Thursday night I started looking for a place to stay, almost expecting to find a room in a 1-star dive at an outrageous price. Surprisingly, there were still a lot of available rooms, even if the prices were starting to climb. I use the travel sites (hotel.com, Expedia, etc) to find the places we want to look at. But after our experience with Travelocity (the Miranda Lambert concert trip to Columbia), I usually go to the hotel's site to book the room.
One place popped up in several searches: Festiva's Ellington at Wachesaw East. Just off US 17 in Murrell's Inlet, it looked like a golf resort, and we found a "King Villa" for a decent price. It's posted in every travel site, but the direct link to the resort doesn't work. The link above is to the parent company, Festiva Hospitality Group, and even their link doesn't work.
We packed the bikes Friday morning, and after work headed directly to the beach, starting out around four o'clock. Here's the route. Traffic wasn't too bad, and we rolled through Florence and Marion counties pretty quickly. Even Aynor, normally a bottleneck in Horry County, was still pretty smooth. I didn't count on hitting Conway at 5 o'clock, and we hit the rush hour traffic there. It took a bit of stop and go, but soon enough, we were over the Intercoastal Waterway and headed down Highway 544. While the basic directions will take you down to US 17 right in the middle of all of the beach traffic, we turn off onto 707 that takes you straight to Murrell's Inlet and, as it turns out, about a half-mile from our destination.
Apparently, this place is a huge condo village, half of it private, the other half time shares or such. The "King Villa" is actually a one-bedroom apartment at the end of a 16-unit building, in a section with 8 buildings surrounding a pool.
The living area is good sized, with a full kitchen area and sitting room.The bedroom is small, filled with a king-sized bed.
There was a TV (in the cabinet on the right), and another in the bedroom, but they were the older, 21" CRT units --no flat screen, no hi-def. Haven't seen them in quite a while. No matter, we weren't here to watch TV anyway (we'll catch up with the DVR later).
By the time we got settled in, we decided to just run to the Food Lion, pick up the groceries we needed and eat in. We got to bed early.
Linda had suggested that, since we would be here for the weekend, that we should try taking one of the guided rides available during bike week. She found MyrtleBeachBikeWeek.comhttp://www.myrtlebeachbikeweek.com/ and found that there was a ride for Saturday -- the "Northern Route," taking us to the Conway Historic District, then to La Belle Amie Winery, back to Medieval Times, and finally to the Myrtle Beach Speedway. About 100 miles of a group ride through the country.
The ride was to start at Inlet Mall, about two miles north of our rooms, and we got there a bit early not knowing what to expect. We met Sonny Copeland, the coordinator of the ride, and signed up. Sonny is a genuinely nice guy, and we had a nice talk with him. Linda actually helped him sign up the riders as they came in.
Sonny had his pre-ride instructions about 10:15, with about thirty riders. While this was a guided ride, it wasn't going to be like the ones we've done before (the toy runs, especially), where the intersections are blocked by the police so we can stay together. As Sonny said, "We won't be running any red lights. If the light turns red, stop. But I will become the slowest thing on the road until everyone catches up again." I was beginning to wonder how this was going to go. But everything is an adventure, and I have my Garmin, so no worries about getting lost.
Here's the route map (as best I can recall).
The temperature was around 85, but the high humidity made it seem hotter. We headed back up 544 toward Conway, stopping at a station for gas, and drawing the first card. This wasn't a poker run, but the high hand would get the pole position at the speedway. As we left the station, we did split up. True to his word, Sonny slowed down -- way down, until the rest of the pack caught up. Then back up to speed.
We ran into a lot of traffic around Coastal Carolina -- Graduation Day. We stayed together though, and headed down to the river at Conway's River Walk. We pulled up under the overpass in the shade, and walked out on the deck overlooking the river.
Sonny pointed out some of the interesting things about the area, how the river was a main route for transporting goods to Conway. He assured the out-of-towners that the black water wasn't pollution, but rather the result of the cedar trees, like many of the waterways in this area. Some were fascinated by the Spanish moss that hangs from the trees, a parasite that feeds off the trees.
