Summer 2004 - Carolina Beach, NC

maggie & millie & molly & may . . . e. e. cummings maggie and millie and molly and may went down to the beach (to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and millie befriended a stranded star who's rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

We went to Hawaii last year. It was a beautiful trip but probably once in a lifetime. So, when I started to get “beach fever” this year, I didn’t really expect Kenny to take me anywhere. He found Carolina Beach as kind of a surprise and we set off for the ocean on a slightly smaller scale. Here are some of our impressions on this year’s vacation:

• -Listening to CD’s the entire way when there is a hurricane approaching the area in which you will be staying is ­not- a good idea. If we had turned on the radio, we might have figured out that Charley was headed the same place we were and stopped a little way ahead of Wilmington.
• -God really comes through for us, even in the little things. For example, we weren’t able to head on to the bed and breakfast quite when we planned and needed a hotel room for an extra night. We were able to find a room in the hotel in which we were staying though the manager was turning other people away.
• -Visiting new churches can be scary. The pastor at College Park Baptist was very nice, but it was still a little daunting being in unfamiliar territory.
• -Bed and Breakfasts, like trains, are good places to meet new people. Kenny and I stayed at the Beacon House, run by Larry and Mary Huhn. We had a cozy little room and got to meet several vacationing couples at breakfast time.
• -My husband is crazy about cats. Larry and Mary have several one time strays that hang around and Kenny had to talk to every one of them. They talked to him as well.
• -The Battleship North Carolina will henceforth and forevermore be known as “The Ship with All the Stairs”. Its official nickname is “The Showboat”, but I think it should be called “The Stair Ship”. I knew, from touring some of the ships in Hawaii, that I was very grateful not to have to live in such cramped quarters, but the point was brought home to me on this trip. By the time we reached the gun turret, I stayed outside and let Kenny go in and look around. I am such an escalator girl.
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• -Every time we tour a memorial (or battleship) from World War II, I cry a little bit more. What got me this time was a quote from one of the men who helped out in Sick Bay. He said that he remains convinced that if they had had access to penicillin, one of the men they treated for fever (and probably many more) would not have died. I also have to pause every time we see pictures of the soldiers. I tend to forget that many of them were just teenagers, barely out of high school.
• -Squiggly’s is an experience everyone should have at least once. It’s a crowded building resembling a house and (at least while we were there) manned by young college students. They serve muffins and brownies, but their main offering is ice cream. They come up with wild combinations to mix together. Every time you get a “Squiggly”, they give you a sticker that says something like “I’ve been Squiggled”. Kenny enjoyed his peanut butter and vanilla; I just got a Death By Chocolate so I didn’t get a sticker.
• On the way to Myrtle Beach for a day in a real tourist spot, we took a short cut that let us take a ferry ride. There were only three or four cars on with us so it wasn't crowded. We walked the deck and just hung out while we made the crossing from "our island" to the mainland.
• -The IMAX presentation of “Bugs!” is not for young children or…er…me. I’m going to spoil the ending for you, so if you don’t want to know what happens, skip on to the next point. We follow a butterfly from birth onward. We also follow praying mantis. Dame Judy Dench narrates all this in a very calm voice until…*Snap*, the praying mantis eats the butterfly. For some reason, this totally upset me. I soo cannot watch animal movies.
• -Benjamin’s has more food than anyone can eat in a lifetime. It’s a seafood buffet place with row after row of anything you cold imagine. It even has like twenty kinds of desserts. I surprised myself by actually eating the hush puppies, which I usually don’t like, and Kenny was happy with the various kinds of shrimp.
• -“The Carolina Opry” is a very good show…if you’re into that sort of thing, which I am. It reminded me of some of the stuff you used to see at Opryland, with all different genres and generations represented. They even did Brittany Spears’ “Toxic”, at which point I almost fell out of my seat. I liked the guy playing the piano. His last name was English and he is from London, which we found funny. I liked the dancers as well. They did a funny number with guys from the audience called “Hey Big Spender” and embarrassed the poor guys to death.
• -We never actually got into the ocean (at least not much more than just our ankles), but we had a good time on the beach. I took a chair and read and Kenny played at scooping up crabs.
• One afternoon we made it to the Carolina Aquarium. Lot's of fish, turtles, crabs, and other marine animals call there "home".
• -It’s good to go away, but it’s even better to come home. At the end of every -Inside the Actor’s Studio-, James Lipton asks the guest a series of question. One of them is “What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?” When that question comes around in surveys, I say some type of traveler, but I couldn’t really. I like having a place to call home. Besides, I’d miss my cats too much. I think Kenny feels the same way (Yeah, he does!).

Pictures: Ocean and Ferry | Battleship | Myrtle Beach | Carolina Aquarium