Waiting for the Last Gasp – Adam Overland

Huntington Beach

Last night in Murrells Inlet I went to a restaurant called Hot Fish Club, which, according to the menu biography, was founded in the 1700s. I pulled up a stool at the bar next to an older couple, early 70s, and the guy was pretty blitzed. He was drinking Crown on the rocks and had one eye half closed and was swaying a little and slurring his speech. His wife seemed perfectly fine and was sipping white wine. When he asked for the bill, she said “Oh no, we’re not done yet,” and sent it back. The guy shrugged and ordered another Crown and his wife had him get some caramel sea salt cheesecake. She took one small bite and he had the rest. She was very slim and he was overweight, and the whole situation led me to believe she was trying to kill him. 

I chatted him up and asked him about the local architecture. The newer, multi-level homes all have to have a ground floor that is a passthrough, so that when the next hurricane comes it doesn’t create flooding issues until level 2. Most use it as a garage or a patio. The really big, newer homes also have a small, usually mostly glass lookout area on top of the homes, which are called a widow’s watch. In the old days, a woman could watch from there for her sailor husband to (not) return from sea. 

I told the old guy I was camping nearby, traveling around the South in my camper, and he got a huge grin and said in his loud southern accent, “God, I envy you. I envy you. Just to go and do that, by yourself.” As he finished another Crown his swaying increased as though the seas were getting rougher. As his wife glanced over, I wondered if their home had a widow’s watch. 

Today I tried fishing, with no real luck. I went into a local bait shop, a tiny place with a rotting wooden floor that didn’t have much for lures or any other fishing supplies, and barely any bait. Three people sitting around looked surprised to see me when I walked in. They were watching breaking news, about a Chinese spy balloon that had just been shot down. 

Fishing wise, they said not much is biting from shore this time of year, but they sold me some shrimp as bait. Three times while reeling in, I had a fiddler crab on the line, but he was only holding on to the shrimp and each time let go as I started to bring it up out of the water. Fiddler crabs have one small claw and one huge arm/claw that they wave around like morons to attract mates. And somehow that works. When they fell off the hook it seemed like they were waving goodbye. I never did catch a fish, which is always how it goes for me and fishing.

Before I went to the bait shop I toured what is billed as the world’s largest sculpture garden, just a mile up the road. Who knew? When I got there everyone was looking up. I said to a group, “What are we looking at?” And they responded that it was the Chinese spy balloon. And sure enough it was right overhead. There were military jets flying around it. After half an hour I looked up for the balloon again and didn’t see it. They had shot it down just a few miles from here over the Atlantic. If the Chinese had been watching me, they may have noticed that I have been wearing the same pants for 9 consecutive days. Not only that, but I have 3 pairs of these exact same pants, and they’re made in China. Don’t get me wrong, I probably spend less than $300 per year on clothing, but when I really like a clothing item I will buy a backup. About a decade ago I bought some shoes I really liked, and when they wore out 2 years later I went to buy another pair and they didn’t make them anymore. 

At the sculpture garden was a huge aluminum statue of Don Quixote riding his horse Rocinante and holding a broken lance after having just battled a windmill. Nearby was another of Sancho Panza and his donkey. Rocinante is what John Steinbeck named his truck and camper in Travels with Charley. The sculptor was Anna Hyatt Huntington, for whom the state park I’m staying at is named after. She was a famous artist in the early 20th century and her husband was a poet and businessman, and they once owned all the land that is now the park. They also purchased 4 former plantations to create the sculpture gardens, Brookside Gardens. He wanted a place to display his wife’s work, but there are many other artists featured as well. At the campground is a house the Huntingtons built in the 1930s that they bill as a castle. It has over 30 rooms, and I’m sure it was once beautiful.

Today was sunny but cold—44 degrees. It’s 36 now at 10 p.m.—unseasonable. Tomorrow I drive another 125 miles farther south along the coast to Edisto Beach State Park, which the old couple at the bar said I was mispronouncing.