Christmas at the Beach
Though I was finally living back in the Carolinas, instead of spending Christmas Day with any of my family, I took a vacation for the whole Christmas Weekend! My friend Jack (who used to live down from us on Norland Rd when I was a kid) has been going on vacation to Myrtle Beach for Christmas for nearly two decades. Jack invited me to spend the weekend at the beach with him, and after not having seen the beach in over 25 years, I said yes.
	We stayed at the Breakers Paradise Towers right on the coast
The Breakers owns 6 buildings on the shore and a parking deck across the street.
	MouseOver Special to see the building we stayed in
Jack rented a fabulous 21st floor penthouse suite. With 3 bedrooms with double beds, a living room, kitchen and balcony, the two of us had a lot of room to spread out.
kitchen	living room
	The three bedrooms themselves were nearly the size of a regular 2 bed suite, without the bathroom. The master bedroom had it's own bathroom while the other two rooms share a large bath located conveniently by the bedroom doors. Each room had it's own alarm clock, and large flat screen television.
We left out before the sun rose on Christmas morning and were unpacking in our suite by 11am. Unfortunately, it rained off and on during our drive down and continued in that pattern throughout most of Christmas Day.
	Through parts of the storm, little could be seen passed a few blocks, while in lighter parts we could see out into Myrtle Beach city some and out across the ocean. When the rain began to slack off a bit more, it was still hard to see far into the distance as there was a lot of fog.
the view below our balcony
During a break in the blowing rain, Jack and I got out onto the balcony and decorated it with Christmas lights, giving our suite the perfect festive holiday feeling.
Thankfully the rain finally began to peter out and just before sunshine, we could see breaks in the clouds and the pounding of the surf began to quiet down.
The next morning saw the weather better, though still not perfect. The surf was much calmer and patches of sunshine peeked through the clouds during most of the morning.
As the last of the morning fog and hazy clouds began to pull away, we could see much farther out into the distance as the water curved away in the horizon. We were even treated to "sun dogs" as the last of those hazy, icy clouds drifted away from in front of the sun.
The Breakers Paradise MouseOver to see our suite
	With the clouds gone during the afternoon, and the sun brilliantly shining, looking out from our suite, I could see far out into the distance
Viewing Myrtle Beach
Viewing the Atlantic Ocean
The View from the Balcony
I haven't tried a panorama picture in a long time. Scroll the picture above to see the image of the point at the end of Ocean Blvd in Cherry Grove used to create the 360 degree view below.
Click the picture to stop the motion. Drag left or right to restart and scroll.
Jack takes some pictures at Cherry Grove looking across the inlet to Waites Island
	To get a better idea of how things looked from our balcony, click the picture to view a movie
Pictures from our last day at the beach
MouseOver	MouseOver
MouseOver either of these two pictures to watch the birds flying below our room!
	One last look up the Grand Strand
If you MouseOver this picture, you'll see where we were lying out in the sun and were we took the next couple CloseUp pictures of ourselves.	MouseOver
	Hi Jack!
mikie aka leatherman aka the Muffin Man aka ComputerTutor	MouseOver
A last glimpse of the sun on the water before it sets for the night
MouseOver	MouseOver to see our balcony still decked out in Christmas lights for the last night of our Christmas weekend
As the sun was rising over the ocean the next morning,
we said goodbye to the beach, loaded up the car, and headed back to Charlotte