I've always loved big, old trees. The trees at the plantation were wonderful. The one Emily's standing in front of was standing when the plantation was built in 1730. The one I'm standing by is even older. There were trees of this size all around the grounds.






Here's the plantation house. I think it looks like Tara.



This is the cricket I mentioned before. It was huge and I got within a foot of it for this picture. It was over 5" long (not including the antennae or legs) and about 3/4" around. I've never seen anything like it. It looks ordinary in this picture.



The coastal highway was pretty amazing. It was so flat and the road was bordered by endless stretches of marshland, rivers and creeks.



Finally we reached Myrtle Beach. There were crazy storms late last night. We turned on the weather channel to make sure there wasn't a hurricane or tornado in the area. The palm trees whipped in the wind just like on CNN. The rain pounded and the lightning flashed over the ocean. It took forever to fall asleep. I woke up at 5 AM to another wave of storms. I checked the weather channel again. By 9:00, the sun was shining and we spent the day switching between the beach and the pool. Em and I have a one bedroom condo on the 4th floor of this hotel. My neighbor Kelly and her daughter have a condo here on the 14th floor. Our friend Barbara is staying at a nearby hotel, but spending her days with us. Kelly made tonight's dinner of chicken quesadillas. We did some shopping afterwards. We finished a DVD that we started last night. I'm pooped. It seems like I've been on vacation forever.

Here's Emily and Natalie hamming it up at a store at Broadway at the Beach.