🌊🏝🐚
Our second family beach vacation is in the books, and I think we chose the perfect time to go. I don’t know if we’ll be able to come at this same time next year, it might be cutting it too close to school starting. However, this year, Quinn is going into Kindergarten, so he starts a week later than the big kids. The third of week of August in Myrtle Beach means less crowds and cheaper rates, two of my favorite things 😂.
I was iffy about going to Myrtle because we had gone two times before, pre-kids, and the huge crowds left us frustrated. We decided to give it a chance again because there is so much to do there. We went to Ocean City two years ago, which is one of our faves, but the ocean water was still pretty chilly in August. That was another consideration when deciding to go south. The drive wasn’t an awful lot longer than OCMD, either. That drive though…ugh 😒. We left a day early and took a detour to see the New River Gorge Bridge, and then stayed the first night in Roanoke, Va, which was about halfway. Ash puked in the car, twice 😑, and I couldn’t sleep at all at the first hotel. The room was decent enough, except for the outlet that wasn't installed correctly, so it was hanging out of the wall 🫠. The tops of the beds were about even with Ash’s head, and we already know he can’t sleep safely on any elevated surface. Because of that, we had to move the mattress to the floor, but the only space big enough for that was right in front of that half assed outlet, so I couldn’t just let them sleep down there alone. I laid in front of it, a human shield for their electrocutional safety (Philip argued with me that electrocutional isn’t a word, but it is now 🤷🏻♀️). I’m the world’s lightest sleeper, courtesy of motherhood, so every time one of them moved, I was awake. I will never again travel without a sleep aid.
The second night, our first in the condo at the beach, was a little better, thanks to the mattress pad feeling like sleeping in a cloud. I may not have slept any more than the night before, but I was definitely more comfortable lying awake 😂. I’m committed to buying a mattress pad for our bed at home now. We made a trip to Walmart on our second day and I was able to buy some Unisom to help with the rest of the trip. Every night after was much more restful, even with the inconsiderate neighbors playing music til midnight on our last night, and screaming in the hallway. I seriously wanted to yell at someone but I was too afraid I’d get shot. Philip read there have been lots of shootings in MB recently 😬. Quinn also woke me up a couple of nights because his ear was hurting. The week before we left, his ears suddenly started draining, which is a good thing, it means the tubes he got in March are working, but omg are they gross 😂. We bought some ear plugs for the trip but they didn’t stay in well. I’m not surprised, they probably couldn’t make a tight enough seal with how wet they are. I dried them off, but still.
I said we picked the perfect time to go, but I suppose that depends on what you like to do. Weather wise, it wasn’t perfect if you like hot, sunny days. I personally prefer overcast because baking in the sun isn’t my jam. It stormed on and off as Hurricane Erin had made her debut. It didn’t matter to us, though, because we intentionally booked a condo with a backup plan—Compass Cove boasts 27 pools, hot tubs, lazy rivers and slides, many of which are indoors. Quinn liked digging on the beach and playing in the waves, but he was just as content to play in all that the condo provided. While Philip and I also enjoyed the condo water, the kids were annoying with their unending theory that if we can’t see it, another pool must be empty 😑. If it got crowded where we were, they (Quinn, mostly) wanted to go elsewhere, always believing the grass was going to be greener, despite our attempts with adult reasoning, telling him they wouldn’t be. We try to make vacation pretty much be a week worth of “yes” days (we try to do every reasonable thing they ask to do), but it’s obnoxious to do things that don’t make sense. Also, I didn’t love a temperature change every 30 seconds between the pool (🥶), lazy river (bath water 🟠), and hot tub (🔥).
If you ask the kids what they did this summer, I’d bet money they’ll say, “We went to a trampoline park!,” and not even mention going to the beach 😂. We literally could’ve saved so much money😂😂. Big Air trampoline park was the coolest though, so I can agree that it was a highlight of our trip. Kim F. messaged me while we were there and said her daughter in law told her to pass a tip along to me, because they had just left from Myrtle. On Tuesdays, Big Air has an online special, 2 hours of jump time for $15/pp! The regular 90 min session is $22, so that’s a pretty sweet deal. Quinn isn’t ever comfortable doing new things alone (as in, without an adult’s participation), so Philip and I jumped, too, but we were in the minority among the adults. Maybe next year they’ll be able to do it by themselves. Or maybe not. I won’t be sad if I have to play, too 🤪. It’s super fun.
There was a zipline that seemed questionable for someone of Ash’s size, but the teenager working there assured me he wasn’t too small 🙃. I agreed to let him go, and he was seriously so brave. He and Quinn both loved it at first. They went several times, but then Ash smacked his face off of his knee with the landing impact and he was done with it. Quinn’s favorite attraction was the diving board that stretched out over a huge air mat. Every time we’ve been to a pool with a diving board, he has begged me to let him go off of it. I won’t because I don’t want to try to tread 11 foot water to retrieve him after he jumps. He still wears a life jacket and can paddle pretty well, but he sometimes panics when he falls off of the lily pads at the pool into 5 feet of water. I couldn’t risk leaving him to get himself out of the deep end after diving. Anyway, this allowed him the opportunity to try flipping off of the diving board without the danger of the water. He absolutely loved it and did so well! We’ve only ever been to The Hive in Bridgeport, which is also awesome, but Big Air raised the bar.
We visited Ripley’s aquarium, too, but it couldn’t possibly compete with the trampoline park in coolness. It couldn’t compete in price, either, costing nearly $200 with admission, food ($40 for 2 frozen Diigornio pizzas and slushies in souvenir cups 🙄), and a family photo. By the time we were forced to exit through the gift shop, there was no way we were buying any more of their overpriced shit.
We bought other overpriced shit when we visited the beach shops, though. One of them had life-sized dinosaurs that the boys liked posing with. We saw lots of interesting things, such as a decorative figurine with a rasta man holding a huge joint by his crotch, which Ash kept pointing to and saying, “That guy has a big penis!” I didn’t correct him because I didn’t want to tell him what it actually was, so I just told him to stop saying that 😂🫠.
On our last day, we found the local park, called Savannah’s Playground, which was amazing! I wanna be a playground designer when I grow up. It had everything someone could possibly want from a playground—sliding, climbing, spinning, rolling, swinging and best of all, a sprayer that misted water. The sun finally decided to make an appearance while we were there, so the spritz of water was a fun find.
We split the 9.5 hour drive on the way down, but coming home, we made the trek all in one day. Despite being our resident whiner, Quinn surprised us by being the perfect travel companion. I’m not sure if he wasn’t feeling well, or maybe hadn’t slept well because of his ears, but he barely said anything all day. He got an MP3 player for his birthday last month, which we were able to load with some videos, and he watched it or slept the entire way home. Ash, on the other hand, saw the situation for what it was: an opportunity to verbalize every thought that crossed his mind to us—his captive audience 😂. He slept some, too, which we were very thankful for 😂🤪.
Our homecoming took almost 12 hours, but I was happy to be back, where things actually dry completely, and the water coming out of the shower actually rinses soap off our bodies. It’s nice to get away, but it’s nice to be back, too. We asked Quinn which drive he preferred, splitting it into 2 days, or doing it all in one day. He said he liked doing it all in one day because we stopped at the gas station 3 times and he got to get candy each time 😂.
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