So, we pack up the car with every single thing imagineable (umbrellas, floats, watermelons, sheets, distilled water, an electric frying pan,etc.) I'm riding in the back with desk lamps and rolled up towels falling onto my head from the stuff piled high in the far back of the van every time my Aunt brakes at a four way stop or merges into traffic. We're finally on our way to Myrtle Beach. Then my cousin, says from the front seat, how she'd spent the whole flight into town next to this total "North Carolina Hick" on the flight. So from the back, I look at the crazy mengerie in the car, thinking we looked more like Oakies esaping the dust bowl than people going on a beach trip, and I say sarcastically "Sure, those North Carolina hicks are totally different than those South Carolina hicks" as I lift my feet to make room for the watermelon rolling across the floorboard. However, we arrived at the beach and instinctively gulped big breaths of the thick salt air, and then drove immediately to Walmart...Like I said, those South Carolina Hicks (Walmart) are totally not like the North Carolina Hicks (Piggly Wiggely). Anyway, as the sun rose in front of the beachhouse this morning, the tide was so low, all the flat sand allowed runners and walkers to form a two lane highway. I ran from pier to pier (4 miles/ 9:38) and then up to the inlet where North Myrtle Beach is pristine and undeveloped. I stood on the inlet and watched as the tide came in and thought "This is the place of my mother's childhood." And, somehow I could feel in my veins, while standing there, the same heady freedom and sultry optimism she must have felt as a young teenage girl spending summers on these beaches. | 