Sickness Strikes!

Sunday, March 27th – Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – Day 47

The generosity of the South Carolina people shows no end. The church group we were hanging around with had offered us their fire, they’d let our children play with theirs, given us some delicious dessert and now, Henry, our new best friend, went a step further. He had booked an extra night at Myrtle Beach State Park but wasn’t going to use it and offered it to us. Thank you Henry and family!

We wanted an extra night because we had been moving quite a bit and wanted to take a breathe for a moment. Also, Gen and I felt like death. The kids woke up early and went to the play structure. We stayed in bed. Our hypothesis was mild food poisoning from the beans or broccoli in the chili the night before. We had reasons to suspect both.

Eventually we had to get up and get moving. We went to talk to Henry about switching sites. He refused to let us give him some money. The kids were still playing in the park with their friends while Gen, Mary and I moved everything to the new site. Gen and I then promptly went back to bed. I set an alarm for 2pm because there was a Nature Story activity at the Nature Centre. The alarm went off, I dragged myself out of bed and drove the 5 minute walk to the nature centre.

The Nature Story Time was a book about turtles from birth to coming back to the same beach to lay their eggs. Each page had a new foe coming for the turtle and the kids had to shout “Turtle, turtle, watch out!”. The saddest part was the plastic bag that the turtle tried to eat because it looked like a jelly fish. After the story was over, we looked at the aquariums again and they had some skulls and skins the kids could touch and feel.

Still feeling nauseous Mary and I took the kids for a hike. We saw a pond with a loon and turtles. A rat snake was slithering through the leaves. The Devil’s walking stick was a pretty cool tree that was thin, straight as an arrow and covered in thorns. We came out of the woods and arrived at the pier. We walked out looking for wild aquatic life with no luck but we did spot an ice cream counter.

We arrived back at the play structure from the day before and after a few minutes Gen, still a bit under the weather, found us. I promptly went back to bed for the rest of the day. The kids returned and were crazy. They kept jumping on me. They had no sympathy for their poor dad. Gen made spaghetti which I wanted no part of.

Comments

A Desert Forest

Saturday, May 28th – Joshua Tree National Park - North to Joshua Tree National Park - South, California– Day 107 Our campsite was a large open dirt area with some scrub around the outside. In the dark we had managed to park beside the pile of horse poo and shaving. Horses were allowed in this site. Gen stepped in the middle of a pile. The Joshua Tree National Park visitor centre was a five-minute drive away. The town of Joshua Tree was packed with college age millennials communing with nature. There was a market with kombucha, organic greens and a few small tortoises. It was all very pleasant but very busy. The laundromat was at the edge of the market, I charged the devices and did the laundry. Gen bought some produce from a guy loading a truck. I even snuck in to buy some watermelon kombucha. The drive into the park was ten minutes followed by a ten-minute line to show our pass. A quick stop to fill up our water bottles and we were into the park. Th...

A Desert Forest - Part 4

We finally decided to move to our last destination before the sun set. The Arch Rock Nature trail was next. We reached the parking lot and saw the rocks in the distance, we were debating what we wanted to do. We just started moving and once we did, we found ourselves racing down the trail to the rocks. The kids wanted to play monster and once they started running, everyone else was running as well. We had another poo-mergency with no restroom in sight, the evidence is buried in the desert. There was more climbing on the rocks. We took pictures of the sun setting and took a quick look at the Arch rock before starting back to the car. Gen was behind the wheel, an hour later we were leaving the park’s south entrance. We stopped at the Ranger station to freshen up in the bathroom and fill our water bottles before heading to our campsite. Luckily, the site was the overflow campsite for the park so was minutes from the outside of the park....

Canyonlands is Another Planet - Pt 3

Thursday, May 12th – Moab, Utah – Day 91 Our day was shortening already, our next hike, the Grand View Overlook was closed due to a search and rescue operation. Apparently, falls and accidents happen quite a bit at National Parks; Gen looked up the top ten most dangerous parks and Canyonlands wasn’t there (it was number 12). We got a recommendation to hike the White Rim Overlook trail, a 0.9-mile easy hike. The kids were running out of energy. They made it most of the way and then decided to stop to climb a rock. Gen and I continued the short distance to the canyon edge to see the sights. Canyon after canyon after canyon was what we saw. We stopped to sit and marvel at the scenery as the shadows started to lengthen. On our drive back, we saw the sun set and we stopped at the visitor centre one more time to see the view from just across the road. I couldn’t get enough canyons; I was in love ...

Simnett Travels

Search This Blog