Dar & Deb at home......and away: October 2013

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Huntington Beach State Park

Today we headed out to visit Atalaya the winter castle home of the Huntington family. The castle is located in the Huntington state park. We arrived there only to discover that the castle is closed due to Halloween celebrations.. They have decorated the interior and have spooky tours at night. We did enjoy the rest of the park and wandered around the outside of the castle. We saw many plovers which look much like sandpipers. It reminded us of our travels in NB during the migration last year. We also saw lots of egrets and herons (great blue and brown). We enjoyed watching the tiny fish in the salt marsh and a short walk on the ocean beach before heading back into the city. We picked up BBQ for dinner tonight and in the morning will be headed out of Myrtle Beach and back toward Canada.

gate on the salt marsh. the gate controls flooding/draining of the fields for rice production

snowy egret

flowering tree

plovers feeding in salt marsh

Huntington beach

ripples in the sand @ Huntington beach

sun on the water @ Huntington beach

windswept trees @ Huntington beach

Atalaya

Atalaya courtyard

Atalaya sidewall

Atalaya courtyard wall

Atalaya windows with shutters

Atalaya front entry

Plovers feeding in salt marsh

footprints in salt marsh

egret

barnacles under the boardwalk

some type of rail...hard to tell which type since he was to well hidden in grasses

Plovers feeding in salt marsh

Friday, October 25, 2013

Brookgreen Gardens day 2

We returned to Brookgreen Gardens again today. We enjoyed their river boat tour and learned more about the history of the south and the role of African slaves in creating the rice plantations and fortunes for the elite who owned the plantations. We saw a handful of alligators in the river/canal and on the banks sunning. We enjoyed strolling through many of the gardens checking out the many statues and water features. Our highlight of the day was spotting some Eastern Fox squirrels. We were surprised by the variety of colour and Deb loved the mulitcoloured feet on the one in the tree. We also toured the historic city of Georgetown checking out many of the very old buildings there. There were quite a few from the 1700s. They lost a downtown block to fire last month but many of those businesses have already relocated and are once again operating. I was surprised that even the oldest of buildings really didn't look old, I guess they are just well maintained.