I’ve been busy buzzing around Myrtle Beach for nearly a week now as part of my Society of American Travel Writers Freelance Council Meeting. Tomorrow’s the last day of exploration. Our workshops earlier this week were what brought me up here, including an excellent day-long session on podcasting by podcasting guru Dave Slusher. After being one of the first to start podcasting years ago, he’s just debuted a new podcast, Reality Break, drawing on interviews he did a decade and more ago with serious sci-fi and comic greats. Episode one is one of my husband’s favorite storytellers, Will Eisner. Tune in!

Today was the first day I spent any significant time on or near the beach, some of which was at Myrtle Beach State Park, pictured here with its popular pier. It’s a lovely slice of nature amid a sea of waterfront condos, hotels, and homes, the beach shown here backed up by a dense maritime forest with plenty of salt-spray sculpted sand live oaks and wax myrtle. 

The joy of spending an evening just meandering around the Internet is to find unexpected treasures. I have several articles to write, but needed some “downtime” after finishing the first. A chain of searches led me down the garden path (or the trail less traveled) to Florida Nature, a blog established this past February by one of my favorite Florida authors, Bill Belleville.  It’s a joyful series of essays. Take a look!