The Jesse: An (Un)Expected Journey
This entry will attempt to chronicle the journey to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in as much detail as possible.
The trip, planned for June 15-20, ended up spanning the 15-19. Dustin decided not to go to Atlanta after all. We set out on the morning of the 19th, arrived at Robbie's in Raleigh-Durham (they're two different towns, but right next to each other, sometimes referred to as "Raleigh-Durham", and I forget which one he technically lives in) around 8 that evening, spent the 16th there, headed to North Myrtle Beach the early afternoon of the 17th, spent the evening and entirety of the 18th exploring Myrtle Beach and the boardwalk, and returned home on the 19th.
That enough detail for ya? No? Well, then settle in for a spell, and lemme see what more I can recollect...
The day before, Austin decided on a whim to come with us while dropping by to give Dustin the $60 he owed him for his phone bill (which ended up being put toward gas), since he was quitting his old job and starting a new one anyway). He went home and got Melissa to come with him (she only worked two of the five days we were planning on being gone, and was able to get them off). Melissa's 23rd birthday was Wednesday and Austin didn't want to leave her alone on her birthday, especially considering apparently her brother who also lives with them doesn't do anything for/with her on her birthdays.
My level of optimism for this trip shot up about 10 levels when Austin off-handedly mentioned "maybe I'll just come with you guys". Not only is Austin fun, but Dustin and I get along better when there's other people along to break up the monotony of The Jesse & Dustin Show.
Clothes and Toiletries packed, Dustin and I went to get the rental car from Hertz around 8 in the morning. While we were gone, Austin and Melissa arrived at the house.
Dustin's ideal leaving time was 8:30, but by the time we got going it was more like 9, and after a stop for breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, it was really like 9:30 by the time we really got going.
Stopped for gas at Giant Eagle in Somerset, Pennsylvania, where Austin and Melissa shared a sub sandwich and I got a bag of Doritos. Later we stopped for a proper lunch at Panera Bread in Germantown, Maryland.
We went east and then turned south, passing through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia before entering North Carolina.
The voyage was fraught with peril (half-joking) the further south we got, especially skirting the outer edge of Washington D.C., where traffic gridlock slowed us down a lot. As Robbie had told us before, a lot of southern drivers apparently don't use turn signals or pay much attention, and we had people constantly weaving in and out of traffic.
Arrived at Robbie's around 8 in the evening. Robbie lives in a nice one-story, three bedroom house on a nice suburban street directly off the highway. Considering it's Robbie, the house is of course immaculately clean and maintained.
Robbie's roommates: his ex Josh Mills, who I've previously only glimpsed in the background of Facetime calls, and a very effeminate Hispanic boy named Jorge (whom they call "George") who makes Josh look masculine.
Dustin commented to me that Josh acts like a combination of a somewhat more flamboyant version of Robbie's ex Christopher Nickell (probably the most serious relationship he ever had apart from the Jon clusterfuck), and Dustin himself. Considering they both have histories with Robbie, I won't venture into the Freudian implications of that.
Robbie's pure black German Shepherd puppy Mhysa (named for a word meaning "Mother" which is a nickname of a main character on Game of Thrones) which has adorably huge floppy jackrabbit ears and is a bouncy, frisky puppy who likes to nip, although she's pretty well-behaved for only being four months old. Dustin was fawning all over her and wanted to steal her and take her back with us.
At present, Robbie is indecisive between two prospective romantic entanglements, an effeminate Latino pretty boy named Loris, and a woman. Nothing new to see here.
As those who have diligently read my LiveJournal through the years will know, Robbie has sometimes had trouble recognizing "boundaries" with Dustin, and "playfully" smacked Dustin's ass a couple times and floated the offer for Dustin to spend the night in his bed. Dustin thought Robbie was trying to get somewhere, and turned him down to sleep on Josh's floor in the sleeping bag he brought with him.
Given a chance to refresh my impressions of Robbie's cat Mrs. Darcy, she's not as similar to Ash as I thought. She's far more vocal and for lack of a better word, bitchy, meowing and whining constantly, seemingly begging for attention but then complaining when anyone touches her. She's also stockier than Ash and has a broader face and wider eyes and a more angry expression.
