“Heat, Gators, and Beautiful Beaches.”

In June 2010, me and the family took a trip to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina. The first matter of the trip was how to overcome the heat in our 1972 Mercedes 240D. Though not frigid, a spray bottle and rolling all the windows down met our need for cooler air (remember: evaporation causes cooling). If you hadn’t already picked up, we’re not rich so this vacation was on a budget. A “tent” budget to be exact.

The temperature was already up to 92F at 10a.m as we drove down the road leaving behind our home in the much cooler mountains of Western North Carolina. We were stumped as to how we were going to keep the tent cool. Keeping cool was really a matter of safety as our children were 2 and 4 and the temps were supposed to be in the mid 90s. To answer this call, I voted buy an air conditioner window unit and set it up outside the tent blowing in. My wife laughed out loud and replied how absurd the idea was. I replied “I saw it on the internet“, more chuckles.

We arrived at Huntington state Park in the late afternoon and found our tent site. The campground was very nice and had a good air about it. After the first 10 minutes of setting up our tent (in the shade) we were drenched in sweat. Afterwards, while cooling down over dinner, my wife let me buy the air conditioning unit. It cost $100. We went back to the tent and installed our ac unit.

We have a large family tent that has a full cover rain fly with a roomy vestibule. The vestibule was wrapped around the front end of the ac leaving the rear exposed outside. We decided to set the ac unit on a milk crate used in packing stuff. Now, we slept in the comfortable 70’s instead of the mid 90s.

After accomplishing a place to escape the heat the rest of the trip was very enjoyable. While at HB state Park there are a number of activities and places to put down on the to do list. First up for us was the beach! The beaches were very nice and lacked all the beach homes and motels/hotels. There was also a good bit estuary to be explored by kayak or canoe. All the gators resided in a couple of large freshwater ponds that were built in the early history of the park. There were also resident Six Lined Ridge Runners, various Egrets and Herrings. Unfortunately no horned lizards were observed.Historically the park was a summer home called “Atalaya” for Archer Huntington and Anna Hyatt. The physical building called Atalaya was interesting and there was a guided tour. Also education programs were provided at the nature center and exhibits featuring marine and estuarine habitats. My children enjoyed the live stingray in the nature center and other live animals.

 

Overall it was a very good beach trip, that as I type this, look back fondly at it. As for the ac unit it kept us cool and then we didn’t have room to take it home, so we returned it, which helped fund our way home. Huntington beach was a very beautiful, relaxing place to visit.