Myrtle Beach - Spring Break Part 1

Months ago, we were invited to join other families we are friendly with and go camping in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for part of Spring Break. We looked at all of our options considering Trent was traveling to London the week prior and wouldn't get home until the day the others were traveling down to the Travel Park. Trent is particularly amazing for making it all work. He returned from London at about 4:30 Saturday afternoon to a cab driver who was at departures rather than arrivals. He finally got home shortly after 6:00 and was greeted by a happy family who also informed him we still needed to go out and get a few camping supplies. Throw into that mix the fact that I had the Young Women's General Broadcast that night, and that was a lot to deal with on top of jet lag and everything else. Trent was awesome. He dropped me off for the broadcast and got the rest of the supplies together. We packed up and drove down the next morning. I realized that with the exception of visiting my Dad and Stepmom in Texas and a short layover once in the Atlanta airport, I had never been as far south as we drove on this trip.

When we crossed into South Carolina, we called our friends who told us the night before had been exceptionally windy and who had made plans for us if we didn't beat the storm into camp. We knew from the weather forecast and from our own driving that we were racing a storm into camp. We did beat the storm, and Steve, Jerry, and Jason all helped Trent and I get the tent up right away before the rain started. Afterward, we had some awesome chili (it was the Krajewski's turn for dinner that night). The rain started up in earnest as we put the kids to bed, so we joined them. It rained for awhile, but it wasn't too bad. Jon woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and by that point it was just very very windy. The tent was shaking a bit, but it was obviously secure, so we weren't worried. Around 3:00-3:30 the rains joined with the crazy wind, and the thunderstorms came in. The lightening was close, and the thunder shook the ground. We figured we were fine as we were not on any tree roots and were quite low. Being one of only two tents we saw in the entire travel park also meant that all of the RVs and pop up campers were higher up than we were as well. The rain, however, was now coming down in torrents and was joined by very strong winds. Around 4:00 I told Trent I was getting wet. He told me it was just condensation and not to worry. A few minutes later, I felt a drop on my face and told him again I was getting wet. He reached over and felt my sleeping bag and told me the outside was all wet. The inside was still dry and warm, so I had no idea. We figured out later that what happened was that the wind blew the rain up under the fly of the tent and it would then drip down through the mesh. Our tent was pitched on the flattest part of our campsite which also happened to be the lowest. Water was pooling around the base of the tent in places. Trent and I talked through several options and at around 4:30 or so decided on the option that would get our kids out of the still pouring rain the fastest which meant getting our bags of clothes, pillows, sleeping bags and children and get them quickly into the car. We drove into town and parked in the parking lot of Cracker Barrel where we tried to rest until 6:00 when they opened and we went in for breakfast.

The inside of the Warner tent the following morning. Can you see the puddles?

As we were leaving the restaurant, a gentleman having breakfast gave each of our children a dollar bill and told Trent we had a cute family. Later that morning I wondered if he thought we could use it seeing as how we were sitting in the restaurant in pjs and sweatpants. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. We returned to camp with donuts for the others and got Trent's jet boil out to make hot chocolate. We were surprised we hadn't been missed yet until we got back and saw others in the process of trying to jury rig the Shamblen's shade tent which had partially come down in the wind. The awning on their camper was also victim to the storm.


We took the sleeping bags and the few clothes that got wet up to the laundromat and dried them in the dryers. One lady there asked me, "are you the people in the TENT?!" I thought it was kind of funny. The rain didn't stop until lunch time and then it was cloudy. We hung up the air mattresses and dried out the puddles in the tent, but we were nervous about things getting dry for the next night. We went out and ran a couple of errands. By the time we got back to camp, it wasn't only sunny, it was warm. The kids went down and played at the beach, and Trent and I verified that everything was drying beautifully. We got everything set up again and then noticed rolling dark clouds headed right our way. We moved our tent to a higher grassy area in our camp site and threw a large tarp over all of it and staked it down. The worst of the storm went around us, but we had some strong rain in the middle of the night. The great news is that with no wind, the Warners stayed nice and dry. The Shamblen's shade tent did not fare so well. The weight of the water did it in, and the guys took it down and then bunched it up for trash pick up.

The rain is gone. The sun is out. The tide is out. Let's play on the beach! The tide at Myrtle Beach was fascinating. When the tide was high, there was about 5 to 6 feet of beach. When the tide was out, there were about 30 feet or so of beach.

Tuesday morning dismantling of the Shamblen's destroyed shade tent.

How the frame ended up

Tuesday was gorgeous. The morning was full of beach play and in the afternoon at low tide, Ashley and I joined others for a 3 mile walk down the beach and did some shelling. Ashley collected A LOT of shells but also found 2 fully intact sand dollars. That was impressive. One broke, but one made it home. Now we just have to figure out what to do with all of her shells. Trent took Sam and Jon miniature golfing. We all met up as Tuesday night was the Warners turn to fix dinner. We did BBQ ribs in the dutch oven and a raspberry cobbler. We messed up the cobbler and made a chocolate raspberry cake instead. It still tasted good but wasn't cobbler. The ribs were great. It was funny to see our friends react to dutch oven cooking as they hadn't really seen it done before. We were told we could come camping with all of them again if we brought ribs again.

Sammy's unsuccessful but fun attempt at body boarding

Every sand castle needs a moat

Ashley collecting shells Tuesday afternoon

About half the shells she ended up bringing home

We left the next day for part two of our adventure, but all in all we had a great time. There was lots of fun around the camp fire of course, but most of that doesn't translate if you weren't there. I am sure if you've sat around a fire laughing with friends, you know what I am talking about. I am not sure what all of this does for our "the Warners are hard core campers" reputation, but we had a great time.