Saturday August 4th

Woke up at 5am to get ready finish packing loaded up the suburban and on the road by 615.

Let me give you an idea of who you are going to be reading about in this trip report:
Myself
Mandy my wife
Sloan and Walker our kids
my in laws Forrest and Sandra
my father David
and my mother Marlene
my brotherTroy
his wife Krista and their kids Connor and Rylee
Eva my brother's mother in law
Welcome to North Carolina getting closer
First stop was going to be the K&W in Greensboro but for some unknown reason they did not open for breakfast? So the Denny’s next door had to do.
We met up with my parents and brother’s family and they were able to get us in and seated at a couple of tables. Ten minutes later she took our drink order and said a different waitress would get our food order. We waited for another 10 minutes before our drinks made it and then 5 minutes to get our food order. I did not mention the ages of my brother’s kids 2 & 4 and how hard it is to keep them entertained. Long story short 1 hour 30 minutes at the Denny’s before we were back on the road. We started hitting traffic before Rockingham where we made the first bathroom break. Back on the road and traffic started picking up and slowing us down.
We got separated along the way in the traffic and kept the cell towers busy as we got closer to Myrtle giving directions. An accident at the intersection of 544 and 17 Business had cars driving through parking lots to get around. We made it to the Flamingo (rental house)
just after 2pm attempted to see if we could check in early but were denied.


The kids could not let the empty pool go unused. We received a call from the realty company telling us we were able to get in at 330. When we got back to the house with the keys they would not work? They would go into the key hole but would not turn the tumbler, another call to the realty company and were told “it is probably moisture or humidity that won’t let it work, pull the door and see if that helps” In my polite voice I told that the problem is not moisture and what should the next step be to fix this problem? She said she would get someone down to take a look. A quick response by a young man with a completely different key that opened the door and allowed us our first look inside. He was not sure what the keys we had were supposed to work on but he left us 3 sets for the week. Our next task was to figure out who was going to sleep where, after 10 minutes we started moving up suitcases. This house was
3 stories.
First floor
1 bedroom with bath - my parent's
dining room
kitchen
living room
a second dining room
half bath
balcony

Second floor
small bar area
living room

laundry room
1 bedrooms with 2 queens Sloan and Walker's
1 bedroom with King Troy, Krista and the kids
1 bedroom with King -Eva's

third floor
1 bedroom with 2 queens - in laws
1 bedroom with King and little office area Mandy and mine
pooland the view from the 3rd floor balcony
Next task was to take the kids down to the beach and let my brother’s kids see the ocean for the first time.


They loved it and wanted to stay and play. We headed back to the house to get cleaned up a little and then headed out for dinner. We loaded up the caravan and headed to Five Guys Hamburgers. A little nervous when we pulled up to the little strip mall and were not even sure they were open. After seeing some people inside we headed inside to try a hamburger.
What a surprise! The hamburger was great and the fries seemed to be never ending. If you want a great burger in a hurry this is the place to stop. Don’t go if you are looking for ambiance
Check out this stamped concrete!
This the kind of work my father does back home in Lynchburg. After filling up on fries we headed over to Wings
to find something we had to have this year. The kids had a chance to feed the live sharks,
moms took the opportunity to do some kids-free shopping. A few t-shirts, flip flops and hats we were off to get groceries at Kroger's. Don’t be fooled when you see express line or the do it yourself check out. Either way Saturday night in Surfside is going to take you a couple hours. We headed back to the house to unload the groceries and then to the pool. Before we turned into prunes, we dried off and headed out to the balconies to enjoy some fine Myrtle Beach breezes. The kids seemed almost as exhausted as the parents and grand parents.
358 days ago we were here and now we know why we work hard so we can enjoy vacation in Myrtle Beach.

Sunday August 5th

We must have been worn out from the trip and last nights activities because I slept in till 8am. Ate some breakfast before heading down to the beach to get some sun and have a lot of fun.
This year we brought down a Easy up tent and used the beach anchors instead of the four umbrellas like years passed. You can get a lot of people who don’t want sun, but want to enjoy the beach, under one of those things. Some good waves for boogie boards and surfers(I did not do any surfing) We headed back to the house for some lunch. Called Tripps for call ahead seating at 5pm. After lunch, some stayed in for naps, some stayed at the pool and the rest returned to the beach. More surfers this afternoon which was surprising because they were right beside the rest of us. We headed in to get cleaned up for dinner and made it there just before 5 and walked right in for dinner.
I was a little disappointed that our group of 13 was not able to sit together seeing that there was another large table next to us that remained empty throughout our meal. This was our first time eating here going on the recommendations of some posters on MB2. I ordered the full rack of ribs,
Mandy had the salmon
and the kids had chicken tenders (we will see how many times that happens this week) My brother and I had the Calamari appetizer, I was surprised when the kids wanted to try it and even more when they said they liked it!

My dinner was really good, Mandy said her meal was good but not very warm and the kids said their’s was good. To be honest I can not remember what everyone else had because they did not seem to like it when I took pictures of their meals but everyone said they liked their food. Afterwards, we stopped at a few shops
Magiquest has objects that will respond to their wands
on our way down to play Dragon’s Lair.
We started of with Sloan, Walker, myself, my brother and his little boy Connor(4). But before we finished the second hole, the dragon came out and scared Connor and he did not want to have anything else to do with putt-putt there.

Mandy did some shopping and we met up after we finished. We loaded up and the parade headed south back towards Surfside. We decided that a little ice cream would be nice and stopped by Dairy Queen.
After a couple blizzards and cones we headed back to the house. My sister in law took the kids down to walk on the beach. Mandy and I sat on the 3rd floor balcony and enjoyed the strong breeze until they returned. So it was time to get the kids into the bed and it was not long before we knew it was time for us as well.