IOP

In the tide pools

When we travel with a 10 year old our itinerary gets adjusted. Damian is a good travel companion. He can easily amuse himself in the back seat with a book, hand held video game system and a kindle. This trip he was provided with a few surprises. I found a cache of Eric’s vintage Marvel comic books in the basement and our BFF Becky gave him a kit to create some badass paper airplanes. Because he is such a non-complainer we try and seek out things of interest to him. (That and we feel guilty that the kid has to hang around with us old folk all the time.) Fortunately, he and I do share some similar interests so it’s not all painful. There is one place that we both love equally. We have yet to meet a beach we didn’t like. Don’t get me wrong, we like some better than others but we can usually find a few redeeming qualities of any beach.

Our original plan was to head to Myrtle Beach on our way back to North Carolina. Plans had to be reviewed when we heard of the unacceptably high bacterial levels in the water there. The news said North Myrtle was OK but I didn’t want to take any chances. I would have preferred to travel down to Hilton Head which is one of my favorite beaches but none of us were excited to make that drive particularly while we were headquartered in Columbia. I had been given a great tip about the Sea Turtle Hospital by my charge nurse, Stacy. This is the same Stacy that introduced us to the Dip Dog so her credentials as a reliable source of travel info are impeccable. She suggested we visit Isle of Palms, a barrier island just outside of Charleston.

The temperature was expected to reach the upper 70s but breezes did prevail. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Google Maps was telling us to take the IOP Conn (which I later discovered was the Isle of Palms connector) and we spanned the picturesque causeways and bridges. We arrived at the IOP State Park. This is a very nicely maintained facility complete with changing rooms, rest rooms, outdoor showers, picnic facilities, playground and concessions. The beach was pretty empty when we arrived and staked out our spot. As the day progressed several school groups would come and go and I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to be able to field trip to the beach for a few hours.

Love me some empty beach!

Technology is a great tool. On a river in the middle of China you can send a photo you just took to your kids. On a beach in South Carolina you can post a photo on Facebook and friends who live local will shout out to you. I took advantage of this opportunity to solicit suggestions for a local place to dine that would provide us with some low country cookin’ This prompted an exchange between myself and two former co-workers (actually one former who relocated to Summerville and one with one foot out the door whose sister lived on IOP) We would be set for dinner plans now that we had the local hook up.

Does this beach make me look fat?

Very few ventured into the surf as the water was cold but that didn’t stop Damian from a few attempts at body surfing before he turned blue and relegated himself to the tide pools. A long walk down the beach to collect shells left us with so many we had to cull the lot and select only the finest to bring home. Then I settled onto my blanket to enjoy my favorite beach activity. Doing nothing.
Don gets his fill of the beach after about 2 hours. I take about 2 weeks. He just doesn’t get how I can sit there hours on end and just look out on the water. He suggested that maybe we should take a trip to see the aircraft carrier housed in Mount Pleasant. When I stopped laughing that motion got vetoed.

Shell seekers

Eventually, I acquiesced and we decided to pack it up and take a drive around the island to explore before getting some dinner.

The marina.

Beach bungalow.

We determine that the place ain’t half bad. In fact, even Don likes it. We meander through the side streets while I explore the local architecture. By this time Don has worked up an appetite so we head off in search of the local favorite: Page’s Okra Grill.
We pulled into the parking lot and from our first glimpse it was apparent that this was definitely a local hang out. The dinner rush would pretty much follow our immediate seating as we looked out at the patio area to see it quickly fill up.

Page’s Okra Grill

Our server, Angela, was friendly and gave us the low down on just how local the place was while we stuffed our faces with the likes of fried green tomatoes, pimento cheese, a really tasty and unique spring roll stuffed with pork bbq (sounds bad tastes delicious), seafood, bacon cheeseburger (Damian) and a really fresh fruit and chicken salad. Angela told us that soon many of the locals would retreat because the tourist season was starting only to return in the fall. There were lots of elderly folks mixed in with the young professionals as the prices were very reasonable and the food fresh, plentiful and tasty. We left there totally satisfied having our fill of sun, surf and southern food.

Namaste

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