Arriving in myrtle beach

We are officially on vacation. We flew into Myrtle Beach, SC yesterday afternoon. I preached in the morning and Carrie dropped us off at the Fort Wayne airport around 2 pm. We sat around there until our plane took off at 3:40. Takeoff was a bit rough but it was a good flight. I was glad Jane went ahead and paid to get us assigned seats - we were the only two on our side of the aisle (the other side had 3 seats). We were seats 12A and 12C (same on the way home). We flew Allegiant. We landed just after 5 pm. So it took right about an hour and a half to get here. Much better than the 13-14 hour drive.

After a potty stop we retrieved our bag and the Hertz rental car place was right there. We rented through Hotwire, and the Hertz guy was great. We got a white Chevy Aveo with TN license plates. There was some construction in the rental car area of the parking lot so it seemed to take forever to get out of the airport, but we came out right at our road, drove about 3-4 miles, and we were at our hotel.

One thing that surprised us, though, was... as we were driving through town we saw all these black people... and they all seemed to be riding motorcycles. The closer we got to the strip (where our hotel was), the worse it got. Pretty soon it seemed like we were the only white people around. Seriously... we saw a white person every now and then, but this was by far the largest concentration of black people I have ever been with. And the women had no modesty whatsoever. In fact, the bigger they were, the more skin they seemed to want to show. Sometimes it was just gruesome. Well, after checking in we walked around, and sure enough we saw t-shirts and posters about it being "Black Bike Week." Aha... Pretty soon it was just kind of comical though... here we were, two lily-white Indiana hoosiers, walking around a sea of black people. I never did feel the least bit uncomfortable though. Although now and then one of the white salespeople standing outside their shop would comment as we walked by. One guy smiled and said, "I see white people." Another said to us, "Pick the wrong weekend to come?" But oddly enough I didn't sense any of the black people feeling like we were out of place. I dunno, maybe I was just naive. Anyway, Black Bike Week is over today, so things will probably even out a little.

We did eat supper at the Landshark, just down the boardwalk from our hotel. We had chicken sandwiches, and french fries. Hadn't had fries in a long time. Then we just walked up and down the boardwalk and the other side of the street where all the shops were. We finally noticed that most of the white people were on the boardwalk/ocean side, and the black people were mostly on the shop/street side. Later on we went to the Bowery (the bar where Alabama is famous for getting their start). We had nacho's and sat outside and just watched people. Finally we headed back to our hotel - the Holiday Inn at the Pavillion (not a part of the HI chain) - and turned in for the night. We are on the 8th floor, and it's just pretty neat to have the ocean right out the sliding glass door. We heard the ocean all night long. And the hotel is angled just so, so the sun doesn't shine directly in our door. Jane is out on the patio right now. Think I'll go join her for the morning cup of coffee.

So far... so good.