Choose Your Own Adventure
When my summer began, I had big travel plans for the whole summer. I wanted to go camping, and I have done that... and I will be doing it again soon. I wanted to see lots of friends I hadn't seen in a long time, and I have done that. The timing of things wasn't exactly as planned, however. I have made up a lot of the summer as it has gone along.
Think about it as being like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular among people my age when we were kids. You chose which way you wanted the plot to go by choosing the next page you wanted to flip to. If you made it to the ending without getting killed or imprisoned for life, it was like you "won." Of course, once you figure out how to win something and the novelty wears off, a lot of us then started cheating, looking in advance to see which pages the happy endings were on, and then backtracking in order to figure out which pages led you there.
Anyway, my plans were for a grand road trip to Nashville to see a friend of mine who had recently moved there. I was excited about a long journey filled with many chances to take pictures and create some lifelong memories. The open road makes me happy... long drives are great for the soul. And so it was that I made my way south, heading first to North Carolina to stay over at my cousin's place. It was a little out of the way by comparison to the more direct Philly-to-Nashville route, but as I said, it's about the journey and what you see along the way. Well, on my way south (at about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the DC Beltway), I got a message from my friend in Nashville. She had strep.
Now a lesser adventurer might take this as the ruination of the entire journey, which was now no longer worth making. Not in my case. Having flipped through the book to an unfortunate ending, I backtracked and chose a new path. I continued on to North Carolina, formulating possible plans in my head as I went. My cousin, great guy that he is, let me know that I was welcome to stay for the weekend, and I accepted the offer. I kinda felt that I should put some extra miles on the car, however, and find some new sources of enlightenment. So last Friday, I headed for Myrtle Beach. My grandparents used to take me there every summer when I was a little kid. Now that was over 25 years ago, so my memories of that time are rather hazy, but I wanted to go look around and see what I remembered and what the place was like now.
The trip down to Myrtle Beach fit the theme of the trip. I had received directions that took me more or less the "back way" through southeastern North Carolina. The directions were more or less fine, but they failed to take into account that signs in North Carolina are CONFUSING. I took one turn from Route 131 so as to go around a construction zone, and then never saw another sign for 131. Or maybe I zoned out... that may have been the more likely scenario. Anyway, the end result was I didn't know where I was until I realize I was almost all the way back at I-95... 10 miles out of my way. Again, bad ending, turn around, reroute to elsewhere in the book, try again. Also, when the directions say "turn left to stay on 701", and you see a sign telling you that "business 701" is a left turn, that is also confusing. They also like to place signs saying prepare to turn left in front of other left turns. Needless to say it took me a little while longer than planned to reach Myrtle Beach.
My first stop once I got down to the beach was a place called Bowery. Now this is not like the Bowery in NYC, this is much more country, as in real country, as in the bar staff openly started mocking when the country station they were playing put a Taylor Swift song on. I ordered one of their famous half-pound burgers, and it came to me on a comically small bun... or maybe the bun was normal size and the burger was comically large. Either way, the contrast was interesting, and made me wonder if they do that just for the visual effect. Anyway, it was quite good. I then went to the boardwalk (didn't even remember Myrtle Beach having a boardwalk). I swear Ripley's has just bought out the damn place... I remember the Believe It or Not museum being there, but they've added so many side attractions that it goes on for blocks now.
After some beach time, I looked around some more, then went looking for some things I remembered from my childhood. The hotel we used to stay in was gone, the old pottery place my grandparents always stopped at had morphed into an outlet mall, then became a dead outlet mall. The Myrtle Square Mall, with its iconic clock in the atrium area, had long been demolished. I remembered vividly how there were 60 lights circling the atrium, and each one would turn off at every second, and lights illuminating the hour and minute would turn on to show the time. I thought it was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Obviously, a lot changes in 25 years.
One of the great things I noticed from driving around the Carolinas for the weekend was how much better the drivers are. I pretty much knew that if I got buzzed by some moron switching lanes without signaling, he was going to have a New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania license plate, and they were few and far between. I also was continuously told that I lucked out in terms of weather. It was in the mid-80s and noticeably lacking in humidity for most of the time. That apparently NEVER happens in July in the Carolinas. As such, I got to enjoy the outdoors much more than I had planned, and as I am Irish, I did my best to stay properly protected. However, I often get reminded that I pretty much have to apply sunscreen with all the care of someone who details your car. It's not unusual for me to end a day in the sun with a stripe or streak of red somewhere that I thought I got... most notably along my hairline.
After a great weekend in North Carolina, I started to slowly head north. After all, I had not planned to return to Philly until Tuesday night; may as well use the time wisely. I spent Monday night in Richmond visiting an old friend... she showed me a lot of nice neighborhoods and business districts within walking range. The parts I saw were certainly nice enough. Tuesday was spent continuing to crawl north through Virginia until I reached Hagerstown, Maryland for dinner with another old friend, followed by the last leg of the journey back to Philadelphia. As I got off I-95 and headed over the Platt Bridge to my apartment complex, "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp fittingly came on the radio. Perfect end to a perfect trip.
The moral of the story is sometimes you just have to take what life gives you. Yeah, the whole lemons-lemonade thing. I'd love to visit Nashville someday soon, but what I got instead was a terrific lesson in letting instinct and a love for adventure take the wheel once in a while. And if the adventure you choose doesn't end the way you want it to, try again.
