The almost camped in Charleston camping trip

 

November 2021

 

We had reservations for a week long stay at Huntington Beach State Park. It’s not far from home it’s so not an epic adventure but we like it there and we didn’t have anything planned for November.

 

Just prior to the trip we got an email notice that the Mavericks had rescheduled their thrice cancelled concert in Charleston. It was the night before our arrival date at Huntington Beach. We booked the tickets to the Mavericks, that was a given, we have been trying to see them perform for quite some time. There is a post about that here on the blog.

Raul Malo of the Mavericks

At first I thought of taking the RV to Charleston for the concert and then driving back to the state park the next day. Our campground of choice had no vacancy and we didn’t want to go to either of the other two in the area. It was kind of crazy idea anyhow; we can easily drive to Charleston and back.

 

The next issue that came up was the weather. Adverse rainy weather was predicted for the next several days. We figured if we were going to be stuck inside we might as well be home. Luckily I made the reservation in two parts and I was able to cancel the first four days and keep the remainder of the trip.

Site #6 at Huntington

 

Tuesday November 9^th we picked up the RV and drove the short distance down to Huntington Beach. The weather was perfect as we set up in site #6 and it remained nice for the next three days.

 

I achieved my primary goal of waxing the RV; I also was successful in cleaning the mold off of the awning fabric. We also walked over to the ocean each day. Huntington Beach state park has gotten noticeably busier the last few years but it is still a pleasant experience. The beach is the best in the area and never seems crowded even when the campground is full.

 

I gained more experience cooking on the griddle, not chef quality yet, but not bad if I do say so myself.

 

November 12 our reservation was over, on the way out we thoroughly drained and rinsed the tanks, towed the RV back to A and A Storage and covered it with our storage cover.

 

And so it ends, this was the last trip of 2021. I spend a lot of time at the RV working on several projects but we’re looking forward to 2022 and more traveling.

The One Day Tour #2

aka 

The Maverick's

November 4 2021

Myrtle Beach to Charleston SC. (90 miles+/-)

 A current favored band of Millie and I is the Mavericks. We’ve been hoping to see them perform live for a while now. We thought it would happen in 2019, then 2020 but china fever stopped those dates. It finally happened in November of 2021.

 

Like the twice cancelled Gene Watson concert, we had planned the Mavericks concert in conjunction with a road trip. In both cases we ended up driving to the concert and then home again the same day.

 

First the Mavericks, the best band you probably have never heard of, who are they?

 

The Mavericks is a genre-defying American band with a musical style that has been described as an eclectic mix of neo traditional country, Tex-Mex, Latin and rockabilly.

 

They’ve been around or more correctly they have journeyed since 1989 in a state of flux. They have more X members listed on Wikipedia than current ones. Only two have been with the band since the beginning in 1989, band leader Raul Malo and drummer Paul Deakin. If the bands story was written as a play it would be a melodrama.

 

Despite all the ebbs and flows of the bands success they still have a loyal fan base who embraces the group’s eclecticism. The fans, like the bands musical style cannot be pigeon holed into one group. The concert we attended had fans between the ages of say 35 and 80+. For the most part they looked well healed, but we were in the Charleston Music Hall in the downtown high rent district. High brow or not when the music started they were dancing in the aisles, or some reasonable facsimile of dance. As they were predominately white people, a lot of them were challenged in the rhythm department. By the end of the show, most everyone was standing and as spirited as the bands upbeat tempo.

 

Millie and I, no we stayed seated all the way up to the song they end every concert with, “All you ever do is bring me down.” We were seated high in the back of the theater so we could see over all the gyrating down in front and didn’t feel out of place by staying in our seats. I might add, during all this alcohol fueled teen like behavior of the crowd I couldn’t help but feel relieved that I gave up my fourth row seats when the show was rescheduled last year. I would have been pissed if we were in those high dollar seats and couldn’t see past the mob. If we ever go to another, I will pick balcony seats, well above the fray.

