Myrtle Beach and Murrells Inlet, SC

I had 2 weeks between my Townsend, TN stop and my trip back to Georgia so I decided to go back to the beach at the beginning of October.  I had looked at Huntington Beach State Park previously, but it was full and I could not get a campsite.  This time when I looked it was full on the weekends, but during the week they had a few spots available.  So, I ended up staying half the time at Huntington Beach State Park and half at Myrtle Beach Tourist Park. 

The Tourist Park was typical of many (if not all) of the private campgrounds in Myrtle Beach with most spots very close together, but I was luckily enough to ask for a spot with shade.   My spot was one of the larger spots and backed up to the lake.  I could just make out the ocean by looking over the lake  and above the RVs closer to the ocean.

One day while biking around the park, I noticed the above in the lake.  It kind of looked like a shark, but of course this was in the lake not the ocean.   Upon a closer look, I realized it was the back fin of a fish who was swimming very close to the top of the water.

Luckily most of the time I was there it was warm enough to swim.  So I kept myself busy by walking, biking, swimming, reading by the pool and floating in the Lazy River. 

Above I am in my Renetto Canopy chair.  A great chair to enjoy the sun, but keep it off your face!  From here, I headed about 25 miles south to Huntington Beach State Park.  While here I hiked, biked and watched birds.  I went on one of their bird walks.  Below is an Ibis with a small eel in his mouth.  At least some people in the bird watching group said it was a small eel.

Other Bird pictures --

About 15 minutes after taking the picture above, the egret flew away and a great blue heron took his place.  At one time both were there, but they flew away before I could take a picture.  That seems to be my luck, always a bit late with the camera.  One day I was sitting on the beach watching the dolphins.  One of the dolphins decided to start jumping out of the water. 

I finally got my camera out as the dolphin made his last jump and of course he was almost out of the view when I snapped the picture!  One morning I saw what I would guess to be 50 – 60 dolphins.  It was a great walk, even though it took me much longer to walk the 4 miles than it should have.  I stopped too many times to admire the dolphins. 

Sunrise--

From here I headed back to Georgia.  Like other years, I started at Fort Yargo State Park in Winder and then headed up to the North East Georgia Mountains.  I am currently in Mountain City in a campground about 5 minutes from my mom’s condo.  I’ll blog about this later.