Leaving the Beach ahead of Irene

Our Myrtle Beach vacation was cut a little short by Hurricane Irene. As soon as we got to SC all of the news stations were abuzz with Irene forecasts, so we paid attention. She was a few days off and we were able to spend 2 long days on the beach, riding waves and building sand fortresses and 1 day at the resort pools. By Thursday though the Coast Guard had posted advisories that the beaches were unsafe due to rip currents. We decided we would leave the beach early but still discussed when the best time would be.

We made the most of our time out of the water. We had seen ads for a restaurant called Nacho Hippo so we went there for dinner and Rachael took a number of pictures and found the perfect souvenir, a Nacho Hippo t-shirt. We did some other shopping and played mini golf at the resort. Our last afternoon was spent at Broadway at the Beach, where Em and Rae did ropes course, and Meg and Bridge rode carnival rides. that evening we went to Medieval Times for the show and dinner. We were given the yellow knight to cheer for and received yellow crowns. The girls really enjoyed the atmosphere. Bridget was wide-eyed at the horses and especially the princess. I got a kick out of Bridget drinking her soup out of her bowl and watching Megan rip pieces of her baby dragon (chicken) with her fingers. Our knight was quite good at the games and won the honor of handing out flowers to the young maidens in our section. Emma grinned when he tossed her a flower. It was a great family outing and a wonderful way to end our vacation.

We had hoped to be able to get in a round of mini golf at one of the huge themed courses on Friday morning before we headed out but it was already raining. We loaded the van made lunches and joined the traffic heading away from the beaches. We ran into some heavy rains and heavy but moving traffic but all in all the drive wasn't horrible. We got home safely at 10:00 PM, unpacked and went to bed. Irene came through Saturday evening which left us enough time to put away all of our outside items and then wait.