We spent the last five days in Myrtle Beach on a well-deserved vacation. Our activities consisted largely of swimming, golfing and eating. Yeah, mostly eating. Margaritaville, seafood, Dick's Last Resort, Maggie Moo's, Wild Wing Cafe, more seafood... I love seafood, but right now if I see another shrimp I think I'll hurl. (Strangely, I had sushi for supper when we got home tonight, but that didn't bother me.) We went to Ripley's Aquarium and saw sharks, stingrays, an enormous octopus (much bigger than the one at the NC Aquarium), Nemo & Dory, sea dragons, jellyfish, etc. Grover got to pet a stingray, but Ollie couldn't quite reach in far enough and they didn't come as close to the surface as they have in past visits. I think they had just been fed so they didn't see the need to play nice with the visitors. We bought her a stuffed one from the gift shop and she was perfectly happy with that. We also went to Alligator Adventure which my brother has been trying to talk me into going to for years. I always thought "alligators, big whoop, we can see those at the zoo for free" (we're members of the NC Zoo Society so zoo admission is free for us). I finally broke down and went and when I say they had hundreds of alligators, I might be underestimating quite a bit. There were alligators everywhere. There were alligators on top of alligators... literally. No, it's not what you think - they lie like that to keep warm - but the giant tortoises... yeah, they were getting it on. That was something I just didn't need to see. I heard one kid ask his mom what they were doing and she answered "They're fighting. Oh look, otters!" Unfortunately, the otter exhibit is under construction leaving the otters with very little to play with but each other if you know what I mean. That poor mother. I had to laugh, though, because typically that would be me trying to explain something like that to Grover and/or Ollie. I did manage to get some really good pictures (with my POS digital camera) of the alligators in the main lagoon at feeding time. Here's one:


It was very cool. Like, awesomely cool. I highly recommend you visit if you go to Myrtle Beach.

We also saw some local wildlife on the golf course. Perhaps someone out there can ID this critter:


Sorry the picture isn't very good. I had to walk across the fairway of the hole next to the one my husband was playing (I opted out of that hole because I was obsessed with getting a picture of this rodent) and I didn't want to get hit by a golf ball - I've been to the ER in Myrtle Beach and let me just say... nightmare with a capital N! Anyway, the animal looked like a squirrel but it was much bigger than even the monsters that play in my backyard, eat my bird seed and torture my idiot dogs. Its head was all black except for its pink ears and it hopped almost like a rabbit. It was fascinating. And now that I think about it, it looked a lot like the lemurs we saw at Alligator Adventure. Wonder if they're missing any...

Even more fascinating was this gelatinous blob we found on the beach this morning.



Clearly, it had been alive at some point because there were quite a few flies on it when I walked up to it. I don't think it was a jellyfish because a) it was too hard (of course I had to nudge it with my shoe to investigate) and 2) it was not just a shapeless ball of goo. It had a weird shape almost like four arms albeit very short ones. Unfortunately, I have had up close and personal experience with jellyfish on more than one occasion and IMO this was no jellyfish. It looked more like a squid or an octopus, except as you can see it's mostly clear. My husband offered up the theory that it was an alien and Ollie said it was a whale booger. So you be the judge - mutant octopus, alien life form or whale snot? Leave a comment with your vote.