazy on me. I'm going to try and finish it for tomorrow...The rest of my day will consist of sending out more resumes, doing bowflex, eating lunch sometime, and playing some MLB 2004 for PS2. It's one of two games I bought, but it's fun. I'm playing a full season with my Jays, and am at the end of July, and just recently pulled into first place ahead of the Yankees and Sox, because of my brilliant pitching performances as of late. The other game I bought was Metal Gear2, which I was able to complete at the very easy level. I loved the first one, and this one was pretty fun, too. One day, I'll try it on a harder level.

Eleven days until Myrtle Beach. Eleven days until fun, and seventeen days until I come home broke, burnt, and depressed for being back home!

Today was a miserable experience at dmv. I was there for nearly 2 hours just to get a duplicate license. My license did not have a photo on it, since I renewed it via mail 3 years ago, but since I'm flying to South Carolina, I need one with a photo, so I had to purchase a duplicate with a photo. Jovial employees only made the experience better. I looked through possible stuff to do down in Myrtle Beach today, and there's a lot, and it's going to make me broke. You know what bothers me? People who are dishonest. I don't know where that came from, but it annoys me to no end. So it's supposed to feel like 110 tomorrow, and of course it's supposed to be 78 and rainy on Thursday, when I wanted to go to the shore. Oh well. I hope I find a job soon.

Oh just a side note. In the sports section today, there was an article on how Roger Clemens got snubbed from the All-Star team. That is absolutely ridiculous. Sure he won his 300th game this year, but not all of them occurred this year. What's his record, like 8-6? And he deserved to make the team? Come on. I hate the Yankees.

Hello July. Happy birthday Den and Rob!(from June 29 & 30, respectively) So it is absolutely bee-yootiful today. I had an interview today for a 5th grade position. The principal and people who interviewed me were really pleasant, and the school was relatively small, which I like. The only problem is that if I actually get the job, it might only last to February because the teacher is on military leave. So if I got the job, I would be back to square 1 again in February or March. Hmm, I guess I'll just have to wait and see...

Today I washed my car, so I'm sure it will rain sometime in the next 24 hours. The only thing I don't like is all the gooey crap that's stuck at the bottom of my doors from my tires kicking it up. I can't get it completely off. I use soap, bug & tar stuff; it just doesn't budge. It looks shiny and clean nonetheless. only 19 days till vacation. enjoy the weather.