Murrells Inlet, SC

Wednesday, April 3

As we were packing up to leave the campground on Wednesday morning, we saw five huskies being walked by their two owners. The owners have a website called thethunderingherd.com that talks about their rescued Siberian huskies. The huskies were so sweet. I had to take a picture. 

We managed to get out of the campground and avoid as many of the low lying branches as we could by going a different route. Although there still were some. We traveled mostly on 17 North to head 90 miles up the road to Murrells Inlet which is considered part of the Grand Strand and is located just south of Myrtle Beach. We had reservations at Huntington Beach State Park.

The park is gorgeous. There is direct access to a beautiful long sandy beach. There is a nature trail, a marsh boardwalk, a castle (more on that later), and another walk which is known as alligator ally (for obvious reasons once we walked it). Just a find! We had a back-in site which we’re getting really good at handling, although I don’t want to jinx it by saying that too loud. There’s about 125 sites split between two campgrounds within the park.

We took a long walk on the beach the first day and relaxed. 

Thursday, April 4

It was a beautiful day, and we decided to take advantage of what the park had to offer today. It’s funny we were in Coastal Georgia RV Park in Brunswick for three months and met hardly anyone other than our next door neighbors, although we loved our stay there because it was such a great location for exploring the Golden Isles. But here at this state park in one day we met five or six different folks. Funny how that works. You just never know.

We started out by hiking the wooded nature trail which goes around Sandpiper Pond. Lovely. We saw lots of egrets and several Great Blue Heron (although no sandpipers that we could see). It connects with a marsh boardwalk where we saw crabs and lots of oyster beds. A great 3+ mile hike. During that time we met a couple from Scarborough, Maine and another woman who moved to England from Bedford, NH. Chatted briefly with both about the area and where they were headed next. Then we came back for lunch and met our neighbor who is camped across from us and lives in South Carolina and comes here frequently. He was a delight and we had a lively conversation about good campsites and bad ones. 

After lunch Gary and I headed off to Atalaya Castle which is on the grounds of this state park. “Atalaya,” meaning watchtower in Spanish, is the former winter home of renowned sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband Archer Huntington, a well-known scholar of hispanic studies, businessman and poet. And one of the wealthiest men in America in the 1930s! He designed the 30 room castle in the style of Moorish architecture found on the Spanish Mediterranean Coast. It also was designed to include horse stables, a dog kennel and a bear pen since Mrs. H’s favorite subject for her sculptures were animals. 

Atalaya was constructed at the same time that the Archers constructed Brookgreen Gardens (more on that later) and took about 2 to 3 years. Mr. Huntington insisted that the builder use local labor which gave much needed work to the community during the Great Depression.

Atalaya was designed to take advantage of ocean views in sort of a squarish layout with inner courtyards and large indoor/outdoor studios for Mrs. H to create her art. While the castle is in disrepair, enough of the main spaces are intact that you can get a sense of what life must have been like. They valued their privacy and didn’t entertain a lot. It was a private oasis for the couple. After wandering in and around Atalaya on a self-guided tour, we walked over to alligator alley. We didn’t realize it was known as that or Gary would have taken his camera for better shots. We did see more alligators there than we did touring the Okefenokee. Go figure! Lots of babies and a few big ones. None were close enough to get a really good picture. And, we saw lots of turtles. We heard from others on the path that they had heard a big gator bellow just the day before and someone else had heard that one got a duck. Sort of glad I didn’t see that. Alligators sometimes cross the path to get to the marsh on the opposite side, but we didn’t witness that on our visit. Nor did I mind since I wasn’t looking to pet one. After that it was time to head back to our tiny home and call it a day. 

After dinner we set out for a walk down to the beach to see the sunset. As we were walking down we met a lovely woman who mentioned that she had been given tickets to Brookgreen Gardens but that she was leaving the next day and would we like them. We said yes, thank you so much. She said stop by and pick them up after your walk. We walked on the beach and did see a very pretty sunset then stopped at her adorable small teardrop RV. She was sitting outside and gave us the tickets. I commented on how cute her unit was, and she offered to show it to us. It was perfect for a single person. She was traveling alone, and it was decorated with lots of bold bright colors and textures. I asked if she was an artist and she said no she was a missionary, and this was her oasis. She had just gone full-time about a month ago…. meaning she was living in this small RV all the time. She tended to go where she was needed i.e. helping out the hurricane victims in North and South Carolina. Lovely woman. We gave her a hug and said our goodbyes. 

