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| Stamp #1 |
Since I live just 35 miles from Myrtle Beach State Park, I have visited this park many times. My family has had cook-outs there under the large oak trees more than 25 years ago. We've watched fishermen reel in a fresh catch from the ocean pier many times. We've sat in the over-sized wooden beach chair on the pier and posed for touristy pictures. But, our favorite thing to do at the park, by far, is to relax on the beach in the warm ocean breeze under the bright sunshine on a hot summer day. In all those years of visiting Myrtle Beach State Park, I never knew about the Ultimate Outsider program and about collecting park stamps. Being a "local," I could have more than three dozen stamps from all of our many visits to this park.
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| Sand castles on the beach! |
Now that I am informed, I've set out to make 2018 the year I become an Ultimate Outsider. Myrtle Beach State Park was my first park stamp! I "got stamped" on March 3, 2018 when my friend Cindy convinced me to participate in the Myrtle Beach State Park Amazing Race Challenge. This event is held on the first Saturday of March each year and is modeled after the TV Show, Amazing Race. The state park rangers choose a theme each year for the challenges. This year's theme is "sea turtles". There were 19 challenges that each team of two (26 this year) raced to complete. The top 3 teams with the quickest time received 1st, 2nd, 3rd place awards respectively. Each participant received a turtle-shaped medal as well.
The challenges were not too difficult, but each challenge required much reading and running from location to location in order to complete each challenge. Racers were sent from the beach, back to the camping area, to the Nature Center, and back to the beach over and over. Challenges included digging for turtle eggs (ping pong balls), drawing a sea turtle in the sand, creating a proper sea turtle nest, identifying specific sea turtle skulls, identifying specific sea turtle shells, identifying sea turtle facts, completing sea turtle quizzes, etc. and collecting cigarette butts littered on the ground by park visitors. This bag of butts can be turned into the park ranger for minutes shaved off our final time. Collecting the butts was the most disgusting part since we did not have gloves to shield our hands from the germs! Cindy and I worked like scavengers to collect those butts. We knew we needed several minutes shaved off our final time. This was our first time competing in an event like this. We needed any and all help along the way! But as we were checking in for our final finish time, Cindy could not find the little zip-lock bag with all of our collected cigarette butts! She checked every coat and pants pocket three times. I was ready to disown her, as I have a particular dislike for cigarettes and germs! To our great fortune, a team who was checking in next to us turned in to the ranger a cigarette butt bag for team #28 (our team number!) who dropped it at the last challenge! Their kindness saved Cindy's life! :)
We finished with a time of 3:20. We were exhausted, mostly from the back and forth running to each challenge. Would we do it again? Sure! Now that we know what to expect, we should be able to improve our finish time next year!
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| We got our Amazing Race Turtle medals! |
Rating: ****
Entrance fee: $5 per person
Restrooms: clean
Parking: plentiful
Rangers: friendly & helpful
Trails: Short boardwalk borders beach, miles of beaches, nature trail
Amenities: camping, picnic shelters, cabins, ocean views, clean beach, pier fishing (no cost to walk on pier), gift shop, ice cream in pier shop, equestrian riding allowed in winter, & Nature Center
Park Stamp: See a volunteer in the park office located on the right just past the ticket gate
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