Ocean Lakes Campground

Sunday - 20 October 2002: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - We really enjoyed our 3 days on the Outer Banks, but there is more of the beach to explore, so we headed south this morning. We had lucked out with the weather. We have heard there are two kinds of weather on the Outer Banks - wind or mosquitoes. We had neither! We enjoyed talking with all the fishermen. They had a lot of time to chat, as they were not busy catching fish. You are nothing in the OB unless you are driving a big diesel pickup with a rack full of surf-fishing poles on the front! There is also such an abundance of birds here - most of the OB is a wildlife refuge. Consider a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina!

We crossed over through Roanoke Island on our way to the mainland. On Roanake Island, the first English immigrant/settler gave birth to the first immigrant/settler child and the population explosion began. We drove south on Highway 264, which follows the Alligator River. Signs along the road warn against feeding the bears. Mosquitoes, Alligators and Bears, oh my! We only saw turtles - hundreds of turtles. (And a red fox, dead on the side of the road.) Along the roads in Beaufort County it looks like someone spilled thousands of cotton balls! It is cotton pickin' season and the white stuff is everywhere! We stopped in Washington, North Carolina and walked around the historic waterfront. Washington is the first town to name itself after General George and is also the hometown of Cecil B. DeMille. There is a fabulous mansion (Tryon Palace, the home of the English Governor of the Carolinas - before the Revolution) in New Bern, so we stopped to look. Closed on Sundays! We did get a glimpse of it through the ivied fence and it was just beautiful. (Sorry, no photos.) Trust me, you would just get depressed - it was Georgian, about 80 feet across and three stories of brick, completely symmetrical. Oh, did I mention it faces out over the river? At New Bern, we turned on to Highway 17, which skirts Camp Lejeune. Camp Lejeune is the largest Marine base on the east coast and is home to more than 47,000 Marines. You cannot imagine how large the Wal-Mart is in this town!

On the hour, I would try to tune in a radio station to hear the latest news. The public station was having a fund drive and every other station was Christian Revival or - get this - NASCAR. NASCAR on the radio.

It was sunset when we finally arrived in Myrtle Beach, where we will be staying for several days. We were looking for a campground a fellow camper had told us about - Ocean Lakes. But, when we found it, we learned he was a big, fat liar. He said Ocean Lakes has 3,000 spaces, but they actually have 3,335! It is so large; they have their own post office and zip code! They have check-in lines like a ride in Disneyland. You can rent golf carts to get around. We are camped next to the beach - in sand - and we can see the water from our windows! Just lovely! We have all our life-lines, including cable and telephone. They have good water pressure and daily garbage pick-up AT YOUR SITE!

RV Park: Ocean Lakes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina