Snow Moon

The full moon looks huge when I left work and I was hoping that it wouldn’t rise too high by the time I get home. It was actually a lot lower but I took the picture anyway since I didn’t want to miss the blue hour.

February’s full Moon is traditionally called the Full Snow Moon because usually the heaviest snows fall in February. This might be true in other parts of the country but certainly not here in North Carolina this year.

It’s a lot harder to capture Jupiter and the moon, I guess the big white star on the left hand side is Jupiter. There is a white streak below the moon, I know it’s not the milky way 🙂 , the jet flew by right before I took this picture and left a jet trail behind.

Pirateland Campground in Myrtle Beach Day 2

We were so fortunate that the weather was exceptionally nice on Sunday, which is our second day. I didn’t get up in time to see the sunrise since I was up all night the night before, I might have had 1 hour of sleep. I went to the store campground to get some ice and saw this wind chime and bought it as a souvenir.  I hung it under the umbrella the whole day and I do love the sounds, I’m sure it was annoying to my beach neighbors but no one complaint.

Lee loved the beach and she’s eating ice cream in this picture below.

My dad enjoyed himself, and a good part about this trip was that he could go back to the RV to hang out during the middle of the day instead of staying at the beach all day with us.

The beach was not crowded early morning.

I wanted to get a closeup shot but didn’t want to scare them away so I switched to my 70-200mm telephoto lens.

My second sister stayed in the ocean the whole time, and when I’m not photographing I’m also there with her.

I’m glad my dad got to play in the ocean, the water was nice and warm.

Bo swimming.

The girls were waiting for the waves.

My second sister waiting for the waves. I actually used a noodle and it’s great for swimming in the ocean.

Bo found a Sand Dollar (Echinarachnius parma), which is a flat-looking burrowing sea urchin. The flat rigid skeleton is called a test and has a five star pattern of pores. Sand Dollars live in shallow sandy waters and these fragile fossils break easily, so finding a whole one is rare and special. source. Bo actually found 2 Sand Dollars, and they are beautiful.

I was surprised to see pennyworth everywhere and they smell just like the pennyworth that I planted in my garden.

The campground view from the beach, we parked on the third lot from the beach.

During our evening walk I spotted this huge white bird, it took me by surprise since I didn’t expect to see the Great Egret on the beach.  He was waiting for the man to toss him the catch.  I thought it was kind of odd since there are plenty of fish in the ocean but I guess even bird think like human, why work when you have others to do the work for you.

Ice cream break

Bat Face flowers

It was still a full moon on Sunday night, and kind of windy so we rolled back the awning.

Photos were taken with a Canon T2i, EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, and EF70-200mm f/4L USM lens.

Pirateland Campground in Myrtle Beach Day 1

The disadvantage of living in the Foothills is that we live so far away from the ocean, and we could only plan our trip on a long weekend. Last Labor day weekend we tent camping at Emerald Isle, and this year we decided to head to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  It was a 5 hour drive, and 240 mile trip.  As we were heading to my dad’s house on Friday evening I saw a full moon. Bo stopped at a red light and I managed to get this shot in time before the light turned green. The gas price in our area was $3.75 for regular on Friday, and $3.48 in SC, so we filled up our tank before we headed back home on Monday.

Pirateland Campground is waterfront, and we parked on the 3rd row, which was real closed to the beach. The water here is not as green as Emerald Isle, but the beautiful beach and campground more than make up for it.

We do love the ocean and I did not once set foot in the campground swimming pool or the lazy river.

This image below made me think of a story my sister told me. The waves were so strong on Monday that it’s possible that someone could have lost their swimming trunks in the water.  She then asked me if you only had one piece of clothing, which part would you cover, top or bottom?  Naturally most would think the bottom, even the French cover the bottom and walking around with their top showing.  My sister said that the Lao ethnic group would think differently.  They would cover the top since everyone already saw your bottom portion when you were born and the top came later and they have not seen it yet.  I guess it does make sense.  Then she said what about when you have to take a dump, what will you cover if you only had 1 piece of clothing?  If you don’t know, some of the bathrooms in Laos are in the bush or out in the open.  This is a true story, I had to find a big bush during a bathroom break when traveling on a bus to Pakse.  Back to my sister’s question, the answer is your head since most will not recognize your bottom portion, either from behind or front profile while squatting, but they know your face.  I guess it does make sense.  This makes me think that it’s a knock-knock joke in Laos when she was growing up.  It’s actually a new knowledge to me and it’s good to know, you never know when you will be in that situation. I see Bo is catching on fast, he is covering his top portion.   😉

We drove all night and got to the campground by 7 am on Saturday morning.  They let us check in early, and it was a beautiful first day.  Bo was so tired by evening that he dozed off.

The campground view from the beach.

My second sister standing at the beach access to the campground.

My niece bent over to look at the sand alligator.

The full moon risen on the Atlantic ocean and the blue moon was as red as the image below.

I have many photos and will post the second and Third day’s photos on a separate post, and hope to do the video as well.

Photos were taken with a Canon T2i and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens.