Addendum: Day 43: Hilton Head Island

Saturday, July 25 was our last full day at Hilton Head, so we tried to really enjoy it as much as we could. We spent the early afternoon at the beach but then headed in to another pool on the grounds. This pool had a little area called the Morning Star Fountain, which was just a part of the pool deck that had about 2 dozen orchestrated fountains of water for kids and adults to play in.


The pool itself had a series of jets in a line that created a little rush of water that reminded Dave and me of the hot springs at Yellowstone.


After enjoying the pool, we headed to the immense hot tub beside the pool. The hot tub was big enough to seat about 18 people comfortably. It was fabulous. You could actually swim in it.

After our pool fun, we headed over to the ping pong tables. There was a large plastic storage bin filled with paddles and balls, so we had plenty of fun, at one point even trying to play doubles table tennis with the actual rules that no team member could hit the ball twice in a row. That made for a lot of confusion and tripping over each other, so we gave that up quickly.



While we were playing, a 7-year-old girl, Chelsea (she says some people call her Kelsea, so I called her Chelseakelsea ), joined us.


I played her for a while because everyone else found her presence irritating. She told me she has a boyfriend who is 8, but he has 20 girlfriends. Jen was horrified that, even at 7, Chelseakelsea was ok with this. After about 10 minutes, I had to go to the bathroom, and while I was gone, the game quickly dispersed.

At about 5:30, we headed back over the boardwalk to our building. Dave paused to take some pictures of the marshes, which were really quite lovely.



vThis is the view of the Atlantic from our second-floor room. It was really nice to sit out there in the evening and listen to the ocean. So dreamy. It was hard to process that I had touched the Pacific Ocean just three weeks before. It seemed like an eternity ago.


Here is the boardwalk we crossed to get the pool and then the beach.


For dinner, I found a restaurant called the Boathouse II that looked delightful. Luckily, this time, my research paid off. This place was awesome.


We started off with different cocktails. I had a frou-frou drink that was a combination between a margarita and a pina colada. Patrick had something fruity. Jen had some kid of apple martini. Dave had a pina colada-type drink that he thinks was made with amaretto. Delicious!


We had the delicious blue cheese risotto fritters to start. For dinner, Patrick and I both had the summer vegetable gnocchi. Dave had garlic-marinated London broil, and Jen had the garlic shrimp with penne. We were all very happy with our dishes. I scored big time on this dinner choice.

As expected, the restaurant had a fabulous nautical theme.


It included a huge pirate statue outside. Beneath the statue, a guy was playing Jimmy Buffett songs on his guitar for the patio crowd. We had mocked the patio people from our table inside because we knew that they couldn’t possibly be enjoying their dinners in the sticky heat outside. Suckers. As we were leaving, I sneaked onto the patio to get some snaps of the singer.


While we were out there, we realized that there were large platters of desserts on side tables. This was clearly some kind of reception or private party. Dave wanted to steal cake since no one seemed to be eating it. I was incredibly tempted, but I’m 35 and I own a home; stealing cake isn’t in the cards for me.

The restaurant was next to a marina, so we ventured out on the pier for a few minutes. On the way back, we passed a little building with this sign on it.



A cobia is a fish. I’m not sure what these fisherpersons need cobia “carcusses” for, but I’ll be it’s something awesome.

After our delicious dinner, it was back home for some relaxing and then bed. We would have to be out of the resort by 10 am, so we had to be in bed at a reasonable time.