So our trip to Myrtle Beach was totally on a whim, Maggie asked if I wanted to go and I said sure.  We decided to drive, the Toyota Prius is great on gas so why not right & we went down knowing the weather was going to suck, the forecast said rain was coming and it looked like it rained on the entire East coast of North America.  The drive was ~14-15 hours, I probably could have done it on one go but decided to split both going and coming into two days so I could reset.

While on the road, Maggie shot a bunch of pictures with the Canon SL2 and while most didn’t turn out too well a few did.  We also noticed that gas is about 40-50% cheaper than in Canada, that and Americans really love to drive trucks & SUVs!  We made it a game on some parts of the drive to count the number of cars vs the larger vehicles and I’m not exaggerating when I say there’s probably 6-7 SUVs/trucks for every car we saw.  Makes me wonder what is going to happen to all these large vehicles when gas prices go up because well you know there’s a finite supply of fossil fuels.

The interstate is super boring but the side roads & local highways are a lot of fun, we drove through so many small towns and some parts of rural America really looks like a post apocalyptic world with run down homes, buildings & vehicles.

We stayed at the Monterey Bay hotel in Myrtle Beach and while the building was old the unit itself was not bad.  We had a view the ocean and even had a small kitchen to use if we wanted to cook something.  Before continuing with the story let me post some pictures that Maggie & Brandon took first.

Oh before we hit up the hotel, we did visit the Angel Oak tree a bit farther south and man it’s amazing and a bit spooky, if there were such thing as a monster tree, that’d be it!  It was really foggy during the nights & mornings so it was fun to walk around the beach at that time.  We did some shopping at some of the local malls, went to Wonder Works (like the science center but more fun), an alligator zoo and finally did some go karting.

Here are some of the pics that I snapped.

The one picture where Maggie & Brandon stood by the ocean was taken from our room with my 70-200 & the Canon 2x extender.  I didn’t do too many artsy photos as I was busy having a good time with the family but I did try to snap a few. I liked the pictures of the gulls and of the spoke on the Ferris wheel.  Probably enjoyed the go karting the most and I’m so happy that Brandon could drive one, none of the tracks around Toronto will allow someone his age to drive alone unfortunately.  He was also clearly faster than the other boy but wasn’t allowed to pass unfortunately.

We spent a total of 2 1/2 days in Myrtle Beach, came home early as heavy rain was forecasted for the day we had left so Maggie and I decided to come home instead.  It was a good plan as it allowed us to unwind today in preparation for work tomorrow but all in all we had a wonderful time.  Both the wife and I enjoyed the drive and Brandon didn’t seem to mind which was great.

LOL last picture shows that over 3,600km, I averaged 4.6 l / 100 km (51 mpg) and when I totaled up the fuel costs, it was less than $100 US.  The Toyota Prius ain’t a sexy or fast car but it’s the perfect car for a road trip and I can’t wait for the next one.