June 30 - July 1
The morning of the trip I woke up early so that I could make sure I had everything packed, and if you know anything about me packing is a long process. Usually on trips I have a packing list just to make sure I don't forget anything that I need, but since this was an overnight trip I didn't need to pack that much. I started packing on Thursday and couldn't help but feel like I was missing a lot of stuff that I needed. I packed a bag with clothes and bathing suits, a separate bag to take to the bath house, another bag was full of beach towels, and my camping chair, sleeping bag, and some unnecessary things.
Good thing I never seem to pack light because the group seemed to forget a lot - pillows, beach towels, etc.Strangers Become Friends
I arrived at SOF/SCCF about 15min early and figured everyone would already be there to get the cars packed because I thought we were leaving by 8am. Well, I had read the trip description wrong and it was meet at 8am and leave by 9am. Brian was the second person to show up and decided to have a beer before we even left on the trip. Thank the Lord for Brian because he provided out tent that everyone one of us could fit it, there was only 6 of us that went. The guys packed beer and a little bit of food.
The people that went on the trip: Abby, J and Chupa(their dog), AJ(Abby's brother), Brian, Zach and myself.
So Brian, AJ, Abby, J, and Chupa were in one car and I drove separate so that I could stay comfortable with my leg, so this complete stranger that I had never seen before in my life, Zach, rode with me. I was fine with having him ride with me, but my only worry was that it was going to be a completely awkward car ride on the way down if we didn't have anything to talk about.
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| Brian and Zach(my car partner) |
It was an awesome car ride! We always rode together where ever we went - back to the campsite, beach, dinner, home, etc. We laughed, and again has so much to talk about. We also talked about how he ended up here. He has only lived here for 2 months and moved from Atlanta. He has had a lot of jobs one of which was a mechanic. He was always nice to me and didn't make fun of me the whole trip. At one point I was out in my car for a while charging my phone and AJ's, Abby's brother, phone. He came out there for the last couple of minutes and sat and talked with me while it was finishing up. He is a genuinely nice guy. He also didn't mind that we left early the next day because I had plans to go to dinner with my aunt.
Folly Beach = Parking Tickets
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| Brian working on his ghostly legs! |
After about an hour on the road in front of Abby and J, they finally caught back up to us and passed us. They got to the campsite about 20min before we did so the tent was already set up when me and Zach finally found the campsite. We had to check in and get a parking pass first. We got changed and started heading for the beach. Once again Abby got ahead of up so we just kept going and found the beach a different way.
We finally got into Folly Beach and there is no public parking areas close to the beach. Every block there are cars parked along the street and people walking in the street! It was completely crowded. Zach and I started to head down the main street directly in front of the beach and finally called J to see where they were at. They were one street back and were still looking for a place to park and would call us when they found a place. So when they finally called they were at 12th street. We found a place close to them and parked on a side street. I was worried about where I parked because I was right in front of a sign and a little bit still out on the street and felt like I was blocking park of it. Zach assured me that it was find and we walked to meet everyone else. We were standing there about to walk down to the beach with Chupa and all of a sudden a cop pulled up and asked if we were planning on taking her down to the beach. The cop proceeded to tell us that dogs were not allowed on the beach until after 6pm and that if she was caught out there it would be $500 fine. So they left Chupa int he car with the A/C running.
We were on the beach for hours and slowly put surely in the 4 hours that we were on the beach we had to keep pulling our stuff back because the tide was coming in. We eventually ended up all the way back up at the dunes and J and Abby would go back to the car about every hour to check on Chupa and take her for a walk. They brought her down to the beach about 5 o'clock. She played and was so happy to be there, running up and down the beach and running for the waves and trying to get to Abby and J in the water.
The guys worked on their tans, as well as us girls. The boys and their ghostly looking legs was definitely something hilarious to see. We found a shade tent that wasn't being occupied so we decided to fulfill that job for whoever left it out there. AJ had brought is GoPro with him, which you can use during sporting activities or anything like hiking or repelling and record it on camera or I believe take pictures. He went out into the ocean with it and was diving through the waves. It feel off one time and he dove down and felt along the bottom and found it, lucky! He took it back out again later and it feel off his head again, after the first time I wouldn't have taken it back out. But it feel off again this time and we had a search party going up and down the beach looking for it, the search party being us! The tide had been coming it so we tried looking for it as much as we could. Since the first time it sank straight to the bottom my guess was that it did the same and got carried away by the undertow. We eventually forgot about the GoPro when Zach and AJ spotted some girls and started to flirt with them.
