Beach Baby Bingo (HOL 39)

House of Laughter 39

We just got back from a long weekend at Hilton Head in South Carolina. There were a few small snags, but otherwise we had a great time. The trip to the beach was not much fun. Traffic came to a dead standstill on 220 near Ellerbe and on I-95 in South Carolina. Traffic was so bad on 95, I ended up calling a couple of people to see if they could check online what the hold up was. After an eight hour drive, (it only should have taken six hours) we finally got off I-95 15 miles from the hotel. Unfortunately, it took us another hour to go those 15 miles. Isaac was pissed. He was really good for most of the trip, but that last hour was miserable for everyone.

The hotel was great. It was the last stop before the bridge to the island and offered great views of the salt marshes. The hotel had a swimming pool and hot tub, which were adjacent to a retention pond that was home to at least one five foot alligator. We all swam in the pool and enjoyed the company of the egrets and herons roosting in the surrounding trees, while keeping one eye on the pond for the gator.

In the afternoon, we decided to go check out the island. The island was much larger than I had expected. There is one main street that goes around the island, and a second toll road that offers a short cut to the far side. Most of the island is gated communities, and exclusive golf courses….not our idea of a good time. There was an area on the map that encompassed the southwestern third of the island called “Sea Pines”. There appeared to be several beaches, restaurants, shops, and even a lighthouse. Isaac was napping, so we decided to ride around. It turns out that “Sea Pines” is another gated community. We were welcome to visit, but we had to pay five dollars to get past the gate. I was pissed, but decided it was worth it to see the lighthouse, and to drive around a bit more while the boy was sleeping. We might even stop and check out their beach.

It turns out that Disney doesn’t have a monopoly on screwing tourists out of cash. The guard at Sea Pines, asked how many bikes we had. My dad had brought two bikes with him, but we weren’t planning on riding them that afternoon. The guard told us he had to charge us a dollar per bike. I almost lost my mind. In a brilliant bit of comic relief/ passive aggression, my dad stopped the truck, got out, rifled through his wallet for the money and basically took as much of the security guard’s time as possible and formed a long line of hot short tempered people behind us before paying the seven dollars.

We walked around the stores, had lunch, and Isaac played in the ocean for a while. Mom and Dad watched Isaac while Nancy and I rode the bikes all over the neighborhood. Nancy and I had mixed feelings about the place. There were shady bike paths everywhere, almost no litter, an awesome community garden, horse farm, and ruins of an old plantation home back in the woods. The downside was that the place seemed very exclusive, from the over the top mansions and high end shopping boutiques, to the yacht clubs and immaculate golf courses. Our bike ride ended abruptly when I managed to bend one of the sprockets on my bike. When we met up with my folks again, Mom, Dad and Isaac were sitting on a porch swing hanging from an enormous oak tree, enjoying each other’s company.

On Monday, we got up bright and early and headed straight for the beach. I found a public beach on the other side of the island. We set up Isaac’s tent and put him in swimmie diapers. He enjoyed the taste of sand, and was moderately amused by the ocean, but spent most of the time in the tent eating crackers sprinkled with….you guessed it, sand. (One more note about the Hilton Head chutzpah. When we arrived, there were two dozen Adirondack chairs with umbrellas set up on the beach, with no one sitting in them. We assumed they belonged to a resort, but a note affixed said to ask the life guard about chair rental. Just so you know, it costs twenty dollars a day to rent two chairs. In true Cravey fashion, we pulled someone’s discarded chair out of the trash.)

I have discovered a winning strategy for traveling with an infant. Don’t do it. Wait until they don’t soil themselves regularly, and can tell you what they want instead of just crying all the time. If you must travel with an infant, plan on having plenty of time in cool quiet places for naps. You also have to be very flexible. We had one goal for the whole weekend. “Get the boy wet from water from the Atlantic ocean.” Everything else was just a bonus.

When Isaac got tired, beach time ended. The girls took Isaac back to the hotel to rest, and Dad and I explored the salt marsh. We wandered far off the beaten path, and enjoyed spending time together. We followed deer tracks. We watched thousands of crabs swarm a limb, like something out of horror movie. He told me stories about how our descendents had owned plantations in the area. We walked for a very long time, and it felt good.

Our weekend was capped by a dinner at Charley’s Crab. I am a firm believer that if you ever go to the beach, you have to eat at least one seafood restaurant located on the water. This was one hell of a meal. We had fried green tomatoes, Cajun shrimp, shrimp and grits, crab cakes, Salmon, four kinds of bread, and to top it off chocolate cake, carrot cake, and real key lime pie. That meal is going in my top ten of all time list. After dinner we walked on a pier. The sun was still about an hour from setting, and we could hear the band in the next bar over doing Jimmy Buffet covers. It was another peaceful postcard moment.

Big Thanks to Mom and Dad for our weekend.

I’m home now exhausted, Isaac is sleeping in his crib, Nancy is in bed reading, and I hear fireworks going off outside my window. I hope everyone else gets to have some peaceful rest in the company of people they love this summer.

Strength and Honor

Big Matt

P.S. I know my friend Mike would be disappointed if I didn’t mention it, so……Last Wednesday, I went with my buddies Mike, Mark and Jeff to see “The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus” at the Flying Anvil. They are a traveling group ranging from five to twenty performers at a time reviving old circus, vaudeville, burlesque, and freak show acts. We saw fire eating, juggling, sword swallowing, and one of the performers played a tune on a tampon, donated from the audience. It was a little bit sexy and a little bit dangerous, and they had two dollar Pabst Blue ribbons….pretty much a dream come true for me. The thing the four of us will still be talking about twenty years from now though is “Scotty the Blue Bunny”. Scotty was the tallest, thinnest, gayest person I’ve ever met bedecked from ankle to wrist in “Grabber Blue” spandex emblazoned with black stars. Completing the ensemble were clear plastic high heels, bunny ears, and a tail. I really should have brought Isaac and got his picture made with Scotty, the “Anti-Mickey”.