Family Kingdom, SC

Total Timber Tour 2 Blog Day 8

Howdy all again, or should that be g’day. Hope you’ve had as good a week as we have.

Last night Ian had his first steak of the trip. This morning we had our first ever transatlantic video call to our parents to catch up. It was great to see them and the satellite delay didn’t cause too many issues. issues. issues.

As we said yesterday, this is also where the road trip from East to West officially begins, but not before trading in our rental car with oil issues for a near-new replacement in black. Yes, an ideal colour for reflecting the soaring 95 degree sunshine while we’re enjoying the parks!

So a trip to the seaside to dip our feet in the Atlantic Ocean and start the repeat of the 2008 conquest of driving from “coast to coast” (coaster 2 coaster).

We chose Myrtle Beach originally because of a new park that opened a couple of years ago that was on our “must visit” list. Not because of any one particular ride, but it looked as if it would be an amazing park. It was called and themed around “Hard Rock”, as in the cafe chain. All the rides were themed around the music business. Unfortunately it didn’t attract visitors and got into financial problems. Hard Rock pulled the franchise and, after some debt re-management was reopened as “Freestyle Music Park”. Losing the branding didn’t attract the visitors and it closed its doors for good last autumn. It now seems as though the whole surrounding area is also in trouble with all the shopping plaza’s boarded up.

This was after the route had been sketched out, so we decided to keep a visit to Myrtle Beach on the itinerary and pay another visit to Family Kingdom. We were last here 6 years ago and it’s great to report they are looking after Swamp Fox very well, looking splendid in its shiny paint job.

So we’re heading west as from today. Of course, this won’t be in a straight line – that would be too easy!

Until tomorrow....

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