There is also Josh's orange and white tabby cat Oliver, who is very skittish and runs from everyone except Josh.
Some impressions of the South:
Very sunny and hot, almost scorchingly bright all the time and very hot (the temperature was between 96-103 through pretty much our whole Southern journey), but Robbie has air conditioning, so comfortably cool inside. From my experience, most of the people don't have what you'd think of as Southern accents, and didn't really sound much different from people in Niles. Although Raleigh is a major tech center, with IBM, AT&T and a bunch of other computer companies having corporate headquarters or major centers there, so it draws a lot of people from all over the country. Although Robbie informs us that, while Raleigh is the state capital, Charlotte is bigger and is where all the money is, where most of the rich people congregate. There's a lot of big advertising billboards with signs about Jesus, or Bible quotes, which I've never really seen around Ohio, and also Confederate flags all over the place, on houses, trucks, T-shirts, government buildings, etc. A lot of the roads and streets are named after Confederate Generals; on the way down, we drove down both Jefferson Davis Highway and several roads named for Robert E. Lee. Though there was also Martin Luther King Parkway, so there's that.
Monday evening Robbie grilled hot dogs and hamburgers (the burgers with bacon strips on top), along with corn and rice. Dustin brought his own sleeping bag, while Austin and Melissa took one end of the couch and I took the other, which was long and winding enough for all of us to lay stretched out without touching.
In the morning, Robbie made French toast and hashbrowns. The day crawled by lazily, with everyone groggily sitting around while Robbie and Austin played video games. Around 2:15, Robbie had to run to his AT&T store to put in a customer order, and Dustin and I tagged along, partly to get out of the house, partly because plans had been hatched.
Austin had us pick up a birthday cake for Melissa while he, Melissa, and Josh went to get gas and liquor.
Robbie is one of the top-selling AT&T retail workers in the southeast region, partly by going out of his way to hob nob and ingratiate himself with apartment complexes of wealthy people and get them all signed up for AT&T internet and security services.
Tuesday evening Robbie made baked chicken.
Wednesday morning Robbie ran to McDonald's and brought back chicken and biscuits for everyone. Then we drove to Eno State Park, where there is a rock quarry, a four acre pond that was originally an abandoned stone pit mined by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It was about a 20 minute or so drive from Robbie's house, and then there was a hike through the woods which was not as "flip-flop friendly" as Jorge had led us to believe. It would have been more interactive for us non-swimmers (me, Melissa, Loris) if we'd brought innertubes or similar flotation devices, but the more adventurous ones (Robbie, Austin, Dustin, Josh, Jorge) found these long wide logs floating in the water and used them like makeshift floating tubes. Austin got Melissa to come out in the center of the pond with him, hanging onto his log (not in the dirty way), but Jesse does not like not being able to feel something solid beneath his feet. The quarry drops really abruptly into a deep pit under the water, and you can perch at the very edge crouched on your knees in the water and extend your foot a little and feel it drop away into nothingness.
Robbie, Austin, and Dustin dove off a cliff on the other side. No diving for Jesse, thank you.
After having his fill of watersports (heh), Dustin decided we were just leaving straight from the park to start our journey to North Myrtle, which was going to be another 2 1/2 or 3 hours. If I remember correctly, it was around 2:30 when we left Eno, and about 7 when we got to North Myrtle, counting the lunch break.
Robbie is coming up next month to visit us and his family, making it not as depressing as usual when we parted ways.
Melissa suggested doing something special for Robbie, since he made two dinners and bought breakfast for everyone, but Dustin didn't really know what that would be.
Before getting far into our journey to North Myrtle Beach, we stopped for lunch at Chik-Fil-A. Their CEO's donations of millions of dollars annually to anti-gay organizations give me conflicted feelings about giving them money, but their chicken really is delicious, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even really like chicken.
On our way into Myrtle Beach, it seemed every store, bar, or restaurant for 20 minutes along the route there was sea-themed. We stopped at one of a thousand beach supply stores and walked through a door in the shape of a giant shark mouth to get beach towels and souvenirs. Dustin got Myrtle Beach shot glasses (a recurring thing he always does in new places; he also has Chicago shot glasses from his Chicago trip), we all got beach towels. I got a beach towel, and two shirts, all of which with, of course, the words "Myrtle Beach", as a memento I'd been there.
