April 17, 2015.  This morning, fortified with scrambled farm-fresh eggs, bacon, biscuits, muscadine preserves, a good night’s sleep and (most important) a trail map of Hunting Island, I see now that I have cast undue aspersions on the trail map publisher. We were in fact on trails that were marked correctly with long-ass mileage and no boardwalk — that was just Brad’s way of encouraging me to hike to the lighthouse.   One more note before we leave this topic — all of the Vietnam scenes in Forrest Gump were filmed at Hunting Island.  Now you see why I didn’t just love hiking through the lagoon.  Nevertheless, as we survived with nothing more dire than ruined cute shoes, all is forgiven.

Today was really great.  We scooted up SC Hwy 17, through Beaufort (very charming), Charleston (crossing an extremely cool bridge the top of which was veiled in clouds; a life-changing scene I was unable to capture because the camera was packed away under a pile of stuff), Georgetown (where I closed my first corporate acquisition in 1982 and got so excited about it that, on my way to the airport in Charleston, I took a detour to Pawley’s island and jumped in the ocean in my good silk dress — a bad idea in retrospect, as I still had to fly home on a commercial jet),  Litchfield Beach (where my sister’s sister-and-brother-in-law live, but we were in a terrible hurry) and finally to Huntington Beach (where we are now). The reason we were on a mission to get here by 2 pm is that I discovered on wikipedia somewhere between Beaufort and Charleston that Huntington Beach State Park was originally the property of Archer M. Huntington (an industrialist from the gilded age) and his wife Anna Hyatt Huntington (an accomplished sculptress with a photographic memory that enabled her to stare briefly but intently at wild or domesticated animals and run home and sculpt them as expertly as a taxidermist).  So why the hurry?  The once-a-day tour of their eccentric house, Atalaya, begins at 2 pm.  Having missed the lighthouse tour by five minutes, I was in no mood to miss this.   I even suggested that Brad not stop for a call of nature, but in his defense he was able to complete the stop in less than 60 seconds — that’s what so great about hauling around your own powder room!  I called ahead and got explicit directions about where to go to buy tickets and how to get there from the entrance gate.  I jumped out of the still moving truck at 1:59:59 and sprinted with Brad’s 40 lb. camera to the ticket kiosk and got in!   It was well worth it.  It was like a combination of Dungeness (the burnt ruins of the Thomas Carnegie family pleasure dome on Cumberland Island), Sissinghurst Castle (the Kentish love nest of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West) and Sing Sing Prison (as I imagine it).  Thirty fireplaces!  Bare brick walls and floors throughout!  Barred windows!  A central 38-foot water tower!  A dedicated oyster shucking room!

Meanwhile, back at the campground, Brad and Doris were setting up the Airstream and tuning in the satellites so we can watch the Braves tonight.  They are losing 2 to 1 to  Toronto in the third.  There is still hope.  We are eating good-luck black beans and rice with a nice chateauneuf du pape from the gift shop.