Farsighted Fly Girl

I love music and I love amusement parks. I've never seen these two loves come together quite as well as in the Freestyle Music Park. Formerly Hard Rock Amusement Park, it's 55 acres of music, roller coasters and fun. Myrtle Beach has a lot of amusement parks, from water parks, to a NASCAR playground but I enjoyed Freestyle the most, just because of the overall music theme. The rides, shows and park areas all reference some aspect of pop music. The Time Machine is Freestyle's signature roller coaster, with a 155 foot lift and six inversions and loops. I didn't get any where near this monster but my daughter rode it 3 consecutive times. The highlight is that the tracks have five separate audio tracks that you can choose while riding-60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. I found it difficult to believe that riders would remember what tunes were playing as they whooshed through stomach-churning loops but my daughter reported hearing the Supremes for the 60s track, Michael Jackson for...

So this is the thing. I have always been irritated by "Gulf and Western" singer Jimmy Buffett's broad stereotypes of the Caribbean. Palm trees and well-placed "yeah mon's" do not a culture make. Even though his music is acknowledged for its island escapism theme, the cheesy tropical rhythms and overly languid delivery just gets on my nerves. So it goes without saying that I never considered stepping foot in Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurants. But there it was, the first item on my Myrtle Beach itinerary. It seems that Margaritaville is the anchor for the bustling Broadway on the Beach shopping district. And since the focus of my trip was family-friendly activities, Margaritaville apparently topped the list. Here's the other thing. I love kitsch. Silly, tongue-in-cheek decor, childish and whimsical knick knacks, always make me smile. So when I was greeted by the swirling hurricane above (I thought it was a giant margarita since it was next to a...

I never knew that Myrtle Beach had more than endless beaches but apparently there are museums, zoos and theaters to compete with all the sand. The photo above is from Brookgreen Gardens, home of the world's first and largest sculpture garden as well a depository of Lowcountry history. I'll be diving into this other side of South Carolina for the week so look for posts on my Myrtle Beach discoveries this weekend.