Back from the beach now and want to comment about the rest of Myrtle Beach since not every activity occurs on the beach.

The streets from beach front to highway are a warren of beach houses, most for rent. Brightly painted they sit on stilts with automobiles and golf carts parked underneath. Building on pilings is a zoning law now since the last major hurricane swept through the area properties destroying most everything built on the ground.

Inland the land is crammed with restaurants and souvenir shops. Pawn shops are built close to liquor stores; pancake houses nestle up to seafood buffets for miles and miles. One evening we ventured into one of the souvenir shops. This two story building resembles a mid-eastern potentate palace, if you are looking up. Looking at eye level you see the forty foot shark into which one must walk to get to the front door of the business. Inside is an acre of merchandise; a cell phone becomes necessary to reconnect with the parties you came in with. Among the usual array of products one can purchase a beach towel and T-shirt for three dollars, little wooden outhouses, fossilized shark teeth on a necklace or earrings, seven foot blow-up gorilla, pink yard flamingos (these almost tempted me), every sea creature in every size and every color, most sprinkled with glitter and painted with colors not seen in nature. Every product bears the name of Myrtle Beach (it is easily scrapped off with a fingernail).

Finding a library, a fire station, courthouse or other public building so visible in most towns, is difficult here. Surprisingly enough, one can find a United Methodist Church every few miles and a smattering of Baptist and Presbyterian.

At Myrtle Beach one can gamble and fish, swim and party, read and gallop along the beach on a horse. Murrell's Inlet boasts a seafood buffet every 500 yards - that's 250 yards of parking spaces for each. Twenty ways to prepare shrimp or 21, if you don't mind that they arrived from the Gulf.

Miniature golfing, regular big-people golfing and Par Three golfing, all abound. Hit your way through a sand trap or a windmill.

Creative names entice the hungry: Dirty Dan's, Senor Frogs, Crabby Mike's.

Free sand dollars or star fish, free desserts and appetizers, free drawstring bag and nachos, free stuff for the taking. Sizes on $3 Tee-shirts run from 6 months to XXXXXXL. Something for everyone. The Gay Dolphin has been the cornerstone of the beach shopping experience at MB for decades. Little can be said about The Gay Dolphin because words escape one but suffice it to say that if you can't find it anywhere else, it will be in one of the nooks or crannies at the Dolphin.

In a nutshell that's Myrtle Beach, in case you wanted to go but wanted to read beyond the hype I've added my own hype. And that's what I think about it (And I can hardly wait to return).