Friday September 25, 2009 Surfside Beach, SC

After breakfast at the Eggs Up Grill, I took advantage of the sunny weather to spend some time on the beach and in the Atlantic Ocean, and then finished up with a trip to the whirlpool. The SMES events really didn't get underway until the evening, so I spent the afternoon driving up to Barefoot Landing, a large outdoor shopping area built around a lagoon. Although it was fun to walk around, I didn't find anything there to purchase, so I headed down into the town of Murrells Inlet to eat dinner. Many of the restaurants there were built on a boardwalk called the Marshwalk, which had been built over the marsh that separates the mainland from the islands. Before dinner, I decided to walk the length of it, so I did, noticing an island covered with goats, and behind me to the north there was a rainbow against the darker sky where it had been raining up in Myrtle Beach. One of the restaurants along the walk had a statue of an African-American man in a cook's uniform, whom I surmised might have been a deceased former employee. I decided to eat dinner at Bovine's, a fine-looking establishment famous for steaks and wood-fired pizzas, and I was not disappointed there. Afterwards, I went across the street to a gift shop called the Lazy Gator, and there I found just the right birthday gifts for my mother, a book about the Carolina coastal country, and a coffee mug. When I got back to the hotel, beat battles and rap battles were taking place, some of which I was asked to help judge, but the real fun took place in the informal discussions that developed out on the patio furniture in front of the lobby. There panelists and conference attendees alike sat down and had fascinating conversations that as often as not drew a crowd to gather around, listen and occasionally join in.