And five Roman Candles.

On our way out of Huntington State Park we were driving over a road through a marsh type area when we came across these three alligators on a little island. They were each good size ones, about 6 feet long. But then a huge alligator came over and kicked two of the smaller alligators off. The big one was easily 8 – 10 feet long. It was really interesting to watch the four of them interact.

Then as we were walking back to the car, we saw another baby alligator which was about 16 inches long, and lot of marsh birds. It was a pretty good time.

This is the Atlas Castle at Huntington Park, just south of Myrtle Beach. Me and Chet came to check this out in our search for less populated beaches. There was a nice beach and this cool castle. The castle actually had a very interesting history. It was built by a wealthy family as a winter resort during the depression following World War I. The family insisted on using only local labor to help stimulate the economy. The entire building was built without any blue prints but instead the contractor had to go on only the oral instruction of the owner. This often times resulted in entire walls needing to nocked down and rebuilt, which longer extended the project and the financial aid to the area. It was really quite remarkable though because if you hadn’t read that sign you never would have known that it was built in such a way.