So I’ve now been in Hilton Head 10 days, and have finally begun to explore the island a little bit more. My pattern resembles that of shipwrecked seafarer marooned on a deserted island slowly making wider circles around his home base searching for things. Except my reason is mostly laziness.
The beginning of my week focused mostly on obtaining the necessities for the fridge, settling in, and just walking along or sitting on the beach. It’s only in the 50s and 60s, so not exactly sunbathing weather, but I did finish Gone Girl and read The Road (McCarthy) in like the first three days. I’ve also watched an embarrassing amount of Pretty Little Liars. It isn’t even a good show, but ugh.
This is where I’m staying. And there’s a whole extra side to this place that I’m not using (it’s basically 2 1br condos). I have a full size bed and a patio, which is nice. It’s about a 5 minute walk to the beach, and 10 minutes over to Coligny Plaza. I’ve always wanted to live in a place with kitschy signs like “House Rules: Relax. Unwind. Enjoy” and “Heaven is Closer in a Home by the Beach” (which I like to think is a reference to the fact that everyone is old here).
I didn’t eat out at all early in the week, but I’ve gotten coffee and worked on my laptop at Java Joe’s. It’s expensive but it gets me out of the house.
Last weekend I went to the Frosty Frog Cafe and watched part of a football game and had a couple beers. I’ll probably go back there to eat at some point. They have a lot of weird mixed drinks that look like smoothies. Maybe I’ll try the White Russian one.
Sometimes I run on the beach. One day I played Scrabble against 3 other versions of myself. Player 3 won after playing “nuptial” on a triple word score plus the bingo points, but he used a word-lookup online and everyone knows it, the cheating bastard.
On day 9, I finally decided to rent a bike for the rest of the month. Good decision. It even came with a basket that I can put my laptop case in. I figured out how to get to Starbucks (woo!) and it easily extends my traveling reach to more of civilization on the main part of the island.
After Starbucks, I stopped by The Lodge, one of the bars/restaurants on the “Barmuda Triangle.” It’s where all the cool kids go, I guess. Worked and had some delicious mac & cheese bites, and watched this little girl play a giant connect 4 game by herself, but she was doing it all wrong. She was just putting the circles in and dropping them; she didn’t understand the concept of the game, or cheated a lot and was really bad at it. Then I rode the bike home in the dark, which was challenging because they don’t have streetlights.
On Saturday, I rode my bike all the way down to The Salty Dog Cafe. It was a popular place so I had to eat at the bar, but they had a veggie burger which was unusual for down here (one of the reasons I made the trek). But it was a 10-mile bike ride, made even harder by biking on the sand on my way there.
And I was late to look at the sunset AGAIN, but I got a picture after it. I always forget pictures, but I’m not really upset about it.
I’ve taken a couple extra projects the past few days and this week, so it hasn’t exactly been relaxing (plus my procrastination of course). Time goes fast, ya know? Anyways, hopefully I can manage my time better this week. I don’t want to have to sacrifice my worthy adversary scrabble matches.