This has been the most FUN!

Finally made it to Myrtle Beach and thank goodness we saved this trip for the end of my stay! I need to sleep for about the next 10days!! I do have a quick story to report from the prior weekend though in regards to a little alligator named, Ted. My friend Dhana's friend's family owns some land, well lots and lots of land with 2 ponds around Sumter here. Last Sunday I was invited to go fishing with them and to their surprise I was actually relatively self-sufficient at fishing as well as entertaining! As we were paddling the canoe around this small pond I was made aware of their friend, Ted. "He is just a little guy" measuring about 5ft long. I did not see this Ted guy the whole day but Esmonde and Dhana did see him while I was fishing on the shore. The best part was that Esmonde told us that there used to be a much larger alligator about as large as the canoe, but they had to have him killed. I of course asked why they had to kill this large beast, and if it was due to any human violence......He said no, the alligator had caught onto fishing. When the humans were in the canoe with a fish on the line, the alligator would simply swim up and eat the fish off the line! Well I would have him shot too!!!

So this weekend we headed out to Myrtle Beach, SC. If any of you have seen the movie Shag that I have prided my SC trip around, well it was mainly filmed in Myrtle. I would have liked to see anything that I recognized from the movie but I did not. Dhana thought that there was one hotel that was in the movie however we did not see that particular one on this trip, so "damn, damn, damn" (movie quote). 3 gals from work came with me on this trip, or actually I just went with them frankly. It was great, Lindsay's family owns a condo (well 2 actually) in North Myrtle and the one that we stay in was furnitureless. Which we knew about prior to going, so we were fully equipped with blankets, pillows and air mattresses. We did forget however, some toilet paper!!! Oops. The trip started with a bang, Dhana who had volunteered her SUV for the roadtrip was leaving work to come meet up with us at her home, when she ran out of gas. Oops. After a difficult task of walking to the gas station and getting gas to bring to her truck, she made it back to us completely disheveled!!!

We loaded the truck the best way that 4 women know how too and set off for the 2hr roadtrip, only stopping once which was simply amazing. The condo as expected was completely empty and had been for quite sometime. Upon entering the elevator to go up to the condo, Lindsay had said that her mother said the door lock was a little tricky on this particular unit. After about 4min of Lindsay trying, Dhana looks at me and gestures for me to go help her. I said, "why me? do I look like a locksmith?" She said, "well you are just good with this kind of stuff"! I replied, "what with doors?" She said, "yep". For some reason, turns out I am good at doors, taking from 5-100tries per lock/unlock each time we left or entered the condo! Yeah for me. After we got settled in, we began to get ready for the evening out, until we ran the water!! Like I said, the condo has sat empty for a while now, so the sulfur has set in the pipes for awhile. The whole condo now smelled like rotten eggs. Dhana comes out in her towel and says, "can't you fix that Becky"? OH right, now I'm the plumber!!

This night we had purchased tickets for a George Clinton concert at the House of Blues. Now Dhana had warned us of the oddity of this band, but not to it's full rights! The lead guy, George, had a pimp suit on with fake Cindy Lopper like hair all different colors sticking out in all different ways. The next man that came out was wearing a diaper (the old school cloth kind), a yellow suit jacket and yellow sunglasses. The 4 back-up singers, one was named by us as Lady Gaga and she was even wearing roller skates for part of the evening on stage, a lady that apparently forgot her underwear, A man that was wearing clothes large enough to fit the entire band in, and then a normal-ish dressed man! Now this was more visual stimulation than anyone needs in one concert and the music was really good and entertaining as well. Great concert overall. At some point in the evening Dhana had phoned a friend that was then waiting outside of the House of Blues in a Hummer stretch limo! Why not!!!? He drove us the the Boardwalk area which is outdoor shopping and entertainment area. We danced the night away at a fairly ghetto fabulous dance club, but we didn't need any entertainment but ourselves!

