Huntington Beach State Park

Donna and I visited Huntington Beach State Park while we were in the area to visit Brookgreen Gardens back in December, but due to time constraints it was a brief visit, so we returned to the area and enjoyed a more leisurely visit this time.

We left Columbia a little after noon on Friday the 14th. We had a late lunch at The Drive-In, a 50's style diner in Florence, where we had a pair of awesome BLTs, fries, and salads. We made it to the Myrtle Beach area around 5:00 and stopped at the outlet mall just outside of town, where we browsed until around 8:00. We left with a few small items and a bit of clothing and headed over to Ruby Tuesday for a light dinner of quiche/chicken pot pie and salad and then headed to our hotel in Surfside Beach.

Saturday morning we started off with a hearty breakfast at Denny's right across the street from the hotel, and we then headed over to the park for the day. This was the summer home of Anna and Archer Huntington, a sculptor and author/philanthropist, respectively, in the early to mid 1900's.

We saw lots of wildlife, including herons, gulls, and about half a dozen alligators!






The house reminds me a bit of a castle, with lots of hidden nooks and crannies.




After exploring the house and grounds for a while we wandered down to the beach and walked up and down it a ways.




After driving through Myrtle Beach proper and all its touristy stuff and throngs of people, we had dinner at a good Mexican restaurant called Fiesta del burro Loco (celebration of the crazy donkey) before heading home.

Great trip! The state park is a really nice place to visit, as is Brookgreen Gardens right across the street.