Everyone finally got hungry for some real food, and decided that chips and salsa, sunflower seeds and beer just weren't going to make the cut. So we packed up the cooler and bags and started to head back to the cars. Well a block away from my car I noticed that there was something yellow on it underneath my windshield wiper. My first thought was if it was what I thought it was, I just got a parking tickets. Sure enough the closer I got to my car I realized that yes there was something underneath my wiper and it was a little ticket envelope in order to pay the ticket. The ticket was a $50 fine for my tires still being in the road. That completely sucked; it didn't ruin the trip, but did make me paranoid about parking along the street since that all that there was for parking.
We drove around until we hit the main drag of Folly Beach aka the entrance into Folly. We had to park along the street again and at first I had to drive past where Abby had parked to try and find a spot. When I had circled around Abby had moved her car so I parked where she had moved from. We walked up to the main drag of Folly and found the small place to eat called Surf Bar. We didn't want to have to put Chupa back in the car so Zach went inside and asked if it was okay if we could bring her onto the patio of the restaurant to eat. The good thing about beach towns is that they are pretty chill about those kinds of things. So we headed out to the patio and found place to seat. The next step was all of us lining up outside the bathroom to wash our hands and wipe off some of the salt that was all over us from being on the beach a lot of the day.
The menu was limited to some salads, burgers/sandwiches, and appetizers. Brian had gotten drunk while at the beach so he ordered appetizers for the table, - onion rings and spinach & artichoke dip with pita bread. All the guys said that the onion rings were really salty and that the spinach & artichoke dip tasted like it had some lemon in it. Most of the tables consisted of a burger or sandwich of some sort and I order a salad with chicken on it. The chicken was really good, nice and moist. And as usual I was given a hard time for my food choices. I was trying to be decently healthy since I was going to dinner with my aunt on Sunday. After dinner we were going to walk around the strip for a little bit but then decided better of it and were just ready to go back to the campsite.
On the way back to the cars I was looking at J's car and noticed that there was a little yellow envelope on their car, sure enough they had gotten a tickets for parking against the flow of traffic. Total fine = $30! I decided to look at the envelope to see what all you could get a parking ticket for. The things that applied to our group: parking against the flow of traffic, tires still on the street while parked, leaving a car running. The first two were only what tickets were given for, but the last should have been a ticket as well(good thing the car runs quiet).
Upon leaving Folly Beach we stopped by the gas station so the guys could grab some beer and while waiting Zach filled up my car with gas. Me and Abby hit the showers just to get the feel of the salt off of us, and the guys just rinsed off. The campground was having a ReggaeFest so we went to see that around 9:30pm. We stayed for about an hour just walking around and sat and listened to the band for a little bit. We people watched, which is always fun. We decided to head back to the tent around 10:30 just to avoid getting stuck in traffic. Because I'm not used to staying up late I went to bed about 11:30pm. And because I seem to have this thing when I sleep and having to wrap up in the covers I was the only one who slept in my sleeping bag. Zach came to bed a little after I did, but apparently the event of the night was Chupa running into the screens of the tent trying to get out after some animal, they guessed a raccoon. I woke up periodically throughout the night because I had gotten hot, but completely slept through the Chupa escaped even with the yelling going on. Guess that says how sound of a sleeper I am(I've slept through a recent tornado too, March)!
Page's (O)Kra Grille and Isle of Palms
So for breakfast the group decided to head toward Charleston, or at least it started out that way. We made a turn around in the Charleston area, so I have yet to ever see any of Charleston. After doing a u-turn down a side street we started to head toward Isle of Palms. I always get hungry right after I wake up so Zach let me have one of the bagels that he had brought. After the u-turn we got back on the highway and next thing I know I'm about to cross The Cooper River Bridge. I started to tell Zach how there is a run every year that goes over this bridge and how big of a race it is! I plan on doing the race next year since I didn't do it this year. The run starts in Mt. Pleasant and ends in downtown Charleston. After making it over the bridge, which is just neat to drive over from seeing pictures of it, we found this nice little restaurant to eat at called Page's Okra Grille. At first everyone thought that is was called Page's Kra Grille because the O for okra looked like a piece of cut okra. They had a lot to choose from for breakfast - pancakes, waffles, biscuits, grits, bacon, sausage, shrimp and grits, and much more. I just ordered chocolate milk since I had already at breakfast and didn't get my usual chocolate milk with it since it wasn't cereal. Everyone got a really good breakfast, something I never have. But I wasn't about to eat twice. Once again I was given a hard time for what I had ordered and told that I need to eat more and gain weight so I could gain muscle. I see no logical sense in gaining weight for muscle if I can't take full advantage and do a full body workout, so that will have to wait and I'm not ready to deal with the mental aspect of it as well.
