we're in folly beach, a coastal town with a true surfer vibe located just twenty minutes from downtown charleston. i'm sitting at a picnic table, in the shade, in my bikini, typing away while luke naps in the van, doors open, not a care in the world. [ a curious woman just spent about five minutes studying our home on wheels, completely oblivious to me. that was hilarious ].
ok, let's get you all caught up. after our stay at amber's cottage on the hill we drove to asheville, south carolina, craft beer mecca & one of the most beautiful cities we've seen. encompassed by the blue mountains & inhabited by a crazy mishmash of people, there was no lack of entertainment or awe inspiring view.
as you can imagine, we spent the first day visiting breweries. there are so many, a number of which we'd never even heard of, so we just winged it. & we weren't disappointed. we spent the second day driving the blue mountain parkway, taking in the stunning tree topped mountains that went as far as the eye could see. we ate sandwiches & hiked & we capped the day off with a visit to new belgium brewing [ this brewery was a must visit for us ]. though there were a bazillion more breweries we could visit, when we woke the next morning we agreed there was no way our budget could handle more craft beer. so we took to the road!
& the road took us to florence, south carolina. a town we'd never heard of & no idea what to expect from. the only reason we stopped here was to break up the drive [ we'd agreed at the beginning that we'd never drive more than four hours or so ] & what we got was an unexpected evening in a local bar on the side of a highway where we drank four dollar beers for three dollars [ thank you brandy! ] & had laugh after laugh with the locals. we'd intended to stay for an hour but ended up having such craic we couldn't tear ourselves away until we absolutely had to.
next morning we were off to myrtle beach. now, we knew it would be a shit show, & we fully expected to dislike it as much as we did the other shit show style american beach towns we'd fled, but because we ended up caving & renting a motel room [ we'd not slept in what felt like forever due to the oppressive heat & my cough, which i'd had for about a week by this point. it had been keeping us both up every. single. night ], it felt like a vacation. &, though it may sound crazy, we needed a vacation. living in a van is an adventure but it's often not very relaxing, to be honest. if we're in a city, there's metered parking, for example. & paying a few dollars an hour nap just doesn't make sense, you know? on top of that, the van gets up to about five hundred degrees by midday. not exactly a comfortable hanging-out-in-the-van reading & chilling out temperature. but i digress.
we spent two glorious days & nights in shit show myrtle beach, enjoying the air conditioning, the pool & the beach. we worked out, chilled out & hung out. on top of all that glorious-ness, we experienced such generosity from strangers we couldn't believe our luck.
we stayed up until 2 o'clock in the morning the first night because an enthusiastic group of women in town for a softball tournament were sitting at a table out front of the motel listening to old school r&b & drinking budweiser. & they very kindly allowed us to join them. we sang along to the music, interacted with everyone walking by & had a million laughs.
next morning there was a knock on our door. if you can believe it, it was one of the women from the previous night. & she had bags of groceries for luke & i. instead of taking their leftover food with them, they generously gave it to us, knowing we were on the road. the bags were full of bottled water, crackers, cheese, turkey bacon, sandwich meat, pickles. we couldn't believe it. & just when we didn't think things could get better, another one of the women knocked on the door & handed us twelve budweiser. she & luke had bonded of a shared love for the beer so she passed it to me & said 'beer for my bud'. what a start to the day, right? & it just got better from there.
once we were up & mobile we did a work out & hit the beach. the waves were huge & kept us out there for what seemed like hours. on our way back in, a young man we recognized from our motel approached us - two boogie boards in hand - & offered them to us. said he couldn't take them home on the plane & wanted us to have them. i mean, what a day. i swear, we ended up with the equivalent of one night's stay in booty.
the next morning we reluctantly packed everything back into the van & left the comfort of our motel room. we knew we couldn't stay any longer, as much as we'd have loved to. we had a date with charleston.
ok, let's get you all caught up. after our stay at amber's cottage on the hill we drove to asheville, south carolina, craft beer mecca & one of the most beautiful cities we've seen. encompassed by the blue mountains & inhabited by a crazy mishmash of people, there was no lack of entertainment or awe inspiring view.
as you can imagine, we spent the first day visiting breweries. there are so many, a number of which we'd never even heard of, so we just winged it. & we weren't disappointed. we spent the second day driving the blue mountain parkway, taking in the stunning tree topped mountains that went as far as the eye could see. we ate sandwiches & hiked & we capped the day off with a visit to new belgium brewing [ this brewery was a must visit for us ]. though there were a bazillion more breweries we could visit, when we woke the next morning we agreed there was no way our budget could handle more craft beer. so we took to the road!
& the road took us to florence, south carolina. a town we'd never heard of & no idea what to expect from. the only reason we stopped here was to break up the drive [ we'd agreed at the beginning that we'd never drive more than four hours or so ] & what we got was an unexpected evening in a local bar on the side of a highway where we drank four dollar beers for three dollars [ thank you brandy! ] & had laugh after laugh with the locals. we'd intended to stay for an hour but ended up having such craic we couldn't tear ourselves away until we absolutely had to.
next morning we were off to myrtle beach. now, we knew it would be a shit show, & we fully expected to dislike it as much as we did the other shit show style american beach towns we'd fled, but because we ended up caving & renting a motel room [ we'd not slept in what felt like forever due to the oppressive heat & my cough, which i'd had for about a week by this point. it had been keeping us both up every. single. night ], it felt like a vacation. &, though it may sound crazy, we needed a vacation. living in a van is an adventure but it's often not very relaxing, to be honest. if we're in a city, there's metered parking, for example. & paying a few dollars an hour nap just doesn't make sense, you know? on top of that, the van gets up to about five hundred degrees by midday. not exactly a comfortable hanging-out-in-the-van reading & chilling out temperature. but i digress.
we spent two glorious days & nights in shit show myrtle beach, enjoying the air conditioning, the pool & the beach. we worked out, chilled out & hung out. on top of all that glorious-ness, we experienced such generosity from strangers we couldn't believe our luck.
we stayed up until 2 o'clock in the morning the first night because an enthusiastic group of women in town for a softball tournament were sitting at a table out front of the motel listening to old school r&b & drinking budweiser. & they very kindly allowed us to join them. we sang along to the music, interacted with everyone walking by & had a million laughs.
next morning there was a knock on our door. if you can believe it, it was one of the women from the previous night. & she had bags of groceries for luke & i. instead of taking their leftover food with them, they generously gave it to us, knowing we were on the road. the bags were full of bottled water, crackers, cheese, turkey bacon, sandwich meat, pickles. we couldn't believe it. & just when we didn't think things could get better, another one of the women knocked on the door & handed us twelve budweiser. she & luke had bonded of a shared love for the beer so she passed it to me & said 'beer for my bud'. what a start to the day, right? & it just got better from there.
once we were up & mobile we did a work out & hit the beach. the waves were huge & kept us out there for what seemed like hours. on our way back in, a young man we recognized from our motel approached us - two boogie boards in hand - & offered them to us. said he couldn't take them home on the plane & wanted us to have them. i mean, what a day. i swear, we ended up with the equivalent of one night's stay in booty.
the next morning we reluctantly packed everything back into the van & left the comfort of our motel room. we knew we couldn't stay any longer, as much as we'd have loved to. we had a date with charleston.
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