This the overpass that we traveled to get down to the river. It's a nice, peaceful area, and the scenery is beautiful. I'm told the fishing is good here as well -- bass, brim, crappie, catfish.
We picked another card here (Linda became Sonny's assistant), and headed out to the country, on the way to La Bell Amie Winery.If you've read my previous entries, you may recall that La Bell Amie Winery is a favorite of ours, so we looked forward to visiting. Sonny took us through the country, up highway 905. We got separated, and spent most of this leg of the ride in two groups, but since it was a straight ride for 30 miles or so, Sonny kept up the pace. Before we turned off onto highway 9, he waited for the group to catch up.
As we turned into the winery, we realized that, as on most Saturdays in the Spring and Summer months, there was an outdoor "Music Festival." In this case, it was a guy with a Karaoke setup singing songs from the 60's. The crowd was mostly older (OK, our age), and they were enjoying it. we parked around the circle, and Miss Vicky, the owner, explained the name of the winery (named after her mother), and welcomed us graciously.
Sonny had advised us that we had to leave by 1:30 to stay on schedule. Otherwise, we might miss our opportunity at the Speedway. He tried to gather us up to leave, but there were a few stragglers that weren't paying attention. When he'd waited long enough, he moved out, and we hit the road. It didn't take them long to catch up!
We headed back down to highway 31 (the highway 17 bypass' bypass), and down to Medieval Times, out near the Hard Rock park area on US 501 (now bankrupt for the second time). We were given a private tour with discount offers for the show. We've got to get there one of these days -- it's a huge place, and I'm told the food is delicious. Jennifer showed us around, telling us a bit about the place. We didn't get a chance to see any of the rehearsals, as sometimes happens. But you can see the arena area is quite large.We drew our cards (Linda and I were pretty much out of the running by now), and the high hand (out of four cards) was three tens. He got the pole position (he didn't get to keep it, though).
We came out from the Medieval Times site and followed the frontage roads around highway 501 to Myrtle Beach Speedway, where we headed for pit row and lined up behind the pace car. We were back about the 4th row, and the pace car headed out, starting slowly (about 35 mph). Sonny gave us the rules: Don't pass the pace car, for the first lap, stay in line (for pictures), then have fun.
After the first lap, Linda did just that as she accelerated, passing other riders and riding higher up the banked curves. I could see her grin in her mirrors as I followed her. As the pace car saw we were doing ok, he began speeding up. We were hitting about 50 around the banks, and climbed toward the wall. I was counter-steering as I accelerated through the turns, seemingly horizontal on the banks. It was thrilling, well worth the $20 price of the ride. As the pace car pulled us back to pit row, we were on top of the last rider, just making her last lap. One more and we would have lapped her!
Last cards were drawn, and the winners received prizes. We thanked Sonny, and headed out, back to the room where we cleaned up a bit before heading to dinner.
We took just the trike and headed to the Dead Dog Saloon out on the Marsh Walk for dinner. I thought it would be more like Creek Ratz next door -- fried fish and bar food. This was much better: excellent filet, and Linda included the shrimp and scallops. Our timing was good -- as we got our food, the crowds began to come in.
From here, we drove down the road to Suck, Bang, Blow, one of the many biker bars along the 17 business road in Murrell's Inlet, one of our favorites. It's like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get. We didn't stay long, but we had a good time.
And now, for your entertainment (and mine), the Girls of Suck Bang Blow:
We headed back to the room, and crashed, heading to bed early.
Today is kind of open. I want to head up to Barefoot Landing, where there's usually a lot of vendor exhibits, the back home again.
I'm told that the vendor permits this year have been more restrictive, in that the normal outside setups can't be done until Monday (providing the permanent establishments the opportunity to entice the visitors first), so we didn't see a lot of the normal stuff. But things were shaping up, and some of the "tent stores" were popping up in Murrell's Inlet.
