Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 5

Monday was another nice relaxing day.

My back has been bothering me ever since we left for Myrtle. I've never had back issues before, and I'm enough of a hypochondriac to start thinking that they would never go away.

Ang and I went over to the Long Bay Resort in the morning and participated in the water aerobics class there. Ordinarily I don't think I'd be interested in such a class. I also spent some time in the hot tub later that afternoon.  Both things calmed down my back quite a bit and will be part of my routine for a while.

Angie & I visited the Senior Center and we joined it (it's only $20 per person a year). If we don't use it for anything else but the shag lessons, that's 5 bucks a lesson.

That night we went up to Fat Harold's in North Myrtle Beach for our first shag lesson there.

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 4
It's Sunday and we took the day to just relax.

We had been going at a pretty good pace for the past couple of days and I needed it (I think Angie needed it as well).

About the only thing physical we did was to take a nice long walk along the beach. Even though it was on the chilly side (for down here) it was nice & sunny,

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 3

We went up to the Spanish Galleon in North Myrtle Beach to watch the second night of the 2017 National Shag Championships (we saw the first night as well).

Some folks may dismiss the shag, but it is really cool. The shag has been done in  towns along the coast of North and South Carolina since the 40's. It's kind of like a jitterbug. Shaggers dance to "Beach Music" - Motown music with a distinctive beat. There are folks in their 60's, 70's and 80's who have danced it since they were teenagers and they are really good at it.

The shag championships included a junior, senior and professional division.  

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 3 We drove down to Murrell's Inlet for the Marshwalk Festival. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was fun. All the open restaurants had set up outside and sold small samples of their specialties for $3 or $4. They had bands on either end of the marshwalk, and they were really good.

We also stopped by the old part of Myrtle Beach - we looked for those "sharks on a stick" at the Gay Dolphin, but they don't sell them any more. We also checked out what's left of the Springmaid Pier - destroyed by Hurricane Mathew in October. The Hilton said they're going to rebuild it.

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 2

We spent most of our first full day of our extended Myrtle Beach vacation food shopping and doing some scouting.

We don't plan on eating our way through Myrtle Beach like we do when we come down here for a week. And we want to continue our good exercise habits that we've established since retiring.

We filled up a cart at the Food Lion in the morning, and then drove up to North Myrtle Beach to find the Spanish Galleon, where the 2017 National Shag Championships are being held and to talk to the folks at Fat Harold's (where we plan on taking shag lessons).

Then we located the Myrtle Beach Senior Center, which has a gym. We got there too late to check out the facility, but we found the Pepper Geddings Recreation Center which is a fantastic facility (one of four at Myrtle Beach). Between the small gym at our hotel, the Senior Center, and the Rec Center (plus a lot of walking) we have no excuse if we gain weight on this trip.

Later in the evening we went to the Spanish Galleon and watched the first night of the shag championship. It was pretty impressive - they had junior, senior and professional categories.

Speaking of the shag, we should finally learn to do a passable shag on this trip. Fat Harold's has a Monday night class, the free Tuesday night class, and the Senior Center has a class. Our goal is to learn to do it well enough to teach a shag class in Enfield. This way we'll retain it and not go through the Groundhog Day routine we've been doing at Fat Harold's for the past 10 years.

On the plane flight down to Charlotte yesterday, we sat next to a very interesting woman who talked with Angie all the way from Connecticut (I mostly listened in).

She told Angie about living in China for two years with her husband and two small children. She had several good stories.

I did notice that she wore her wedding ring on her right hand and I asked her about it (I had a suspicion). She told me that she was Ukranian descent, and that they wore their wedding rings on their right hands. I told her that I went to Poland with my Dad in the 80's, and my relatives thought I was a widower because I wore my ring on my left hand.

As we were leaving the plane, she gave us her card - she had written a book about her China trip. I'll have to check it out.

https://stephaniebrochinsky.com

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 2

We have a small corner room and it doesn’t have the best view of the ocean, but this is what greeted us this morning: 

Myrtle Beach 2017 Day 1

We didn’t have to fly out at “the butt crack of dawn” (to quote a famous person) to start this trip.  I was nervous about the flight because I had a procedure less than a week earlier, but the flight was fine.

We already learned one thing for future trips – do not load down your carry on. We had checked our luggage in Hartford, but lugging two carry on’s from one end of the Charlotte airport to another was not fun. We’ll have to rethink packing – especially as we get older.

We flew into Myrtle Beach at 3:30, got our rental car and pulled up to the hotel at 4:30. It was very strange walking up to the counter and checking in – the lobby was empty (there is a loooong line during the summer).

We went out to dinner at the K&W around the corner. When our girls were small, we wasted time taking them to seafood restaurants – little kids do not like seafood. Then we discovered K&W – they could pick what they wanted and the price is right. We are not food snobs – we will go there several times on this trip (as well as seafood restaurants).

We were tired but we ran out to the dollar store and got some staples (aluminum foil, etc.) – we filled a cart with supplies for a month for $45. We plan on a trip to the Food Lion in the AM. For the first time we will actually do some cooking at Myrtle Beach – hey, we’re retirees on a fixed income, ya know.

So it was an early night (not uncommon for us) – we watched the Mary Tyler Moore tribute and called it a day.

Myrtle Beach 2017



We both retired in 2016; Angie retired in January and I retired in April.



We like living in Connecticut; all the people that matter the most to us (our two daughters' families) live there. We don't see ourselves living part of the year in a warmer climate - we like the variety of seeing new places. So we agreed the best thing for us (at least for now) is to spend part of each winter in a different place.



We chose Myrtle Beach for our first month long trip for a number of reasons. We have been taking our family down to Myrtle for about 30 years. We don't know how we're going to handle being away from family & home for a month, so we thought doing it in a place we really like and are familiar with is a good place to start.

DISCLAIMER

We are Angie & Mike Dziadzio from Enfield, CT.

I am creating this blog at the suggestion of my daughter. It's being written for family and friends.

You are free to read this blog, but you may find it incredibly boring. If you want to read a professional, slick travel blog written by an expert, I suggest you look elsewhere (no sarcasm intended).