Urgent Care, Whales, Brookgreen Gardens - Yr 1, Day 177

Myrtle Beach, SC

We started off the day by going to an urgent care facility.  Mitch had a minor medical issue he wanted to have looked into.  Fortunately, they couldn't find anything, so we'll just keep an eye out.

On the way back, I wanted to stop into a beach store to see if I could find a bathing suit.  I should have gotten more photos as this place was huge and awesome.  It was more like a museum than a store!!  Here is what you see when you first walk in.  The balcony extends all the way around the entire store with the same general theme and the store is like supermarket sized.

The entrance of Whales

Mitch in front of a REAL old Ford in the store!

There's also a photo of me next to the other Ford that was in the store, but that's on Mitch's camera and I'm waiting for him to send it to me.  Hopefully in my next post.

And no, I wasn't able to find an adequate bathing suit yet.

The real highlight was our trip to Brookgreen Gardens, which is a magnificent botanical and sculpture garden (brookgreen.org).  They run a special event called Night of a Thousand Candles.  Words really can't describe the experience which was breathtakingly awesome and totally magical.  Even photos don't do it justice.  Here's a video from their 2012 event and lots of photos we took, but it doesn't nearly capture being there live.  As a reference:

- The event runs Thurs/Fri/Sat for 3 weekends in December.  Number of candles used in 9 days: 54,000 votives, 1500 pillars and 4500 teas.
- Number of lights:  500,000 mini lights & 350,000 LED lights
- Christmas tree has 60,000 lights
- Number of candles lit each night - 5,000+
- Number of candles floating in pools - 500+

They also had a lot of live entertainment, including a wandering bagpipe player, a bells ensemble, a rock/pop band and pop choral ensemble.

The grounds, especially the trees are spectacular.  I'm sure there's so much we couldn't see in the dark and I'm hoping we'll have a chance to go back and experience this magnificent place during the day.  Anyway, here are the pictures and video:

The tree reflecting in the lake.

Floating candles in the water

I have a few more photos that Mitch took but they're on his camera so I need to wait for him to have a chance to upload them.  Hopefully by the next post.