South Carolina Trip Day 4: Easter and the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk (4/9/23)

   Woke up in Myrtle Beach on Easter! The night before Rebecca and I had researched a place called Alligator Adventure. Alligator Adventure is a place that has live alligator feedings end of Mid April-Mid October, and allows you to touch the alligators and take pictures with them end of October to Beginning of April. They don't do live feedings in the winter months because alligators don't eat apparently. It also contains the largest crocodile in the world, Utan, as well as other animals. This attraction is located in North Myrtle Beach. However when we got there, it was closed for Easter. I had called ahead of time, knowing that this might be the case and got no answer, but we decided to try anyway. Luckily there was a place down the street called Barefoot Landing, which is a another popular attraction in North Myrtle Beach. Barefoot Landing is a series of shops and restaurants that are walkable, located along the Intercoastal Waterway. It also has live music and other events, and giant chess and checkers. The event of the day was meeting the Easter bunny. We thought about getting a picture with the Easter bunny for the laughs but decided against it, since there was a long line. We spent a few hours looking around before going back to the AirBNB and walking to the beach. 

  While walking along the beach we saw two beached jellyfish. Apparently sometimes when the waves are stronger jellyfish get washed up on shore. When they get washed up on shore they retract their tentacles. It was a bit frightening to see, and think about how many more were out there. After looking it up it said that jellyfish generally hang out closer to the shore. The jellyfish would get covered by the seafoam when the tide came up which made them harder to see, so if you weren't paying attention you might step on one. There were a lot of tiny unbroken shells which Rebecca helped me collect way too many of. I was like a child with the amount of shells that fascinated me that I wanted to keep. After walking along the beach, and water Rebecca had to get ready to go. It was around 3:30 when she left for the airport. I took a nap before deciding what to do next. 

   I had gotten confused when there ended up being two giant Ferris wheels in Myrtle Beach. I had started to think that the Ferris Wheel at Broadway at the Beach was the only ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach. Broadway at the Beach is again, not located near the beach. If you look up Myrtle Beach however there's a Ferris Wheel by the ocean. I began to think that the ferris wheel was actually photoshopped or something to look closer to the ocean, but when I looked it up I realized they were two different ferris wheels. There was one right near the ocean, it was bigger, and that was where the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk was located. Unfortunately I figured this all out after Rebecca was gone, otherwise we would have definitely went together. I was glad I figured this out, otherwise I would have paid way too much money to go on the way less amusing Broadway at the Beach ferris wheel that probably contained no cool scenery. I bought tickets online just in case the line would be long and thought about riding the ferris wheel during sunset. 

   I found street parking near the boardwalk for 5ish dollars for 2 hours. This however didn't feel like the safest environment. It felt safer closer to the boardwalk but still not great, so I decided I didn't want to be there too long especially by myself. Because of this I went on the SkyWheel right when I got there. There was no line so I got right on. The Skywheel has enclosed gondola's with air conditioning. I got one of the gondola's to myself. The gondola goes up 200ft so you can see the ocean and skyline from the gondola. The ride went around 5ish times and lasted around 10 minutes. It felt very safe, and the height didn't frighten me at all. After the ride you could buy a set of photos or one bigger one of you with a greenscreened Skywheel and ocean behind you. Both options cost more than the ride itself. We love consumerism. I did end up buying the one big photo. 

   After the ride I went onto the boardwalk. There was a road with lots of shops near the boardwalk but it looked pretty rundown so I didn't explore that area. The first place I explored was a fishing pier that had a restaurant towards the front of the pier, which is where I ended up facetiming my parents from (plus aunt and uncle) everyone else had gone home already. The pier is known as Pier 14. I was able to show them the water, and then turn and show them the SkyWheel in the background. Slight flex. I then walked towards the other side of the boardwalk which has a few shops and restaurants and places for photo ops. It also has an area with information about a category 4 hurricane (Hugo) which came through and destroyed a lot of the beachfront homes/businesses in 1989. One of the shops had a sign outside that featured a pineapple cut open like a bowl with a smoothie in it. You could decide on the flavor you wanted, and I knew I had to have one. Especially since you could get a pina colada flavored smoothie. The sign didn't name a price because of course it didn't. They made the smoothie put it into the pineapple with two straws, a little umbrella, and pineapple rings hanging from the side. I decided a good photo op would be by one of the Myrtle Beach signs with the pineapple drink. I sat and drank my pineapple drink while watching the sunset, and promoting the drink by doing so. A lady went in and ordered one after seeing mine. If you were wondering they weighed the pineapple with the smoothie in it, and the final cost was $17, and the pineapple was around 5 pounds. It was one of the best drinks I have ever had though. 

  To end the night I decided to go to Broadway at the Beach which has some shops and restaurants which are open late. When looking up things to do at night a dueling piano bar caught my attention. Broadway at the Beach was much safer then the Boardwalk to be at night which is where the piano bar was located. It also had free parking. The concept of a dueling piano bar is having two musicians performing against each other with songs picked by the audience. The bar was called Crocodile Rocks. As I walked I was disappointed to find that it was closed. The Myrtle Beach Hard Rock Cafe was also located at Broadway at the Beach so I wandered in to see what music memorabilia they had. They didn't have much and it was disappointing, but it had cool indoor decor including string lights with drums. To end the night I went into a pick your own oyster shop out of curiosity. The shop had a tank filled with oysters and various pearl jewelry. You could pick an oyster for $20 which they would then open (which supposedly doesn't hurt them) and whatever pearl was inside you got to keep and pick a pendant/chain for. The pearls came in different colors and some oysters had two. Each color had a specific meaning, and some colors were more rare than others. The clerk explained how the pearl forms. A foreign substance gets into the shell (like sand), and the oyster uses a biological process to protect itself, which forms the pearl. I did not pick an oyster.