- Continued -

Introduction

This report is about a short trip from May 25 - 27 that Ed and his son, Jason, took to Myrtle Beach.  Especially in recent years they've enjoyed being able to make time occasionally in their seemingly always busy schedules to do just father and son day get togethers such as for lunches, movies and dinners.  To say this overnight trip was a rare event would be at best a considerable understatement.  We think something of that nature last occurred maybe twenty-three years or so ago.  So it was a quite special event!

Sandra's time, for several months, had been increasingly absorbed with work related to impending computer systems conversions affecting areas and functions for which she is responsible and consequently she was finding it quite impossible to do our normal fun trips.  She would loved to have participated in the one with Jason, her best friend, but knowing that couldn't happen because of her work, she strongly encouraged him and Ed to go and enjoy themselves.

In terms of Ed's objectives (Ed always has objectives) he wanted to be sure Jason could do whatever appealed to him and generally spoil him.  Jason's specific interests were very straightforward:  drive the BMW Z4 with the top down; stay in a really nice, upscale place; eat lots of shrimp and steak in great restaurants; do beach and beachside deck time; and generally relax without the normal day-to-day, constant demands of work and family.  Ed was disappointed those interests didn't include any serious partying with too much to drink and carousing in the more infamous topless clubs, but nevertheless was still very much looking forward to the trip.

It's worth mentioning at this early juncture the tremendous amount of unanticipated reminiscing that spontaneously occurred about long ago trips to Myrtle Beach.  Jason's detailed recollections were quite amazing!  That was a very pleasant surprise and made the time together all the more significant.

Weather

It sucked big time!  That straightforward enough for you?

Obviously there were high hopes for sunny conditions, especially for top down driving and beach time, but there was precious little of that the first two days - in fact, quite the opposite.  The sun peeked out for about an hour after they arrived the first afternoon, and then made a few quite brief intermittent appearances the next morning.  And as things would have it, departure day was beautiful with a clear sky, lots of sunshine and the car thermometer showing the temperature reaching 94° F.  Oh well, it made for fabulous top down driving on the return trip.

There will be more comments about the prevailing weather in the context of the various things they did or tried to do during the trip.

Traveling

The first morning Ed was up with the chickens, as his Mother likes to say about early risings.  Actually, that's not altogether accurate because no sane chicken would wake up at 4:30am to begin the day.  All the packing and other general preparations had been completed the evening before and consequently there was little to do other than study the internet forecasts of junk weather and equally junk market indications, fortify himself with coffee, dress, pull Sandra's Cadillac out from beneath the raised car lift, and lower the Z4 and load it.  And, of course, attempt to do all the preceding without waking Sandra at that early hour.  Speaking of her, Ed found on the kitchen bar the sweetest bon voyage sentiment she had secretly placed there the night before.  She had created a printout which was a collage of pictures representing elements of visits to Myrtle Beach with comments about each in the context of the trip about to be undertaken.  Very thoughtful and quite touching.

The two hour plus drive to the Research Triangle area near Raleigh where Jason lives and works began with the darkness of night beginning to fade.  The only excitement was along a section of US-64 between I-85 and Asheboro where traffic was crawling behind a slow moving garbage truck.  Normally there are only a few good places to pass on this road, but it was even worse that morning because of heavy oncoming traffic.  Finally a small opportunity presented itself and Ed blasted past 6 cars and the truck all the while closely watching the approaching double yellow center lines leading up the hill ahead.  Did it with a few yards to spare after reaching somewhere notably north of 100mph.

At Jason's place after a good bit of arranging, rearranging, unpacking and rearranging, all the luggage and "stuff" were stowed in the car such that the top could be lowered (the trunk has much less useable space when the top is down).  Jason's darling girls, Chloe and Sydney, were bid farewell on their way to school and soon thereafter he was piloting the Z4 over to I-40 which was followed down to Wilmington.  There at exit 416A the bypass for US-17 South was picked up and was followed to Calabash with a stop for lunch.  Was the point made that the weather sucked?  It was "top up" all the way to Wilmington with occasional bouts of rain which necessitated learning how to operate the windshield wipers - not totally intuitive those German things.  Going over one of the higher bridges at Wilmington there were some brief, but very interesting views of the city's waterfront and the battleship, USS North Carolina. On the far side of the city the temperature finally reached the mid 70°'s and the sky was less threatening.  So down came the top and out came the sunglasses to help the pretension of the weather being better than it was.

After a wonderful lunch (more about that later), Ed took over the driving with the expectation things would get a little crazy entering Myrtle Beach especially with the expected buildup of traffic leading to Memorial Day weekend and particularly for the Black Bike Fest which occurs in that time frame.  NC-179 was used to leave Calabash and rejoin US-17 South which was followed to SC-9 North.  From that road an exit was made onto SC-31 South and then onto SC-22 East which dumps onto Kings Highway a very short distance from the final destination - the Hilton / Royale Palms in Kingston Plantation.  Strangely, there was no traffic of any consequence on this final leg of the trip.  In fact, it was unusually light - strange indeed.

The planned stop at Calabash had dictated the route for the drive to Myrtle Beach, but a more direct trip was undertaken back to Jason's home.  Preparations for the return trip began Thursday morning with a joint effort devoted to cleaning the car.  A once-over with a California Duster followed by a complete application of Meguiar's Ultimate Quick Detailer, wheel cleaning and glass cleaning had the Z4 looking quite decent again.  Packing the car was far less of an ordeal having already mastered it once.  The actual departure was after lunch in the Ocean Drive section of North Myrtle Beach.  The Robert Edge Parkway was taken to SC-31 N, then SC-9 N, US-701 N, US-74 W, I-95 N, US-421 N, US-401, and NC-42 to the final destination.  That may sound like a lot of roads, but it was a quite easy drive and Jason did it in just a bit over three hours.  The route beyond Tabor City continuing on US-701 was all new to Ed, or might as well have been since many years had elapsed since he was last in that vicinity (think NC State University days).  The only confusion arose when the BMW's navigation system displayed two separate, but identically labeled I-95's diverging near Fayetteville.  Fortunately, the "right" leg was taken because retrospectively it would seem the other section was actually Business 95.  There was some slowdown with congestion in the city of Dunn, NC, but other than that it was pretty smooth sailing and there wouldn't be any hesitation to use that route again.  And, yes, there was glorious sunshine - no need for pretending on that drive.  If it hadn't been for the drive on that day there would have been no tans!

Jason certainly got one of his wishes for the trip fulfilled - plenty of time driving the Z4 which he hugely enjoyed.  And he didn't even seem to mind that Dad loudly played Carolina Beach Music for hours on end either from songs recorded on a flash drive connected to the car's top end sound system or from 94.9 FM The Surf when the station was in range.  Of course, although Jason exercised the considerable performance capabilities of the Z4 to some degree, he was altogether much more responsible than Ed when he's at the wheel, such as when he put the car in Sport Mode with manual shifting activated and hit the century mark in a very short stretch of SC-31 before exiting onto SC-22.  Just wanted Jason to have a little sample of what it could really do.  Hey, it's a father / son thing.

Accommodations

The Hilton's Executive Assistant, Mary Black, as always, gave Ed's reservation much appreciated special attention.  A beautiful two bedroom suite on the 22nd floor of the Royale Palms was awaiting an early check-in.

There's nothing that can be added here in terms of descriptions and compliments about the suites in the Royale Palms that hasn't already been said multiple times in previous write-ups about trips on which we, Ed and Sandra, have stayed there.  For readers not already familiar with those observations and who are interested in knowing about these accommodations, links to those previous comments can be found here:  Experiences with the Royale Palms.

However, we will emphasize in this write-up that in terms of our experiences thus far with various hotels in the Myrtle Beach area, the Royale Palms clearly provides the finest in upscale, multi-room suites with an outstanding location and much valued amenities including a great beachside pool deck with bar and probably by far the best parking deck of all.  We often see the Anderson Ocean Club and Spa represented as being one of Myrtle Beach's upscale properties but we can say that though it's "OK", it's not nearly nice as the Royale Palms in many respects.  We've very much enjoyed our several stays at The Marina Inn in Grande Dunes, which is definitely an excellent property, but would still give the edge to the Royale Palms as being the overall best.

But back to the subject of the current trip, there's no doubt Jason enjoyed the accommodations.  Ed insisted Jason have the master bedroom with a king bed and large en suite bathroom, while he suffered with the separate guest room and bathroom.  The large, delightfully appointed kitchen went unused as did the dining room.  But Jason did sprawl out on the couch in the sitting room to watch the end of a few ball games late at night after Dad had crashed.  The spacious balconies with the magnificent views went unused other than Jason taking a brief look and commenting "Damn, that's a long way down!"

Something that came as a hugely disappointing surprise to Ed, and later to Sandra when she learned about it, was that Charles Roufogalis was no longer driving the "Fun Bus" shuttle which serves the Hilton and Royale Palms.  He's the former pastry chef who often provided us with fabulous delicacies he made.  We don't have all the details yet, but a little bit of subsequent detective work revealed he's now driving a taxi for City Cab in Myrtle Beach.  Too bad Jason didn't get to meet him and also sample his incredibly delicious desserts.