Beach walking

WOW, is about all we can say! It’s fun to have no expectations when we arrive at a State Park, so far, we’ve never been disappointed! We had read a few blogs about this park, so we did have high expectations and we weren’t disappointed. The only disappointing thing is that we could only get reservations for four days since we didn’t really plan ahead.

We were warned by other’s we’ve met in other State Park Campgrounds. This is more like a “resort” over a state park. It is an RV resort on prime beach front real estate with one of the most beautiful and unspoiled beaches in the US. Here is our official park review on Campendium.

As we wrote in the other two State Park blogs, Florida Caverns and Falling Waters, we do love to hike. But we know when we are at a beach, we are happy for long beach walks. And that is what we have in this state park. It’s easier to just quote from the Florida State Park website about the beach and RV resort: “Topsail Hill offers a wide variety of natural resources including 3.2 miles of secluded, white sand beaches with majestic dunes over 25 feet tall. Three rare coastal dune lakes provide excellent freshwater fishing. Although boats are not allowed, fishing from the shoreline yields bass, bream, panfish, and catfish. Lakes, pristine beaches, old-growth long leaf pines, sand pine scrub, and a variety of wetlands offer a bird-watching and hiking paradise. Visitors may bike, walk, or enjoy a quick ride to the beach on our timely tram service to swim, fish, sunbath, or beachcomb. Gregory E. Moore RV Resort features a (non-heated) swimming pool and shuffleboard courts. Furnished bungalows are available for weekly stays. A camp store offers a variety of camping items, as well as souvenirs and rentals.”

There are 140 RV/trailer sites. From what we could see, they are all on concrete pads. But our pad suffered a lot of damage and was severely cracked and pieces were raised up. The road to our site was also damaged and needs a face lift. But since it is a “state park” we can’t be too hard on it. But some sites are definitely better than others! There are 29 cabins and 20 tent sites. We didn’t see those areas, so we can’t comment.

There are many nature trails. The walk to the beach is a bit long, but since we love long walks, it was fine by us. But if walking is not your thing, they do have a tram to ride to the beach. Once at the beach, there is still a bit of a walk on a board walk over the sand dunes. Once on the beach, you will be in awe of God’s creation! It was just fabulous and we didn’t get enough beach walking time. This resort’s peak season is year around. I just wonder what it is like in the summer. In the winter, it was a bit chilly, so everyone on the beach was bundled up and no one was in the water.

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We joined RVillage, a social media site to locate like-minded travelers. We made some new friends using it and love how everyone wants to share their knowledge about this lifestyle! We are now going to explore the Entegra Class A.

More about the nature hikes in our next blog about this fabulous park!

We weren’t sure about camping in Myrtle Beach, but Bill selected it because we could camp on the beach! We had vacationed there in 2000, taking our daughter and two of her friends. We rented a condo on the beach and to put it kindly, we weren’t impressed! Maybe because we had three wild and crazy high school graduates!
But after this stay, I can tell you that we ended up falling in love with it! Because we were right on the beach and we do love the beach. We discovered this is the best beach to walk on that we’ve seen in all of our years of visiting beaches. Bill’s parents told us it was their favorite beach as well-and for that very reason.

This is a picture of the walk way from our campsite to the beach. We were able to walk on it twice a day, except one night when it did get too cold and windy.

We really liked the campground, but the sites were a bit too close and was more expensive than we would have preferred! BUT, we were right on the beach.

We had brought own prepared dinner, baked ziti, but ran out the last night. So we had to decide what to buy for dinner. And this is why we decided we didn’t like Myrtle Beach the first time, we weren’t impressed with the restaurants. So we decided just to get a pizza since we had lots of fresh salad. Can you believe we couldn’t get a decent pizza? So we have to make sure we plan our home made meals better next time!

We were more or less under time constraints to get to our daughters to take care of our new grandson. Plus we were really just learning how to camp and travel with our new RV. She had two months off and he was going into daycare. I thought it best to keep him out another month, so that was really what the push was for us to buy and RV! I needed a place to live for a month. Our daughter had converted the guest bedroom into the nursery.

We really didn’t do much and found out you can’t in three day and two nights. So other than checking out the campground, walking on the beach, and finding no decent pizza, we went to Camping World when it rained one of the two days we were there!

We decided we would return and come for a longer time next time. But we decided we would try the other large campground next time, for comparison purposes.

We are continuing to praise and thank God for His many blessings! In spite of the not so great weather for a beach visit, we had a great time! We continue to “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (ESV)