After breakfast we headed into Isle of Palms for spend some time on the beach before heading back. I told Zach that we had to leave a little early because of my plans which he seemed cool about. But we mainly went into Isle of Palms because you can have dogs on the beach anytime there and they didn't want to leave Chupa in the car again. The houses were gorgeous there. Of course we lost Abby and J again on the ride into the beach to find a place to park, so we called to figure out where they were. We had to turn around because I had driven too far and they said they would call when they found a place to park. Well good thing I decided to look for them on the way back because they never called to tell us where they parked. The nice thing about Isle of Palms is that they have a rule where you have to park maybe 4ft from the edge of the payment, but they also have painted lines in the grass along the road so you know exactly how far in you have to park, no chance of getting a ticket there! We all headed down to the beach and I was the first one to head out to the water. One my way to the ocean I walked through a wading pool from where the tide had made a pool from the undertow and found a starfish! I have never seen a starfish of a Carolina Coast before, so I was in complete shock and aw. I took it back to show everyone and then went to put it back because I didn't want it to die from being out of the water for a long time, even though it wasn't really that long. The water felt amazing by the way! Zach and I felt at 12:30 to head back home. Someone who was renting was nice enough to let us rinse off with their water hose before we started our drive, and a bathroom break at a Bi-L0. We rode home the whole way in our bathing suits.
When It Rains, It Hails
We finally got on the road about 1pm and we set to be home around 4:30pm. We constantly reminded ourselves on the way back how hot it was by my wonderful temperature gauge in my car. It was a long haul down both interstates, I26 and I77. We rode with the windows down and talked a little bit but no big conversations on the way down, along with some silent moments but nothing awkward. We were both tired from the sun the day before and getting up at 7am and heading out for breakfast and beach. He was so tired and said he needed a nap and because we were just on a chill ride on the way back home I told him he was more than welcome to take a nap. He told me he would feel bad for falling asleep while I had to stay awake to drive. I told him I really didn't mind, so he told me I was awesome and took a quick nap. Letting him know that he could lean the seat back, I heard a little more excitement in his voice about the nap. He slept about 20-30min and I looked over every once in a while and with mouth wide open I was wondering if he was going to start drooling on my seat.
We were still on I26 when looking ahead we saw some dark clouds. He checked the radar on his phone and sure enough there was a storm ahead. Next thing we know it starts pouring down rain. Well, when I first saw the rain I thought that it was just raining so hard that it looked like huge white rain drops. My next question, "Is that hail?!" Sure enough it was. Before hitting the storm my temp gauge showed that it was 105 degrees outside. We were in the storm for a good 45min to an hour. Every car had their hazards on and slowed to about 20-30mph. I was happy as long as we didn't completely stop because my car would overheat. After a while of riding through the storm, and still in it, I looked to the right because cars were pulling off to wait out the storm and I see a car with a busted back windshield! All the cars that had windows busted out were regular 4 door cars, no SUVs. We kept driving and kept seeing more and more cars on the shoulder with back windshields busted out; I think we came to a grand total of about 10 cars. I was honestly scared that my front window was going to be busted, so we stayed slow and just prayed that nothing happened. After a while we finally based through the hail and just got into some heavy rain. Of course we kept wondering how much the storm would cool off the temperature outside. After finally making it through the whole storm we finally came to a final drop in temperature of 69 degrees. Because the drop happened so quick it could have been part of the reason why some of the windows were busted.
We finally got through the storm and hit the road at full speed again and I dropped him off at SOF/SCCF around 4:40pm. He helped me unload the tent and extra chairs that were brought and he loaded up his truck, hugged and headed our separate directions.
As soon as I hit the house I unpacked a little and it the showers only to turn around and have an amazing dinner with my aunt!
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