Day 12

(9/14/08) -- Myrtle Beach, SC Today was mostly driving. While leaving Cape Hatteras, Tara took got a few pictures of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. This is one of three along the Outer Banks. Like the others, this has an interesting history. The current lighthouse is the third attempt. The first was built without a proper supporting foundation and the second was blown up by Confedarate troops to prevent its use by the Union Army during the Civil War. This latest version was completed in 1872. (for more, see http://www.nps.gov/archive/caha/bodielh.htm) We headed west for the first time this trip on our return to the mainland via U.S. 64. We had originally planned to take a couple of ferries at the southern tip of the Outer Banks, but limited availability for one of them would have meant reaching the mainland after 4pm; with the additional hours required to get to Myrtle Beach, that became a non-option. The bridge crossing Croatan Sound was obviously relatively new. It was a beautiful drive and Kevin was able to keep the RV from going over the edge (Tara is not amused when Kevin says stuff like, "one strong gust of wind and we are over the side..."). After crossing into the mainland, we started a dash down US Hwy 17. This was a more "direct" route intended to give us a "scenic drive", while "saving some time". What we got was BUGS, traffic, and stoplights. There was some beautiful scenery along the way, however.

To the left is a picture of what Tara stared at for most of the journey. Kevin laughed right after it hit and Tara almost threw up, so there was some entertainment in the route we chose after all (Tara did not find it as funny as Kevin did; his only defense is that 8 tons moving at 50mph is not something that you want try to quickly swing left or right to avoid bugs). In addition to this bug, there were a plethora of others scattered across our windshield, wipers and front grill. Worth special mention were the "Love Bugs". We hit our first Love Bugs in Columbia, NC. For those of you not familiar with this particular creature, Love Bugs should really have been called Windshield bugs, because this appears to be where they like to hang out most of the time. The following comes from Wikipedia :

The lovebug, Plecia nearctica, is a member of the family of march flies. It is also known as the honeymoon fly, telephonebug, kissybug or double-headedbug. The adult is a small, flying insect common to parts of Central America and the southeastern United States, especially along the Gulf Coast[...Because airborne lovebugs can exist in enormous numbers near highways, they die en masse on automobile windshields, hoods, and radiator grills...

Bacon found the ride quite boring (since he was not allowed to participate in the "bug catching activities") and decided to spend most of the day in his special napping place. We arrived in at our campsite in Myrtle Beach to begin our 2 day stay. We took an evening walk down to the beach after our setup (Bacon is afraid of the incoming surf in South Carolina too) and then kicked back for the evening. Pictures on the Apache Pier tomorrow!