Things have been a little quiet around this blog space because I’ve been on vacation for the past week and a half. So that’s what a lot of this week’s delights post is going to be about. We took our annual trip to a beach in South Carolina. We’ve been going to Hilton Head for the past several years. We wound up extending our trip by 3 days instead of going for just our normal week. Since our cat Scout died a few months ago and we didn’t have to worry about leaving a sick cat for 10 days, I decided that we should go for longer so that I could use the remaining 3 vacation days I had to use before the end of June. My husband can work from anywhere, so he could just work from down there while I got some extra time at the beach. Otherwise I would have just wound up wasting it sitting on my couch at home. It would have been nicer if the weather was a little warmer. The same cold front that made Baltimore rainy and in the 50s the whole time we were gone made it about 10 degrees cooler than normal and very windy at the beach. That still meant it was in the 70s, but with a cold wind it wasn’t great sitting on the beach weather. I still got my beach walks in, and spent some time sitting and reading on the beach just clothed in leggings and a fleece instead of a bathing suit.

• My carry on size suitcase is surprisingly roomy, and I like how much I can manage to squeeze into while I’m packing
• On the Sunday we were there it was crazy windy such that it was impossible to be out on the beach even thought it was decently warm and sunny unless you wanted your skin sand blasted off. The resort didn’t even set out their chairs and umbrellas, and I didn’t even see any beach walkers. It’s the one day I didn’t get any beach time in at all. Since it was a lousy beach day, we decided to go check out Old Town Bluffton. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend giving up a day at the beach for it, but if you’re in Hilton Head for some reason and aren’t much of a beach person or it’s just a not great beach day, Old Town Bluffton is a nice place to walk around. The really historic area has lots of cool old houses and churches and a nice waterfront. There’s lots of art galleries and a few restaurants. Then there’s a newer area that has lots of restaurants and boutique shops. It was a pleasant place to wander around for a few hours.
• One night we were sitting outside on our balcony overlooking the ocean and all of a sudden there was a giant fireball shooting through the sky. I thought maybe we were seeing a really large meteor or something, but after texting with friends about it one of my friends pointed out that it was actually some SpaceX rocket launching. I had no idea that was happening or that we would be able to see it from where we were, but the times lined up exactly so I’m sure that was it. It was very cool and unexpected. I’m glad I walked outside at that exact moment and saw it.
• We always play mini golf one day when we’re at the beach. We usually do the Pirate Golf, but we tried out a new course this year. It had real water traps all over the course. It was much harder than Pirate Golf, but the important thing is that I beat my husband. Though he did get a hole in one and win a frisbee.
• The resort that we normally stay at has the best washing station for getting sand off of you when coming in from the beach that I have ever encountered. It’s perfect. There’s a bench where you can set your bags on so they don’t get all wet and sandy by setting them on the boardwalk while you rinse off yourself and other stuff. They have tall showers if you want to wash off your whole body, low shower heads if you want to just wash off your feet, and also a hose with a spray nozzle that you can use to easily wash off your chairs and other beach paraphernalia. Most importantly all of the shower stuff is positioned in the middle of the boardwalk over a grate so that the water and sand can fall into the dunes underneath instead of creating a pool of sand and water that you somehow have to stand in while you’re trying to clean yourself off like happens at most of the beach washing stations I’ve been at. Kudos to whoever designed this one. A+
• The first year we went to Hilton Head my husband found a restaurant called A Lowcountry Backyard Restaurant. It quickly became one of our favorites. There is an inside, but you really want to eat in the titular backyard. It’s this really great courtyard area, and they usually have some live music. The music is played at the perfect level where you can hear it, but it doesn’t drown out your conversations with the people you’re eating with and no one has to yell to be heard, which is what I too often find when there is live music in restaurants. They claim to have the number 3 shrimp and grits in the whole world. I won’t dispute them because that’s what I always get, and they are delicious. This year I swear to god that the words shrimp and grits barely finished leaving my mouth and my food appeared on the table. I don’t think that I’ve ever ordered fast food that got to me that quickly. I was like is this someone else’s food? The waitress was even confused when she walked back by and saw it in front of me already without my husband having his food. His followed not that long after, but it was very crazy how fast mine came out. Then, the waitress misremembered what I ordered for dessert and brought me key lime pie instead of banana pudding, so we got to take a free piece of pie home too. I was actually sad that dinner finished so quickly because it was a really pleasant night to sit out and enjoy some music, but once we were done I didn’t feel like we should linger since there’s always a line. If you do ever eat there go early or be prepared to wait for an hour or more.
• And now your musical delights. We usually don’t watch that much tv when we’re at the beach. We spend a lot of time just hanging out on our balcony enjoying the ocean sounds. It was thunderstorming on Saturday night, so we were sitting inside our villa and wound up putting on the live stream of the Stagecoach festival. I very much enjoyed watching Mary Chapin Carpenter’s set and Morgan Wade’s set. Morgan Wade did this great medley of 80s songs that started with the Outfield’s “Your Love”, which is a song I love. I don’t see a video of that particular performance online though there do seem to be some videos from other concerts.
• I heard “All I Have to Give” by the Backstreet Boys on the radio while we were in Hilton Head. I feel like it’s a Backstreet Boys song I haven’t heard in a long time, but it’s a great song.