We finally arrived at our hotel around 7 in the evening (I think). To clarify, our hotel was not actually at Myrtle Beach, it was in "North Myrtle", which is actually about a 20-30 minute drive from the actual proper Myrtle Beach.
Our hotel was one in a long series of hotels on both sides of a river. Our first view of the beachfront townhouses and hotels bordering the river, and all the docked boats and even a lighthouse, made me think of Amity Island from Jaws. Perhaps an ominous association to make before seeing the ocean for the first time (or the first time in memory). Disappointingly, though, our room is on the side of the hotel where, rather than the scenic riverfront, all we have a view of from our window is the McDonald's across the street.
There was a closer beach we could have gone to, but Melissa wanted to see the famous Myrtle Beach boardwalk.
The boardwalk: crammed to the gills (har har) with all kinds of shops, bars, seafood grills, beach stores, etc. Hordes of people and cars moving in all directions constantly, a lot of expensive cars, Porsches, Mercedes, etc. A sea of neon lights. Kind of how I'd imagine Vegas to be.
My first view of the ocean was over a white picket fence bordering the boardwalk. We walked out onto the beach, took pictures standing in the surf, etc. Conveniently, there was a little mini-shower station right off the beach for washing off your feet and sandals.
Then we explored the boardwalk, Dustin buying all 4 of us tickets for the Sky Wheel, a ferris wheel looking contraption I eyed dubiously, but which Dustin and Austin assured me went slow and was enclosed.
We hit a couple of bars, one where I got slightly pleasantly buzzed on a strawberry daiquiri, enough to feel just slightly dizzy. Austin and Melissa ended up in a country bar until like 2 in the morning, where a local band was covering songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" (the requisite Confederate flag on hand, of course, to the cheers of the bar patrons), and "Burning Ring of Fire". His voice was technically okay but didn't have "soul", and he sounded the same whether covering Lynyrd Skynyrd or Johnny Cash. There was an old black man with the band who went berserk on his fiddle. Anyway, this wasn't my kind of thing, but Austin and Melissa were really into it. By the end of the night, they'd made friends with an older pair of women, and Austin bought drinks for a waitress who was having a birthday.
I'm occasionally envious of a "people person" like Austin, who seemingly strikes up new friends within 5 minutes in any bar in the world, and is equally comfortable chatting with young girls or an old drag queen, but the art of making new friends so easily remains an impenetrable mystery to me. In our night on the boardwalk, he and Melissa befriended an older bar-hopping pair of women, and Austin struck up a conversation with a Czechoslovakian exchange student playing an accordion on the sidewalk for tips who barely understood English.
Dustin, meanwhile, had another of his vacation flings, ending up spending the night at the condo of a BMW-driving television executive whose name escapes me (Josh?) whom Austin and I teased him was this vacation's version of Matt Lindberg, the pilot he was infatuated with in Phoenix.
In the morning, I went down to our hotel's breakfast room, which had a very nice view out onto the riverfront, and had a free self-serve buffet line of orange juice, coffee, sausage, scrambled eggs, gravy and biscuits, etc.
I think Dustin and I, reuniting in the breakfast room and going back up to the room together, may have thwarted Austin and Melissa's hopes for some hanky panky, because Austin sent Dustin a couple text messages seeming a little too anxious to know when he was coming back and how long it was gonna take.
Poor Austin. Go on vacation with your girlfriend, and the only one who gets laid is your gay brother.
The next day was spent pretty much entirely, morning to evening, on Myrtle Beach and the boardwalk. We took our ride on the Sky Wheel, which I was afraid was gonna make me freak out and have a vertigo panic attack or something, but to my pleasant surprise it didn't bother me at all. It goes very slowly and is enclosed in a little cab like a trolley car, and you can see the entire city around you (Myrtle Beach's boardwalk is a mini "city that never sleeps" unto itself) and out over the ocean.
The little Sky Wheel cabs are also air-conditioned inside, which was welcome after her morning on the Peter Pan Mini-Golf, where you play like 18 rounds of mini-golf up on top of this scene modeled after stuff from Peter Pan, including some of it inside misty cave tunnels and on a mini pirate ship and stuff. This was fun but it got really hot. The temperature varied between 96 and 103 degrees the entire time we were down south, and I kept getting extreme heat advisory warnings on my phone.
After exiting the Sky Wheel, we went to an open air little Margaritaville-looking restaurant right beside it and also looking out onto the beach. I thought it was gonna be roasting, but it wasn't bad with the breeze coming off the ocean. Although Austin and I misjudged getting spicy chicken which made us hotter, while Dustin and Melissa had the good sense to get chilled salads and fruit bowls.
The bulk of the day, though, was spent on the beach. There are long lines of chairs with umbrellas, but they're only for rent by the hour. We rented one for an hour but spent most of the time wading into the ocean. Austin of course was out riding the waves with some kids and trying to get Melissa to come further out with him, while I waded in about up to my knees.
By about midway through the day, it all kind of melted together into a sun-drenched blur from which only snippets of images linger in the memory-muscular young shirtless guys walking down the beach, their lithe muscles rippling in the sunlight (yes I know it sounds like I'm writing a porno for a second there), or the way you can feel the water pulling at your feet as the tide goes back out. Even sitting still, when you look around and see sand sucking out to sea with the tide, it makes it look like you're moving.
Dustin bought a helicopter ride.
We ended up back at the hotel in the late evening. Dustin had talked about getting up at 5:20 in the morning so we could drive back to the beach in time to see the sun come up, but he ended up spending the night with Mister Television Executive (whose name may have been Josh, I don't remember) and sleeping until like 8 or 8:30 in the morning. Melissa was a bit put out by this, since she'd been wanting to see the dawn on the beach. But nothing separates Dustin from his sex.
Though I think also part of Dustin not spending either night in the hotel room, apart from just "getting some action", was also because we only had two beds since he hadn't counted on Austin and Melissa coming, so four people in 2 beds would have been a bit crowded. Austin and Melissa live together and share a bed every night anyway, but that's different, so I think Dustin welcomed finding an "out".
Had my second breakfast in The Breakfast Room.
Finally, around 9:30, pink, sore, half-asleep, monosyllabic, everyone piled wearily into the car for the long journey home, which would be a few hours even longer than the trip down without the visit to Robbie's before Myrtle Beach to break it up.
One of the stand-up comedians Dustin likes to listen to on long road trips said cross-country trips were recommended to him as "bonding time", but then he realized "there is a difference between bonding with people....and being stuck with people!". For the most part, I'd say we stayed on the "bonding" side rather than "being stuck with" side, but by the end, everyone pretty much wanted the hell out of that car.
This time, rather than our "head east and then veer sharply left" as we had on the way down, Dustin took another route Robbie suggested to take a more straight route straight up. This also gave Melissa the chance to see the Virginia and West Virginia mountains, which she'd been looking forward to and was disappointed she didn't get to see the first time.
Our journey home took us through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and Melissa made Dustin play John Denver's "Country Roads" while driving through the West Virginia mountains.
There were moments passing through Virginia and West Virginia where it looked like we were in The Waltons or something, ramshackle little convenience stores that looked like they were out of the '30s, with names like "Mountain Top General Trade Store". I told Dustin we should stop and "do some tradin'".
This was gonna be somewhere between 11 and 13 hours, and we ended up setting out around 9:30 and getting home around 9 in the evening after multiple stops for gas, food, etc., and ending with Dustin buying everyone dinner at Cracker Barrel about 30 minutes from our house.
Austin and Melissa left shortly after getting to our house without even collecting some of their stuff from the trunk, because they looked pretty exhausted and still had to get in their own car and drive another half hour to get back to their house. Austin swung by yesterday to pick some stuff up, and brought Cody over who hasn't seen the house since Dustin renovated a bunch of stuff.
Dustin wants to go to Niagara Falls in the fall, but he doesn't know if anyone else is coming, since no one else has their passports. He also wants to go somewhere sometime next year, and has advised me, if I want to come again, to set aside just a little money, $20 or so, as much as I can, over the course of the next year or so, so next time I'll have a special fund set aside just for the trip and it won't cut into my main account.
Well.
I'm not really sure what all else to say.
