If there’s one thing Burl and I have learned in life, it’s to always have a Plan B. This trip has been a shining example of why and we are now on Plan HH – Heading Home!
We started our day with a visit to Myrtle Beach and before 9:00 we were walking on the beach and dipping our toes in the Atlantic Ocean. 
Since our stop was brief we didn’t change into swimsuits but did take off our shoes and wade out a bit and feel the ocean and sand on our feet.
We headed south on the coastal highway and the temperature quickly climbed. By time we rolled into Charleston before noon and stopped for lunch I felt close to heat exhaustion. The temp was 100 degrees and I was melting fast.
Burl took one look at me, got me into a restaurant and made sure I had some cold water and said those three little words I longed to hear – “we’re heading home.” Actually he just happened to say them first but I had already decided we needed to abort the trip. We both were quite uncomfortable and knew it wasn’t going to get cooler as we went south and across the gulf.
The lunch break, water and food revived me and we decided to turn around right there and ditch any idea of touring Charleston and Savannah – we’ll save those for another time when it’s cooler.
We left Charleston about 1:30 knowing we had 270 miles to get to Asheville and figured that was doable with frequent water breaks – ETA in Asheville was about 6:00. How wrong we were! We encountered two major traffic stalls on I-29 both of which resulted in 30+ minute delays. One was from a wreck and the other – who knows?
Then just when we thought we were going to get some cloud cover to lower the temps, the rain came. We quickly pulled under an overpass and got out our rain gear – just about the time the rain became a deluge and the hail started pounding the pavement. Talk about a couple of drowned rats – that was us! But the temps dropped by 20 degrees and for that we were thankful.
We’d already confirmed a hotel reservation in Asheville so as soon as the rain passed – about 20 minutes – we pressed onward, finally arriving about 8:00. But we were safe and thanking God for the many blessings of the day.
We’re now 770 miles from home which means we should be petting Mulligan by sometime Tuesday afternoon. And best of all, we get to see our grandson Devin while he’s still in Springfield.
Here’s hoping Plan HH works as predicted!
