My cousin, Sam (aka Cecile), is 17 years older than I am. She got married and moved away about the time I was learning to walk. Like her sister Jeanette, we didn’t really get to know each other back then. (I did get to know their older sister, Helen, who stayed nearby.) Sam moved back to our home town just months before I headed off to college and I met her once. Since then, we’ve met each other mostly at funerals. We vowed that we would connect sometime simply for fun. That time finally happened.
Sam retired in Murrells Inlet, a small oceanside town just south of Myrtle Beach. Sam wanted to show us highlights – those from the locals’ perspective… Of course, we had to strategize a plan around the super hot and humid weather. Mid morning was spent inside with AC and reserved for getting caught up – kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, soon to be great-grandtwins(!), and changes since her beloved husband, Dave, passed away about 4 years ago. Lunch was on the Inlet’s famed Marsh Walk at Restaurant Row, where we could walk along the marshes and get lunch on an outdoor patio with a cooling ocean breeze before all the tourists came out for happy hour.
Lunch along the Marsh Walk 
Doug, Sam, Garden City Pier
Back to the AC, we spent the afternoon sitting around the computer sharing photos. After a cooling rain, we moved onto the screen porch for our own private happy hour, continuing the conversation. The early evening treat was a long walk along Garden City Beach as the tourists were heading out. Plans are underway to get together again, again for absolutely no reason.
Brookgreen Gardens is a former rice plantation turned botanical/sculpture garden, historic site and wildlife preserve. The nearly 10,000-acre plantation was purchased by Archer Milton Huntington in 1929 to showcase the sculptures created by his wife, Anna Hyatt Huntington. Today, Brookgreen boasts over 3,000 sculptures among miles of trails through perfectly manicured grounds. (I suspect we missed a few!)
We found the Brookgreen self-guided history trail particularly interesting as it presented the rise and fall of the South Carolina coastal rice industry. The coastal marshes are perfect for growing rice, however they are too soft for mechanical cultivation and processing. The Civil War and the end of slavery rendered these plantations unable to compete.
Our timing was perfect for a long walk on Huntington Beach. The tourists were ending their days on the beach, the breeze was picking up and a storm on the horizon made for a beautiful backdrop to the Atlantic, the beach and the dunes.
For anyone who’s interested, more Sam, Brookgreen Gardens and Huntington Beach pix…
Hi Sue and Doug,
I loved reading what you wrote on your blog regarding your visit to South Carolina. It was so wonderful to get caught up on all these years. It was so interesting to hear all of your travels across the country. It was great listening to a lot of your place as you visited as it was many that we did so it was really reminiscing for me.
Pictures were awesome.
I so enjoyed getting to know you better and to get to know Doug. It felt like I had known you forever like an old meeting and talking all the time it was so nice.
You’re certainly welcome to come back anytime, I’m sure we still have a lot more to talk about.
I will have to check out your blog more often it’s so wonderful to hear all of the beauty of our country that’s for sure.
I hope to see you in Vermont I’m sure we’ll have a fun day. Thank you for sharing this it means a lot to me . I’m sure we will visit again in Vermont. ❤️❤️❤️
Hey Sam, it really was great to spend so much time with you. Isn’t it fun that we started the conversation and just kept it rolling along like old friends. You’re right, so much more to talk about… See you in Vermont!