The next morning we awoke with a sprint, donned our swimsuits and headed to the beach! Along with the condo rental/ownership comes a pass for a beach front building with bathrooms, kitchen, deck/patio with chairs/tables and of course beach access. It couldn't of worked out any better. We just sat in the sun, drinking our waters, eating some chips and listening to the "huge" hot pink stereo my mom purchased for $1 many years back! I call it my boombox, everyone laughs and points, until they hear the amazing sound quality! It is really funny I must admit but I have taken her all over the nation, used her in KC at the pools, tailgating, at my home while doing landscaping. Most of my friends and some of my family know about my awesome boombox and have even asked to borrow her, Stella. After about 5hrs at the beach we called it quits and headed back to the condo for a nap. Much needed rest for sure but then woke up to the same egg smelling water........until genius Becky decided to just run all of the hot water in one bathroom for about 40min....guess what, it worked!!! Now the other 2 bathrooms and kitchen were a different story :)

Tonight, Saturday night, we headed to Hard Rock Cafe found an awesome table outside right by the band and went from 0-10 in 2seconds. We had the best time, the most laughs, the most dancing I have had in a long time. After dinner we went to a dueling piano bar that 2 of the girls had never even heard of, so that made it really fun to see their surprise/delight. The cab that we ended up getting into was a van taxi (which most of them are) and it's driver is the proud owner of the cutest puppy that happened to be in the front seat. Putting a puppy in a contained area with us four gals was almost as bad as putting a baby in the vehicle with us! Her name was Bella and about 10min into the trip she decided to ignore all of our begging to come sit with us and just laid her head down and went to sleep. Now even though the cab ride was $40 home it was worth no one getting into trouble, the next day though it was a little perplexing as to what we were going to do.

We again awoke with a shot, smiling with joy in our hearts......well actually it looked like a scene from the movie Hangover minus the tiger in the bathroom, although we did actually look just in case there was one in there! We went over to Lindsay's other condo to sit on some actual furniture and have a diet coke sitting along the river, rehashing the weekends fun stories and looking at pictures that we prayed never existed. Partly by default of not being aware of the distance, we all agreed just to walk to the place for breakfast, well 3mi later around the golf course, over the bridge and across the highway we arrived at the Spring House, not feeling too "springy" at all. Following the meal of necessity I will now refer to it as, I discovered that some cunning lady in Miami, FL had been using my VISA to make her a great vacation. Thousands of dollars had been spent until finally my bank caught on and shut the thing down. I will say that the security tech at my bank was quite confused over my charges from SC, KC, NE, ME, MA.....it was difficult to say where I may have been. I honestly can't believe that no one has questioned me at all over the past 6months.

In all my delight over now not having a VISA to use, we called the cab and headed to the car. The 3mi walk did save us about $6.50 in cab fare though, so that is a positive being that I was the only one with cash on the trip and my funds were running a little low! After we got back to the car I had about $3 and no more use of my VISA, well shoot. We drove down to the ocean boulevard as I realized that none of the 3 ladies in the SUV knew how to parallel park.....what? Literally when Lindsay was ready to park she stopped and got out of the vehicle and I had to get into the driver's seat and park the dang car! Oh SC women, how I loath thee. Well we did a little shopping, had a beverage at an outdoor restaurant/bar and did a lot of people watching. We discovered that if you do not own a wife beater or black socks, you cannot walk proudly on the boulevard! Sadly the end of the day arrived and we had to pack/clean up the condo and drive the 2hrs back to Sumter. What a great trip of relaxation and just silly fun! It was actually the last weekend adventure for me here in SC and my friend Megan is also going back to CO so it was great to have a girls weekend prior to leaving the great state!

To give you some foreshadowing of this awesome blog that I call "my life", I am finishing my last week here at Toumey Hospital in Sumter, SC. This weekend I will be packing Samantha (SUV) and cleaning the apartment. Monday 26th I fly out to Cancun for the week and return to SC on Saturday May 1st. Sunday I will awake and finish packing Sammy, throw Dhana in the truck with me and we are headed North. I have been chosen as the first OT traveler to go to Massachusetts General in Boston, MA which is not only a huge honor but also a wonderful adventure. Dhana and I will have an entire week of travel/playtime to eventually make it to Boston. I will write the plans here but don't hold me too it because you never know....Sunday drive 8hrs to Baltimore, MD to stay with my friend Ally, Tuesday we will travel to Kennebunk, ME to see my friends at the restaurant and show Dhana Maine. Thursday we can get into my 27th floor, downtown, studio apartment and begin making that home until mid August! Pray for me, my sanity, and our travel.................stay tuned!