give me mountains over beaches any day

aubrey and i made a dash over to the coast, 5 hours is the shortest drive to any ocean from atlanta, and we chose the coast of south carolina. we camped where we could with no reservation on memorial day weekend. the first day we found a site at Hunting island and because the island was solely a state park it had a gorgeous landscape. amazingly, we were the only non-RV camper and given the tiniest site, but it was a site, against the dunes, with the closest view of the ocean and loggerhead turtle nesting grounds. however, what that really meant was, it was the site beside the boardwalk that everyone uses to cross the dunes, or thru your campsite, which was out from under the shelter of the palmettos and thus HOT, very hot. we made the best of our very windy, thus sandy, hot site and blocked the wind with the car.
in the morning, at 6am, we took our chairs down the shoreline to a grove of palmettos and read, yoga'd, and coffe'd in peace for a few hours. the water was really murky and with an oil rig in site, we decided to pack it up and hit edisto island, the next in a chain. as we left we felt a bit of RV and recreational bike envy. not really, but sorta.
Luckily, Edisto Island, was equally botanically blessed and seemingly had plenty of beach cottages for rental and a state park for camping, but alas neither had any openings. so we spent the day choosing our dream beach cottage, hitting the sand and then headed to Charleston for the evening; again with a bit of cottage envy.
a quick phone call to mary from charleston and a bit whining about murky water, RVs, no vacancies, and she quickly had her brother-in-law set us up with a room overlooking the cooper river bridge into charleston on opening night of the spoleto art festival! envy that eh!
Needless to say, with the realization that we'd gone soft, that we were no longer the fearless campers of our youth, we dove into the king sized bed and turned up the AC...and did not see any Spoleto acts. Morning came and another local friend, melissa guided us to shem creek the next day for lunch and exploring. after dining on the deck along the canal where the yachts parade and hearing that blue crabs were just not comin in this season, we left with a bit of boat and crab envy. next we found the quaint historic little fishing village of mt. pleasant where our friends were restoring an old church to live in and quickly developed historic house envy.
Mary suggested we not miss sullivan's island stations 22-24, so we decided to hit the beach again after lunch and hang with the bocce ball crowd...only we forgot our bocce set and the walk from the car was so long that we just watched...you guessed it, with envy.
Later that evening we decided 3 days was enough and that we would cruise charleston's waterfront and then head home, driving in the cool of the evening. a quick roll down meeting street and along the battery showed folks out and about headed to another pricey night of spoleto arts and culture. we agreed right then to get out of town, hit the waffle house on the road for dinner and get home before we developed another envy.
it was a disappointing beach trip, oh the water was a little prettier up by charleston, but still very churned and cloudy. perhaps it's just because we are financially challenged or perhaps i'm spoiled by the pacific beaches, the clear blue waters of tahoe, or maybe, just maybe, i dont like the beach. i mean i havent seen the caribbean yet or costa rica, but i suspect even when i do, i'll say give me a cottage up in the hills, in the cool of the trees, with a view of your beach and when you come home at days end you can tell me all about it.