In the Middle of...Natural Wonders

There are days when all the gods conspire together to give us humans a surprise. Today was one of those days. The weather was spectacular, even by South Carolina standards, and the pasty white northeners headed for the beaches. We thought this was our gift from the gods, a perfect day. The gods had other ideas. After a stroll on our local beach we decided to head down to Huntington Beach State Park. I was anxious to photograph some of the unique architecture we had previously seen at Atalaya Castle.















Well, we arrived with Murphy in tow, he loves a good car ride, only to find out that 4 footed visitors are not invited on the castle grounds. No problem, the pictures I was interested in can be viewed from the exterior! So we "off roaded" around the back of said castle where the light was better! I took some interesting shots but vowed to come back sans the Murph for the more interesting interior shots.


That was when the gods unleashed yet another of their little surprises on us! Sand burrs! These deadly, tiny spurs can puncture through flip-flops, socks and blue jeans not to mention unprotected finger tips when you try to remove them. Now imagine the cute, oversized, fluffy paws of aforementioned Wheaten Terrier pouncing unwittingly through the grass surrounding this picturesque castle on a glorious sunny South Carolina day and the gods they were a laughing! Murphy started limping and I realized my folly...too late! I spent the next 30 minutes or so sitting on the sidewalk, removing what seemed like hundreds of the little barbs. Tourists stopped to admire my cute little fuzzy friend and lament his struggles. The locals that passed simply shook their heads and murmured, "sand burrs" and the unspoken, "stupid tourists".



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We restricted ourselves to the more conventional paths for the remainder of our visit!