Thank you for flying Air Jesse.
The trip, planned for June 15-20, ended up spanning the 15-19. Dustin decided not to go to Atlanta after all. We set out on the morning of the 19th, arrived at Robbie's in Raleigh-Durham (they're two different towns, but right next to each other, sometimes referred to as "Raleigh-Durham", and I forget which one he technically lives in) around 8 that evening, spent the 16th there, headed to North Myrtle Beach the early afternoon of the 17th, spent the evening and entirety of the 18th exploring Myrtle Beach and the boardwalk, and returned home on the 19th.
That enough detail for ya? No? Well, then settle in for a spell, and lemme see what more I can recollect...
The day before, Austin decided on a whim to come with us while dropping by to give Dustin the $60 he owed him for his phone bill (which ended up being put toward gas), since he was quitting his old job and starting a new one anyway). He went home and got Melissa to come with him (she only worked two of the five days we were planning on being gone, and was able to get them off). Melissa's 23rd birthday was Wednesday and Austin didn't want to leave her alone on her birthday, especially considering apparently her brother who also lives with them doesn't do anything for/with her on her birthdays.
My level of optimism for this trip shot up about 10 levels when Austin off-handedly mentioned "maybe I'll just come with you guys". Not only is Austin fun, but Dustin and I get along better when there's other people along to break up the monotony of The Jesse & Dustin Show.
Clothes and Toiletries packed, Dustin and I went to get the rental car from Hertz around 8 in the morning. While we were gone, Austin and Melissa arrived at the house.
Dustin's ideal leaving time was 8:30, but by the time we got going it was more like 9, and after a stop for breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts, it was really like 9:30 by the time we really got going.
Stopped for gas at Giant Eagle in Somerset, Pennsylvania, where Austin and Melissa shared a sub sandwich and I got a bag of Doritos. Later we stopped for a proper lunch at Panera Bread in Germantown, Maryland.
We went east and then turned south, passing through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia before entering North Carolina.
The voyage was fraught with peril (half-joking) the further south we got, especially skirting the outer edge of Washington D.C., where traffic gridlock slowed us down a lot. As Robbie had told us before, a lot of southern drivers apparently don't use turn signals or pay much attention, and we had people constantly weaving in and out of traffic.
Arrived at Robbie's around 8 in the evening. Robbie lives in a nice one-story, three bedroom house on a nice suburban street directly off the highway. Considering it's Robbie, the house is of course immaculately clean and maintained.
Robbie's roommates: his ex Josh Mills, who I've previously only glimpsed in the background of Facetime calls, and a very effeminate Hispanic boy named Jorge (whom they call "George") who makes Josh look masculine.
Dustin commented to me that Josh acts like a combination of a somewhat more flamboyant version of Robbie's ex Christopher Nickell (probably the most serious relationship he ever had apart from the Jon clusterfuck), and Dustin himself. Considering they both have histories with Robbie, I won't venture into the Freudian implications of that.
Robbie's pure black German Shepherd puppy Mhysa (named for a word meaning "Mother" which is a nickname of a main character on Game of Thrones) which has adorably huge floppy jackrabbit ears and is a bouncy, frisky puppy who likes to nip, although she's pretty well-behaved for only being four months old. Dustin was fawning all over her and wanted to steal her and take her back with us.
At present, Robbie is indecisive between two prospective romantic entanglements, an effeminate Latino pretty boy named Loris, and a woman. Nothing new to see here.
As those who have diligently read my LiveJournal through the years will know, Robbie has sometimes had trouble recognizing "boundaries" with Dustin, and "playfully" smacked Dustin's ass a couple times and floated the offer for Dustin to spend the night in his bed. Dustin thought Robbie was trying to get somewhere, and turned him down to sleep on Josh's floor in the sleeping bag he brought with him.
Given a chance to refresh my impressions of Robbie's cat Mrs. Darcy, she's not as similar to Ash as I thought. She's far more vocal and for lack of a better word, bitchy, meowing and whining constantly, seemingly begging for attention but then complaining when anyone touches her. She's also stockier than Ash and has a broader face and wider eyes and a more angry expression.
There is also Josh's orange and white tabby cat Oliver, who is very skittish and runs from everyone except Josh.