Then as we were headed back to our tiny home, we came across a couple from Newmarket, NH. We chatted with them for quite awhile. The men talked RV’s and travel route info and the ladies chatted about gardens and wildlife. Then we finally came home!

Friday, April 5th

Friday dawned with pouring rain. Not the best day to visit Brookgreen Gardens but there was a chance the rain would lessen in the afternoon. In the morning we did want to visit the more populated (busy) part of the Grand Strand so we drove to Myrtle Beach and specifically Myrtle Beach State Park, which we were told is quite nice. Murrells Inlet, where we are, is a quieter part of the Grand Strand. The drive north to Myrtle Beach gets progressively more busy and touristy. However, MB State Park is beautiful. It, too, offers direct beach access, hiking trails, camping, and even a fishing pier. The fishing pier was very cool… even in the rain. The campground sites were much tighter. We marked which sites we would fit in on the campground map for future reference, but our preference is Huntington Beach S.P. where the sites are more spacious, naturally landscaped, and private. 

From there we drove to the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk. It was still pouring. Gary opted to stay in the truck where it was warm and dry. I put on rain pants, my rain jacket, my visor and hood and set off. The boardwalk is an old wide wooden structure steps from the beach, with park benches, historic signage, fishing piers, restaurants, shopping, some rides and a huge ferris wheel, known as SkyWheel. Just a really special historic boardwalk! I was the only one on it! A fun walk. I came back to the truck soaked, and had to peel off the rain pants and rain jacket. Gary muttered something along the line that huskies are less trouble than I am. 

As were driving back, the rains were lessening and then finally stopped. We decided to head directly to Brookgreen Gardens while we had a clear window. Rain was supposed to start later and we were leaving the area tomorrow. So this was our shot. The Huntingtons originally designed Brookgreen Gardens to house Mrs. H’s sculptures but it quickly morphed to include gardens, a zoo, and sculpture works by other well known artists. Today Brookgreen Gardens contains the largest and most comprehensive collection of American sculpture in the world, displayed in a garden setting that is truly incredible. 

When you purchase tickets here, the tickets are good for 7 days, which is extremely helpful because there’s so much to see that it’s hard to see it all in one day. Unfortunately, in our case we only had the one day because we were leaving the area, although the tickets still had a couple of days of entry left on them. We headed to the visitors center to get a lay of the land and a charming older volunteer proceeded to painstakingly review the map with us. She said “am I talking too much?” Oh no I said. She said you’re the first person I’ve had a chance to talk to today. With all the rain no one had showed up to visit the gardens earlier in the day. After she completed our 20 minute orientation, we set off. 

We practically had the place to ourselves with the rain just having stopped. The azaleas were in full bloom at this time of the year. Absolutely beautiful! There are smaller sculptures nestled amongst the greenery and blooms. Plus there are huge sculptures in places of honor around the many gardens. In amongst all of this are short poems etched on wood or attached to walls  to help frame the scene, and there are beautiful live oak throughout the property. Then there’s a whole pavilion devoted to statuary. We had a wonderful few hours visiting it all. We ran out of energy to visit the zoo. Another time perhaps.

We headed back to our tiny home to relax, and enjoyed another evening walk on the beach after dinner. Since there was still one or two days left on the Brookgreen Gardens tickets, we passed those along to our South Carolina camping neighbor across the way. We also had a chance to visit with our Newmarket NH friends one last time. They now have our email address so hopefully they will get in touch once they are back home. 

In the realm of “it’s a small world.” We ran into the five huskies again this evening in the campground. The huskies owners had likewise moved from James Island County Park outside Charleston to this campground, as had we. So we got to greet the five babies one more time. 

Tomorrow we move up the coast to North Carolina’s Crystal Coast to visit friends!