JC Beach Trip July 2001 - Part 1

Snowballing. This is what we call it when something starts off askew and gets worse. I planned to be at Chris’s by 8:30, I got there at 8:45 (15min late). We planned to leave at 9, we left at 9:30 (30min off). I missed first turn (5min delay), we didn’t plan on construction delays (30min delay), or accident (30min sitting still alone, another 25 min delays in slow down, speed up). Projected time to get from Raleigh to Myrtle = 3.5hrs. Planned to leave at 9am, planned to get there at 12:30pm. Actually left 9:30am, actually got there at 2pm. Dammit.

For that matter, I didn’t even make it out of NC driving. Which was probably a good thing anyway. One of my more memorable feats involved Dr Pepper bottles. Buying the bottles seemed like a good idea. Until we realized we had no bottle opener. Other Dave (OD) figured biting it off might work. He didn’t get far so I figured I’d use my mutant teeth and jaws for good for a change and open it for them. Figuring it would be tough I squeezed a bit too tough. Fortunately none of the broken glass went inside the bottle. I went lighter on the second bottle.

Having gotten no sleep all week, I couldn’t stay awake long enough to drive. Thankfully OD was awake enough to drive. At least until he was finally overcome with the ignorance of the other drivers and I drove the last 15mintues. To make the drive down more interesting we had another car follow us. As it turns out, they weren’t as aggressive as we were during the city driving. Which surprised me frankly given the highway driving.

While doing 78mph on the highway, all I could see in my rear view mirror was Carol Anne’s face, as she was ‘drafting’ like a NASCAR pro. Yet, in the city, she was 3 cars back and pissed that we kept getting separated. Go figure. We also managed to strike out at Sams for cheap food/beer and miss the ABC store. Kroger provided all our snacking needs, though after picking up Slim Fast bars, I was banned from the Entermann’s Donuts by group vote. Oh well.

We were herded through the check-in line where I played interpreter for those unaccustomed to quiet talkers and mumblers. Then we were informed most of our rooms weren’t ready and they forgot to give us our amenity cards (free breakfast and happy hour). We did manage to get stuff in Kimmy’s room and out to the beach anyway. This of course after the obligatory ‘key not working, having to go all the way back to the main hotel’ scene. Which wasn’t too bad since the hotel boy (and I do mean ‘boy’, he couldn’t have been over 16) was hot for Kimmy and frankly I think she could’ve gotten his number easily, lol

By now many of the group (all 100+ of us) were in Myrtle, though maybe not all out at the beach yet. Was good too see everyone. After some chit-chat and recuperation, I figured I needed so food to regain full strength. So I walked down to the pier to get some seafood. So now I’m in a fly-infested, dingy café with only 2 other customers and a girl who may or may not speak English. I figure I can’t go wring with Fish-n-Chips and proceed to find out how wrong I was.