Some impressions of the South:
Very sunny and hot, almost scorchingly bright all the time and very hot (the temperature was between 96-103 through pretty much our whole Southern journey), but Robbie has air conditioning, so comfortably cool inside. From my experience, most of the people don't have what you'd think of as Southern accents, and didn't really sound much different from people in Niles. Although Raleigh is a major tech center, with IBM, AT&T and a bunch of other computer companies having corporate headquarters or major centers there, so it draws a lot of people from all over the country. Although Robbie informs us that, while Raleigh is the state capital, Charlotte is bigger and is where all the money is, where most of the rich people congregate. There's a lot of big advertising billboards with signs about Jesus, or Bible quotes, which I've never really seen around Ohio, and also Confederate flags all over the place, on houses, trucks, T-shirts, government buildings, etc. A lot of the roads and streets are named after Confederate Generals; on the way down, we drove down both Jefferson Davis Highway and several roads named for Robert E. Lee. Though there was also Martin Luther King Parkway, so there's that.
Monday evening Robbie grilled hot dogs and hamburgers (the burgers with bacon strips on top), along with corn and rice. Dustin brought his own sleeping bag, while Austin and Melissa took one end of the couch and I took the other, which was long and winding enough for all of us to lay stretched out without touching.
In the morning, Robbie made French toast and hashbrowns. The day crawled by lazily, with everyone groggily sitting around while Robbie and Austin played video games. Around 2:15, Robbie had to run to his AT&T store to put in a customer order, and Dustin and I tagged along, partly to get out of the house, partly because plans had been hatched.
Austin had us pick up a birthday cake for Melissa while he, Melissa, and Josh went to get gas and liquor.
Robbie is one of the top-selling AT&T retail workers in the southeast region, partly by going out of his way to hob nob and ingratiate himself with apartment complexes of wealthy people and get them all signed up for AT&T internet and security services.
Tuesday evening Robbie made baked chicken.
Wednesday morning Robbie ran to McDonald's and brought back chicken and biscuits for everyone. Then we drove to Eno State Park, where there is a rock quarry, a four acre pond that was originally an abandoned stone pit mined by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. It was about a 20 minute or so drive from Robbie's house, and then there was a hike through the woods which was not as "flip-flop friendly" as Jorge had led us to believe. It would have been more interactive for us non-swimmers (me, Melissa, Loris) if we'd brought innertubes or similar flotation devices, but the more adventurous ones (Robbie, Austin, Dustin, Josh, Jorge) found these long wide logs floating in the water and used them like makeshift floating tubes. Austin got Melissa to come out in the center of the pond with him, hanging onto his log (not in the dirty way), but Jesse does not like not being able to feel something solid beneath his feet. The quarry drops really abruptly into a deep pit under the water, and you can perch at the very edge crouched on your knees in the water and extend your foot a little and feel it drop away into nothingness.
Robbie, Austin, and Dustin dove off a cliff on the other side. No diving for Jesse, thank you.
After having his fill of watersports (heh), Dustin decided we were just leaving straight from the park to start our journey to North Myrtle, which was going to be another 2 1/2 or 3 hours. If I remember correctly, it was around 2:30 when we left Eno, and about 7 when we got to North Myrtle, counting the lunch break.
Robbie is coming up next month to visit us and his family, making it not as depressing as usual when we parted ways.
Melissa suggested doing something special for Robbie, since he made two dinners and bought breakfast for everyone, but Dustin didn't really know what that would be.
Before getting far into our journey to North Myrtle Beach, we stopped for lunch at Chik-Fil-A. Their CEO's donations of millions of dollars annually to anti-gay organizations give me conflicted feelings about giving them money, but their chicken really is delicious, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even really like chicken.
On our way into Myrtle Beach, it seemed every store, bar, or restaurant for 20 minutes along the route there was sea-themed. We stopped at one of a thousand beach supply stores and walked through a door in the shape of a giant shark mouth to get beach towels and souvenirs. Dustin got Myrtle Beach shot glasses (a recurring thing he always does in new places; he also has Chicago shot glasses from his Chicago trip), we all got beach towels. I got a beach towel, and two shirts, all of which with, of course, the words "Myrtle Beach", as a memento I'd been there.
