The Big Trip, part 5: Folly Beach, SC




Folly Beach is a small town, really almost a hamlet, outside of Charleston. It has one commercial strip, about six blocks long, populated by burger/seafood/pizza/taco joints and the sort of beach town shops that specialize in shell jewelry, souvenir shot glasses, and t-shirts celebrating the virtues of public intoxication and sexual harassment. The strip terminates in a beachfront Holiday Inn with an absurdly stylish lobby and restaurant.

The condo we have called home for the past week is a half mile or so off the strip, facing the marshes, hence its name, Marsh Winds. Those of you who actually live near wetlands (Mom and Dad, if no one else) will understand why I found the name somewhat foreboding, but in fact it has turned out to be a very restful and well-appointed location for the Mega Griffis Family Reunion, the full participation in which looked something like this:

Myself, Eric, Owen, and Pat: staying for the whole week, Friday to Friday.
Darren, Kate, and Bryson: Friday to Tuesday.
Katie, Kyle, and Isabelle: Sunday to Thursday.
Jane and Elliott: in permanent residence on James Island, ten minutes away.
Kevin: Saturday to Sunday.

Activities and excursions have included:
The beach (3x)
The pool in Elliott's neighborhood
The pool at the condo
The Charleston Aquarium
The Children's Museum
The Aiken-Rhett House (yes, Mom, I did visit SOMETHING historical in Charleston)
The local spa
One moderately drunken late-night game of Monopoly, in which Kyle destroyed the rest of the field
One entirely too sober late-night game of Scrabble, in which, somehow, no one had any good letters
Baby Wars 2.0 (what happens when two 2-year-old cousins stop being polite and start getting real.)
A lot of cooing over the 3-month-old, because he is really cute
Jack's Cosmic Dogs (2x and every bit as good as Alton Brown said)
Many viewings of Shaun the Sheep (see the part about two 2-year-olds in the house)

We will be departing tomorrow morning, assuming that the second key to the condo and Pat's car keys, which were mistakenly carried away from here by an earlier-departing member of the family who shall remain nameless, arrive by overnight post as scheduled. Having finally bothered to look up the directions the other day, we discovered that Charleston and Washington, DC, are much further apart than we had realized, so we will be headed for an overnight stop in Chapel Hill before venturing on to Our Nation's Capital. North Carolina barbecue has been promised.


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