Think about it as being like those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular among people my age when we were kids. You chose which way you wanted the plot to go by choosing the next page you wanted to flip to. If you made it to the ending without getting killed or imprisoned for life, it was like you "won." Of course, once you figure out how to win something and the novelty wears off, a lot of us then started cheating, looking in advance to see which pages the happy endings were on, and then backtracking in order to figure out which pages led you there.
Anyway, my plans were for a grand road trip to Nashville to see a friend of mine who had recently moved there. I was excited about a long journey filled with many chances to take pictures and create some lifelong memories. The open road makes me happy... long drives are great for the soul. And so it was that I made my way south, heading first to North Carolina to stay over at my cousin's place. It was a little out of the way by comparison to the more direct Philly-to-Nashville route, but as I said, it's about the journey and what you see along the way. Well, on my way south (at about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the DC Beltway), I got a message from my friend in Nashville. She had strep.
Now a lesser adventurer might take this as the ruination of the entire journey, which was now no longer worth making. Not in my case. Having flipped through the book to an unfortunate ending, I backtracked and chose a new path. I continued on to North Carolina, formulating possible plans in my head as I went. My cousin, great guy that he is, let me know that I was welcome to stay for the weekend, and I accepted the offer. I kinda felt that I should put some extra miles on the car, however, and find some new sources of enlightenment. So last Friday, I headed for Myrtle Beach. My grandparents used to take me there every summer when I was a little kid. Now that was over 25 years ago, so my memories of that time are rather hazy, but I wanted to go look around and see what I remembered and what the place was like now.
The trip down to Myrtle Beach fit the theme of the trip. I had received directions that took me more or less the "back way" through southeastern North Carolina. The directions were more or less fine, but they failed to take into account that signs in North Carolina are CONFUSING. I took one turn from Route 131 so as to go around a construction zone, and then never saw another sign for 131. Or maybe I zoned out... that may have been the more likely scenario. Anyway, the end result was I didn't know where I was until I realize I was almost all the way back at I-95... 10 miles out of my way. Again, bad ending, turn around, reroute to elsewhere in the book, try again. Also, when the directions say "turn left to stay on 701", and you see a sign telling you that "business 701" is a left turn, that is also confusing. They also like to place signs saying prepare to turn left in front of other left turns. Needless to say it took me a little while longer than planned to reach Myrtle Beach.
My first stop once I got down to the beach was a place called Bowery. Now this is not like the Bowery in NYC, this is much more country, as in real country, as in the bar staff openly started mocking when the country station they were playing put a Taylor Swift song on. I ordered one of their famous half-pound burgers, and it came to me on a comically small bun... or maybe the bun was normal size and the burger was comically large. Either way, the contrast was interesting, and made me wonder if they do that just for the visual effect. Anyway, it was quite good. I then went to the boardwalk (didn't even remember Myrtle Beach having a boardwalk). I swear Ripley's has just bought out the damn place... I remember the Believe It or Not museum being there, but they've added so many side attractions that it goes on for blocks now.
After some beach time, I looked around some more, then went looking for some things I remembered from my childhood. The hotel we used to stay in was gone, the old pottery place my grandparents always stopped at had morphed into an outlet mall, then became a dead outlet mall. The Myrtle Square Mall, with its iconic clock in the atrium area, had long been demolished. I remembered vividly how there were 60 lights circling the atrium, and each one would turn off at every second, and lights illuminating the hour and minute would turn on to show the time. I thought it was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. Obviously, a lot changes in 25 years.
One of the great things I noticed from driving around the Carolinas for the weekend was how much better the drivers are. I pretty much knew that if I got buzzed by some moron switching lanes without signaling, he was going to have a New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania license plate, and they were few and far between. I also was continuously told that I lucked out in terms of weather. It was in the mid-80s and noticeably lacking in humidity for most of the time. That apparently NEVER happens in July in the Carolinas. As such, I got to enjoy the outdoors much more than I had planned, and as I am Irish, I did my best to stay properly protected. However, I often get reminded that I pretty much have to apply sunscreen with all the care of someone who details your car. It's not unusual for me to end a day in the sun with a stripe or streak of red somewhere that I thought I got... most notably along my hairline.
After a great weekend in North Carolina, I started to slowly head north. After all, I had not planned to return to Philly until Tuesday night; may as well use the time wisely. I spent Monday night in Richmond visiting an old friend... she showed me a lot of nice neighborhoods and business districts within walking range. The parts I saw were certainly nice enough. Tuesday was spent continuing to crawl north through Virginia until I reached Hagerstown, Maryland for dinner with another old friend, followed by the last leg of the journey back to Philadelphia. As I got off I-95 and headed over the Platt Bridge to my apartment complex, "Take the Long Way Home" by Supertramp fittingly came on the radio. Perfect end to a perfect trip.
The moral of the story is sometimes you just have to take what life gives you. Yeah, the whole lemons-lemonade thing. I'd love to visit Nashville someday soon, but what I got instead was a terrific lesson in letting instinct and a love for adventure take the wheel once in a while. And if the adventure you choose doesn't end the way you want it to, try again.
posted by Dave | 9:58 AM
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