We finally arrived at our hotel around 7 in the evening (I think). To clarify, our hotel was not actually at Myrtle Beach, it was in "North Myrtle", which is actually about a 20-30 minute drive from the actual proper Myrtle Beach.
Our hotel was one in a long series of hotels on both sides of a river. Our first view of the beachfront townhouses and hotels bordering the river, and all the docked boats and even a lighthouse, made me think of Amity Island from Jaws. Perhaps an ominous association to make before seeing the ocean for the first time (or the first time in memory). Disappointingly, though, our room is on the side of the hotel where, rather than the scenic riverfront, all we have a view of from our window is the McDonald's across the street.
There was a closer beach we could have gone to, but Melissa wanted to see the famous Myrtle Beach boardwalk.
The boardwalk: crammed to the gills (har har) with all kinds of shops, bars, seafood grills, beach stores, etc. Hordes of people and cars moving in all directions constantly, a lot of expensive cars, Porsches, Mercedes, etc. A sea of neon lights. Kind of how I'd imagine Vegas to be.
My first view of the ocean was over a white picket fence bordering the boardwalk. We walked out onto the beach, took pictures standing in the surf, etc. Conveniently, there was a little mini-shower station right off the beach for washing off your feet and sandals.
Then we explored the boardwalk, Dustin buying all 4 of us tickets for the Sky Wheel, a ferris wheel looking contraption I eyed dubiously, but which Dustin and Austin assured me went slow and was enclosed.
We hit a couple of bars, one where I got slightly pleasantly buzzed on a strawberry daiquiri, enough to feel just slightly dizzy. Austin and Melissa ended up in a country bar until like 2 in the morning, where a local band was covering songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" (the requisite Confederate flag on hand, of course, to the cheers of the bar patrons), and "Burning Ring of Fire". His voice was technically okay but didn't have "soul", and he sounded the same whether covering Lynyrd Skynyrd or Johnny Cash. There was an old black man with the band who went berserk on his fiddle. Anyway, this wasn't my kind of thing, but Austin and Melissa were really into it. By the end of the night, they'd made friends with an older pair of women, and Austin bought drinks for a waitress who was having a birthday.
I'm occasionally envious of a "people person" like Austin, who seemingly strikes up new friends within 5 minutes in any bar in the world, and is equally comfortable chatting with young girls or an old drag queen, but the art of making new friends so easily remains an impenetrable mystery to me. In our night on the boardwalk, he and Melissa befriended an older bar-hopping pair of women, and Austin struck up a conversation with a Czechoslovakian exchange student playing an accordion on the sidewalk for tips who barely understood English.
Dustin, meanwhile, had another of his vacation flings, ending up spending the night at the condo of a BMW-driving television executive whose name escapes me (Josh?) whom Austin and I teased him was this vacation's version of Matt Lindberg, the pilot he was infatuated with in Phoenix.
In the morning, I went down to our hotel's breakfast room, which had a very nice view out onto the riverfront, and had a free self-serve buffet line of orange juice, coffee, sausage, scrambled eggs, gravy and biscuits, etc.
I think Dustin and I, reuniting in the breakfast room and going back up to the room together, may have thwarted Austin and Melissa's hopes for some hanky panky, because Austin sent Dustin a couple text messages seeming a little too anxious to know when he was coming back and how long it was gonna take.
Poor Austin. Go on vacation with your girlfriend, and the only one who gets laid is your gay brother.
The next day was spent pretty much entirely, morning to evening, on Myrtle Beach and the boardwalk. We took our ride on the Sky Wheel, which I was afraid was gonna make me freak out and have a vertigo panic attack or something, but to my pleasant surprise it didn't bother me at all. It goes very slowly and is enclosed in a little cab like a trolley car, and you can see the entire city around you (Myrtle Beach's boardwalk is a mini "city that never sleeps" unto itself) and out over the ocean.
The little Sky Wheel cabs are also air-conditioned inside, which was welcome after her morning on the Peter Pan Mini-Golf, where you play like 18 rounds of mini-golf up on top of this scene modeled after stuff from Peter Pan, including some of it inside misty cave tunnels and on a mini pirate ship and stuff. This was fun but it got really hot. The temperature varied between 96 and 103 degrees the entire time we were down south, and I kept getting extreme heat advisory warnings on my phone.
