Monday, May 16th

Our last day, we got up quite early to watch the sun rise out of the Atlantic at Myrtle Beach.

Then we took another stroll on the beach and collected a few seashells. Interesting jellyfish.

The temperature was perfect and the water was warm. I do love padding along in the soft sand and sticking my bare feet in the ocean!

Some seagull friends searching for breakfast.

Good mornin'!

This is a rare shot of Dad with his sandals off and soaking his tender little tootsies in the water. That's our hotel on the right.

One more view from our balcony. I watched the lifeguards set up the colorful tents and umbrellas along the beach and wished we had had another day to enjoy the sun & sand & surf.

The lobby view.

We drove to Sumter to see my old stompin' grounds...2 to 3 hours inland from Myrtle. I moved here in 1964 and stayed the 3 years of high school and then it was off to college, returning for a few summers and Christmases.

Azaleas...Wow!

Swan Lake and Iris Gardens is just 3 houses down and across the street from my second home in Sumter. It suffered a lot of damage during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. But it has evidently received funding and care because it is much more marvelous today than I remember.

Purple Japanese iris...they were started in the 1920s.

The lake boasts that it has all 8 varieties of swans. We also saw a lot of turtles.

Flowers, water, cypress trees and also our S.C. geocache.

Interesting sculpture.

Mostly napping fowl.

Magnolia blossom. Huge trees were loaded with them.

Lots of colorful blossoms.

Neon hastas.

Delicate and fringed.

The new-to-me visitors center. I got a postcard and Dad got a hat pin!

A walkway across busy Liberty Street to the Bland Gardens on the other side. I lived on Bland Avenue, named for the guy who started it all.

Cypress trees galore.

Eerie Spanish moss.

Statue and fountain.

2 girls.

My house at 32 Bland Avenue. It used to have a big circular driveway in front with lots of pine trees, but they were lost to the hurricane. Also had a big backyard. I remember mowing the lawn and hanging clothes on the line and always washing dishes. It didn't have the red door. It was green. It did have a screened in patio about half the length of the house in back. I shared a room and bed with Rana. The front bedroom was Kirk's and my parents room was on the right. The lattice windows are in the formal dining room where we ate steaks on many Sundays.

I went to Edmunds High School...very old with wooden floors. The main part of the building is gone and it's all become a civic center.

The gymnasium wing is still in tact.

The auditorium is still there...can you see our mascot, the gamecock (kinda wimpy-looking) with our motto, labor omnia vincit (hard work conquers all)?

My first house in Sumter where we lived/rented for the first year. I think it was orignally the servants or guest quarters for a southern mansion. There was a screened-in porch on the left, now enclosed, and some big old trees (one had mistletoe in it) and beautiful azalea bushes in the front yard.

Here's the back of the house, in need of a paint job. Again, the upstairs room with windows was a screened-in porch. It had a coal furnace. I remember shoveling coal and removing klinkers.
We drove on to Charlotte, NC, that afternoon to catch the flight home. The weather finally took its revenge. Our plane was late in arriving due to rain and then after only half of us had boarded, the other half were kept in the terminal and not allowed in the "jet way" due to lightning strikes. So, we were delayed long enough to miss our connecting flight in Atlanta by a few minutes. Actually the plane was still at the gate, but they had already given our seats away to stand-by passengers. We stayed overnight in Atlanta and I had to miss another day of work. Too bad we couldn't have stayed on the beach instead.