 

Don’t take that last paragraph in a negative light, it was a high energy performance by a fantastic band and an enthusiastic audience, we enjoyed it immensely and were thrilled that we finally got to see them perform in person.

I feel like another of our important bucket list items has been checked off; Stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon…..check, drove the Highway to the Sun in Glacier National Park….check, saw the Mavericks perform live…..check!

 

 

 

Just the facts: two hour drive from Myrtle Beach to Charleston. Stopped for dinner on the way at TGI Friday’s in Mount Pleasant.  The ride home from 10 to midnight was the smoothest trip yet in this area, light traffic and all green signals thru Mount Pleasant and an empty road most of the way to Myrtle Beach. Our tickets with taxes and ticketmaster fees were just under $100 each. The fourth row tickets I had purchased but got refunded when the show didn’t go on……you don’t want to know!

 

 

 

The One Day Tour

aka

Gene Watson Concert

September 5, 2021

Myrtle Beach to Newberry SC (200 miles +/-)

Gene Watson…..Finally!

 

One of the unsung great performers of country music is Gene Watson. Only recently invited to become a member of The Grand Old Opry, for a long time he never got the respect he deserves in the industry. I don’t think he ever kissed up to the Nashville establishment. Every year he tours in an old bus, sings traditional country for his fans and then goes home to his garage in Texas to work on hot rod cars.

Millie and I have been fans of his for quite a while and we always held out hope that our traveling path would have a confluence with his touring schedule somewhere along the road.

 

And so it was in the summer of 2020 that he was to appear at the Newberry Opera House which is about two hundred miles from our home in Myrtle Beach. It’s over in the center of the state about forty miles west of Columbia, our state capital. No problem we thought, we’ll make it part of a road trip. This is how the Georgia and South Carolina High Points tour was conceived.

Unfortunately, the china virus happened and the concert was postponed until January 2021. Thinking we would not want to take the RV in the winter we started looking into hotels in the area. Early in December the venue emailed me again, this time the concert was cancelled. I was issued a credit to be used at a future date.

 

In July I received another email from Newberry, Gene Watson had been rescheduled and were we still interested? I called them right away and scored seats in the third row. Once again we started making travel plans for travel to Newberry. The show was finally going to happen on September 5^th.

This time we held off on travel commitments and in the end we decided to drive to the show and back home afterwards, just in case it was cancelled again. It was a four in the afternoon show so we would not be driving late at night.

 

Interior of the Newberry Opera House

The Newberry Opera House is old, but appeared to be well preserved. The theater is on the 2^nd floor, I think the first originally held the town offices. There was only one stairwell for the audience and one small elevator. I know there must be a stairwell for the performers behind the stage and I decide that will be our emergency exit, should the need arise. I think like that every time I’m with a crowd in a confined space, it’s just what I do. I’m not paranoid, just prepared.

 

The crowd was seated without any social distancing, that was ok with me I’ve had the Krippin vaccine! lol (movie: I am Legend) Actually the audience was 100% senior citizens and I’m sure they were all vaccinated.

Lifted from the net, not Newberry

 

Gene Watson and his band came out promptly at 4pm and played without any intermission for 90 minutes. He played all his hits and interjected short stories about each song between them.

 

Gene and the band

Mr Watson is 76, but his voice is still bracing, clear and emotional, just like it was when his songs were hits in the 70’s and 80’s.

The stage from our seats. I'm blaming the poor photography on LED stage lighting!

 

Our seats were great watching the show, but not for photography, we were below the stage and the lighting was such that I couldn’t get any good pictures. Most of the pictures here are lifted from his website; I don’t think he will mind.

 

We enjoyed the concert thoroughly. On the way home we drove to the east side of Columbia and stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant. The journey home was pleasant in light traffic once we passed the Columbia area.

 

Was Gene Watson bucket list worthy……..What the heck, why not………….CHECK!