After exiting the Sky Wheel, we went to an open air little Margaritaville-looking restaurant right beside it and also looking out onto the beach. I thought it was gonna be roasting, but it wasn't bad with the breeze coming off the ocean. Although Austin and I misjudged getting spicy chicken which made us hotter, while Dustin and Melissa had the good sense to get chilled salads and fruit bowls.
The bulk of the day, though, was spent on the beach. There are long lines of chairs with umbrellas, but they're only for rent by the hour. We rented one for an hour but spent most of the time wading into the ocean. Austin of course was out riding the waves with some kids and trying to get Melissa to come further out with him, while I waded in about up to my knees.
By about midway through the day, it all kind of melted together into a sun-drenched blur from which only snippets of images linger in the memory-muscular young shirtless guys walking down the beach, their lithe muscles rippling in the sunlight (yes I know it sounds like I'm writing a porno for a second there), or the way you can feel the water pulling at your feet as the tide goes back out. Even sitting still, when you look around and see sand sucking out to sea with the tide, it makes it look like you're moving.
Dustin bought a helicopter ride.
We ended up back at the hotel in the late evening. Dustin had talked about getting up at 5:20 in the morning so we could drive back to the beach in time to see the sun come up, but he ended up spending the night with Mister Television Executive (whose name may have been Josh, I don't remember) and sleeping until like 8 or 8:30 in the morning. Melissa was a bit put out by this, since she'd been wanting to see the dawn on the beach. But nothing separates Dustin from his sex.
Though I think also part of Dustin not spending either night in the hotel room, apart from just "getting some action", was also because we only had two beds since he hadn't counted on Austin and Melissa coming, so four people in 2 beds would have been a bit crowded. Austin and Melissa live together and share a bed every night anyway, but that's different, so I think Dustin welcomed finding an "out".
Had my second breakfast in The Breakfast Room.
Finally, around 9:30, pink, sore, half-asleep, monosyllabic, everyone piled wearily into the car for the long journey home, which would be a few hours even longer than the trip down without the visit to Robbie's before Myrtle Beach to break it up.
One of the stand-up comedians Dustin likes to listen to on long road trips said cross-country trips were recommended to him as "bonding time", but then he realized "there is a difference between bonding with people....and being stuck with people!". For the most part, I'd say we stayed on the "bonding" side rather than "being stuck with" side, but by the end, everyone pretty much wanted the hell out of that car.
This time, rather than our "head east and then veer sharply left" as we had on the way down, Dustin took another route Robbie suggested to take a more straight route straight up. This also gave Melissa the chance to see the Virginia and West Virginia mountains, which she'd been looking forward to and was disappointed she didn't get to see the first time.
Our journey home took us through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and Melissa made Dustin play John Denver's "Country Roads" while driving through the West Virginia mountains.
There were moments passing through Virginia and West Virginia where it looked like we were in The Waltons or something, ramshackle little convenience stores that looked like they were out of the '30s, with names like "Mountain Top General Trade Store". I told Dustin we should stop and "do some tradin'".
This was gonna be somewhere between 11 and 13 hours, and we ended up setting out around 9:30 and getting home around 9 in the evening after multiple stops for gas, food, etc., and ending with Dustin buying everyone dinner at Cracker Barrel about 30 minutes from our house.
Austin and Melissa left shortly after getting to our house without even collecting some of their stuff from the trunk, because they looked pretty exhausted and still had to get in their own car and drive another half hour to get back to their house. Austin swung by yesterday to pick some stuff up, and brought Cody over who hasn't seen the house since Dustin renovated a bunch of stuff.
Dustin wants to go to Niagara Falls in the fall, but he doesn't know if anyone else is coming, since no one else has their passports. He also wants to go somewhere sometime next year, and has advised me, if I want to come again, to set aside just a little money, $20 or so, as much as I can, over the course of the next year or so, so next time I'll have a special fund set aside just for the trip and it won't cut into my main account.
Well.
I'm not really sure what all else to say.
Thank you for flying Air Jesse.