Whenever we took vacations in the summer and complained about the incredible crowds, we thought it would be nice to take those vacations off-season, when the weather was still nice but the crowds were back to work and school. So when our good friends Alan and Denise suggested camping at Myrtle Beach for a week this October, we readily agreed.

It turned out to be an excellent decision, since the weather was very nice the nine days we were there, with temperatures during the day in the upper-seventies. We enjoyed nearly deserted beaches, as well as an empty pool and lazy river. We had had a lot of good eating as well, some of it cooking at our camper, other meals at restaurants such as the excellent Mongolian Grill.

There were also long morning walks through the campground, gazing at the huge 36’ RV’s that many people have, long walks along the beach, some shopping, including an immense indoor flea market which had 3 – count ‘em, 3!! – used book dealers. Ironically, Jean bought more books than I did, filling in her collection of Elizabeth George and Kathy Reichs mysteries. I only bought Stephen King’s The Green Mile. King is a very good writer, but I am not a big fan of horror fiction. Still, many of his books are not horror at all, and I have enjoyed some of them a lot (my favorite being his collection of 4 novellas Different Seasons). I really liked the movie version of The Green Mile, so hopefully the book will be good as well.

Our evenings were spent either sitting outside chatting or, when the wind is too strong, sitting in our friends’ camper playing games such as Trivial Pursuit, Outburst or Apples to Apples. They were lots of fun, and there is endless laughing and joking, so overall it has been a really fun week.

Thursday we arrived home to a houseful of cats, since Mark & Kate left their 2 cats with our son Andy and cat Tiger Wednesday as they went to to Florida for a funeral. Tiger does not like Kali and Rocky though, considering them intruders in her personal domain, so it should be a very interesting week.