Because of my cousin Lori’s wedding the day before our departure, our Spring trip to my Grandparents’ Links condominium - room 103 - in Myrtle Beach was pushed forward a week (from the standard week 11) to March 19-25, 2000. This unfortunately required that I be gone for Ashleigh’s tenth birthday. I did not attempt to take her out of school for this trip, so she remained with her Mom and Seakay at their home on Darlington in Beavercreek for the entire week. Traveling on this trip were Grandpa Murphy, Mom, Bev, Denise, her boyfriend Chris Cox, Lisa, and me. Grandma Murphy was unable to travel at this time, having just had some screws removed from her back, so she sat this one out.
I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve been on so many of these trips to the Links that they all start blending together after a while. But I do have some memories specific to this trip. Lisa and I shared the bed in the master bedroom with Chris and Denise sleeping on the floor on air mattresses. Mom and Grandpa slept in the twin beds in the small bedroom, and Bev took the couch downstairs.
Mom, Grandpa, and Bev: the obligatory family photo by the pond
Denise and Chris
Lisa and me
This all worked out well except for the night that Chris and I got into Grandpa’s bottle of whisky…and drank all of it. We stayed up until all hours of the night, sitting on the balcony, drinking and smoking, and writing songs for Chris to perform with his band El Dopa. Writing the songs led to singing the songs (all of which were promptly forgotten once we sobered up), which led to keeping Denise and Lisa up well past their bedtime. Lisa then went downstairs to sleep on the floor, which kept Bev up worrying that she would get up to go to the bathroom…and step on Lisa.
Bev drinks Capri-Sun in her bed - aka the couch
The Mom in her natural Myrtle Beach habitat - reading trashy romance novels
A typical Grandpa look - with the addition of Sprite
Denise up to no good
When Grandpa wasn’t corrupting us with his whisky, he took out all out to eat for dinner one of the evenings (usually the first, but I can’t be certain). The one interesting thing I did at this dinner - and haven’t done since - is eat alligator as an appetizer. A bit chewy I recall.
It was much too cold to swim during this trip as evidenced in the photo below of Denise and Lisa bundled up on the beach, but that didn’t stop us from visiting the beach and Windy Shores. We also went to the antique store and it was during this trip that I bought coin collector albums for the state quarters and Sacagawea coins. I briefly toyed with resuming my coin collection that I once started when I was about six years old…but it turned out to only be a flash in the pan.
Chilly on the beach
Smoky on the balcony…I look hungover
Swing-out sisters
Reading, eating, movies, Farkle, shopping, electonic Yahtzee, ping-pong, pool, and sleeping doubtlessly filled our days, as always, during this trip…but the one activity I can be sure that we partook in during this vacation was a visit to Alligator Adventure.
I have the pictures to prove it. Coming up next…
Leave a Reply