Day 3: Fort Mill to Holden Beach, NC

We got up and on the road by 8:30 a.m., to my surprise. Cousin Cindi kept us awake until the wee hours jabbering indecipherables in her southern drawl. After a 102-degree day, we had a storm that dropped some serious precip and hail all over North Carolina. In fact, the land of my people, Hope Mills, was visited by golf ball size hail. The Texas-based rental car was, however, spared from damage, so we were off.

Along the way, due to those six year-old maps in the GPS, Karen no longer recognized several highways and seemed to think we were off-roading in the wooded rolling hills of the Tar Heel state. Once Karen got her bearings, we arrived at our friend, The Mayor’s, beach house at Holden Beach. Upon arrival, he shared that he had a “St. Louis bag” that he had been filling with items of joy for me over the past two years. This bag o’ joy bestowed upon me by the greatest-former-mayor-soon-to-be-state-rep was chock full of baseball related items that made me tear up a little. July is now December and The Mayor is Santa.

We then left for our lunch destination, the Provisions Company, which, as most everyone knows about coastal places, is a seafood place. And all that live and breathe know that I just LOVE seafood…said me never. Yes, I stole that last line from those awesome postcard things on The Facebook. Don’t judge. Inspiration comes in many forms. After lunch, we went to meet The Mayor’s family on the beach. That’s when Operation Wet Electronics commenced. The Mayor’s friend had her cell phone on her beach chair only to have an errant wave take out the chair and sink the phone. To the vat of rice with that phone. We’ll see how that turns out. I haven’t seen the “rice and the wet phone” thing work yet, so I’m going with my traditional pessimistic self here and saying that phone is toast.

Mr. Mayor has a friend who owns a pontoon boat and who met us later in the day for a ride out to sea. Mind you, this was supposed to be a nice slow ride taking in the Vitamin D, feeling the sea breeze on my face a la Rocky Dennis, and maybe catching a quick glimpse of the wild goats of Goat Island. These untamed beasts were sent out to an island to “mow” the grass because that was a low cost option to shipping John Deere mowers over via inner tubes and junks. No lie. That is, unless I was lied to. In that case, I offer no guarantees, just retold untruths.

As we were riding along, Julia innocently inquired if Capt. Johnny has ever encountered any high seas, A Perfect Storm style, that made him fear for his life or the lives of his Midwestern passengers who aren’t very strong swimmers. He answered that if you didn’t see him abandon ship, there was no need to jump overboard. That seemed like sound, logical advice. Who knew that we’d need to wrench that one from our short term memory less than three minutes later when the boat a mere 20 yards ahead of us decided to go into neutral, thus leaving the pontoon watercraft upon which we rode, in its wake. The waves pelted our poor vessel and began to suck about a third of it beneath the surface as the brackish wetness rushed aboard and engulfed The Mayor, his wife and friends up front, along with their cameras and cell phones, which have now since joined the previous iPhone sponge in the five gallon bucket of rice. Again, my eternal, and often correct, pessimism speaks loud and clear – those devices have met their electronic maker. Perhaps an at sea burial would be appropriate at this juncture. Either that or throw some red beans in there… Mmmmmmm…red beans and cell phoney rice…

Due to the quick thinking of Capt. Johnny, who threw the craft into reverse, we were able to drip dry and laugh about it later instead of having my bloated, non-swimming arse plucked from the depths by the U.S. Coast Guard. Had he instead chosen to floor it an attempt to push through the onslaught of the tidal waviness, we would have gone down a la Molly Brown. Fortunately for me, only my shoes were splashed by the rush of water. I have no idea how or why I or Julia left the incident relatively unscathed, but here I am recalling said episode for thee in explicit detail.

Post near death experience, we headed back to the house for the soaked folks to change into dryness and then head out to the famous Seafood Barn for fine dining. I partook of hush puppies for the first time in my life. Who knew that hush puppy was simply an alias for fried corn bread chunks? Not this guy. I was not pleased by the hush puppy experience, but I of course cherished each bite of my shrimp and grits, scallops and oysters. And by that, I mean grilled chicken breast and fries. Once I was able to leave the Frying Dutchman, the fried fishy scents began to clear from my nasal passages. Every few minutes, however, I do have phantom seafood smells invade my olfactory organ, which does not please me. 

Luckily, however, the “shimp and grits” were followed by a trip to the Fantasy Isle – your basic iced cream establishment complete with homemade waffle cones created explicitly for the portly gentleman. That little frozen piece of mint chocolate chip heaven made the near drowning of my Mayor friend and the visit to the barn of discarded seafood scraps all worth it.

Me. Want. Sleep. Now. For tomorrow brings a journey to Myrtle Beach and a Pelicans game for all to enjoy. God bless momma and daddy and that great man, Abner, who “invented” America’s pastime.

See today’s photo joy HERE.