Alternate title: Why I Refuse To Pay $13.50 For a Slice of French Toast.

OK, I'm not a "beach person". I don't really get anything out of expensive shops that sell tacky tourist stuff, or the smell of suntan lotion, or having sand in places where sand was never meant to be, but when my Principal asked me, right before school let out for the summer, if I wanted to go to a week-long education conference at Myrtle Beach, I said, "yeah, why not?" It would do me good to get out the house for awhile, after all, and I might actually get something to take back to work with me in August.
The district was paying for the motel and my attendence, at an exclusive resort, no less, so how could I pass that up?

Anyway, here's the scoop. I wound up on the 15th floor of this motel. The AC in my room didn't work properly, so it was like an oven. NONE of the seminars I had to go to even pertained to my subject areas, which are Science and Art. The breakfast that the motel was supposed to serve us consisted of one tiny almond and honey pastry, to which I'm allergic, and orange juice, which is bad news for diabetics unless you're going into hypoglycemic shock. "Refreshments" was a glass of WATER. We had to be there in attendance at 7 am-so much for resting while on vacation, huh? It rained every single morning, and every afternoon, so the lovely sunrise-over-the-Atlantic shot I'd hoped to get never panned out. Most mornings, I couldn't even see the ocean, it was raining so hard, even though my window faced the beach. One of the speakers sounded just like that guy who used to do the Visine commercials, for those of you old enough to remember those. I had to pay for all of my own meals(except for the complimentary "refreshments" of course), which was the bad part, since my paycheck would not be deposited until the end of the week, so basically, I was at the beach, dead-broke. I honestly wish I had brought home a menu from the motel restaurant, to scan it so everyone could see that I'm NOT making this up. A "Contenental Breakfast", which was a donut and a glass of orange juice or V8, cost $9.00. That's just for starters; ONE slice of French toast-ONE SLICE, regular bread-cost $13.50! Is it just me, or is that a tad steep?
On a somewhat-plus side, I did finally get to go to Alligator Adventure, which is owned by an acquaintance of mine. I was a bit disappointed in the number of snakes they had, but I must say I was impressed by the gators and crocs, especially "Utan", the largest crocodile in captivity. If you've never seen this 23-foot long behemoth up close, it's really hard to imagine ANY reptile this big! His back is wider than my SUV! Yeah, I've got pics, just have to find time to edit and upload them, but since there is nothing in the pics with Utan for scale, it's really hard to comprehend how HUGE this thing is! Let's put it this way; if he was a vehicle, you'd need a CDL to drive it, OK?
Right now, I'm concentrating on taming a new Banded Water Snake I got from a friend of mine earlier this afternoon. She's fresh out of the swamp, and still not quite sure about my intentions. She still strikes when I first reach in to pick her up, though it's really a sorta "half-assed" strike that has yet to draw blood. After I pick her up, she settles down pretty well as long as I don't move suddenly, but she's going to wind up with a case of whip-lash, since she will sit and look around the room, tilting her head from side to side repeatedly like a dog does when it hears a funny noise, lol! I guess there's a big difference in the usual stuff found in a room indoors and things like cypress trees, Spanish moss, rotting logs and vines and green, slime-covered water that might take some getting used to.

pitbulllady