BackStreet's Back No Rap

I always write such serious buzzes, so I decided to write about my first trip with my daughter, my girlfriend, and her daughter. My hope is that this story will make you laugh or at the least, smile.

My husband and son went on annual fishing trips to Bush Country in Canada every summer. When my daughter turned 9 years old she asked me "why dad and Brian took trips together but not us?" I told her she would be bored going on a fishing trip, and it was a 'guys' only trip. I thought her question was fairly light hearted until she said, "Thats not fair, they get to go away together but I don't get to go on trips with you." 

My daughter was onto something and that's when I decided to plan our first girls trip together. My neighbor went to Myrtle beach each summer with her daughter and the pictures looked enticing. That was it, my mind was made up and I began planning my first vacation with my daughter. 

We took off in my White Mini Van early on a rainy May Morning in 1999. I remember thinking, I sure hope the weather improves the further south we drive. Once we hit the West Virginia border the clouds parted, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the 70's. What a difference in weather and we were only 4 hours from home at this point. I booked this trip before we had GPS, so I depended solely on my triptiks from AAA. We spent the night near Lake Norman, North Carolina, that's about 9 hours from my home in Pennsylvania. 

Morning arrived, time to check out of our hotel and hit the beach! We were about 3.5 hours from our destination and excited to spend our first partial day on the beach. As we got closer to the Ocean and Myrtle beach we found ourselves stuck in a major traffic jam. We were only about 40 miles from our condo at this time but the traffic was moving at a snail's pace.  That was ok, we were having fun joking, seeing the Southern sights along the way, pumped that we were seeing Palm Trees and well the traffic, why was it stop and go?!

We finally hit the main drag in Myrtle beach... only 20 miles away from our Condo

Crap, there was still a MAJOR traffic jam. No biggie, right? After all, it was 4pm and we were figuring we'd probably get in around 5 or so, instead of 4:30pm.  Wrong! We began to see bikers everywhere, we were surrounded by them. Their music was blasting and many of the bikers had biker chics on the back with them. So, we decided to enjoy the sights around us. When you hit US 17 in Myrtle beach, it's full of shops, restaurants, and more. Ok, so back to the bikers, we thought we just got caught up in a major group of bikers and once we were able to get beyond them or vice versa, we'd be sailing. Wrong! 

Mom, why are there so many girls with their butts showing?

Yes, my daughter asked me that question. Their naked butts were straddling the back of the bikes but they weren't really naked, they had thongs on. Try explaining what a thong is to a 9 year old!  The two girls (my daughter and my friend's daughter) were cracking themselves up every time they saw a gal with a thong. As they continued to watch for gals with 'their butts hanging over the back of the bike," I began to notice the traffic was getting worse. Actually I saw very few cars and 100's of bikers. It was amusing for the first hour and a half to watch them, many were animated jamming to their rap music, girls flinging their arms in the air and bodies dancing on the bikes. I began to feel ancy and decided I could take a detour. Not a smart move, my detour put us 3 blocks back from where I originally turned off. There was an officer on the corner directing traffic and I asked him with my window down what was going on? He told me Black Biker Week, which is also known as Atlantic Beach bikefest was going on.  The girls continued to giggle and I have to admit my friend and I were quite amused too.

Pump up the jams

We were amused for about 2 hours when we realized we hadn't even traveled 8 miles. We still had 12 miles to go and the traffic was still stop and go. We were all getting giddy. I guess that was better than getting ticked off. I have to admit I was getting tired of hearing 'boom boom, thump.. boom' from all the rap music surrounding us. I took out a CD and put it in, I put the windows down and I told everyone in the vehicle , 'hey if they can play their rap music, I can play my music loud too."  So, I turned up the volume as loud as it would go and the Backstreet boys began to play, "Everybody, Rock your body... backstreets back!" The girls slid down in their seats and were begging me to stop playing that song. My girlfriend and I busted out laughing, slapping our knees, dancing in our seats (the van wasn't moving anyhow) singing as loud as we could while our girls begged us to stop. After I composed myself, I turned the song off and had one last giddy thought in mind that I blurted out, "Well look at us, 4 white girls in white mini van, don't we stick out like a sore thumb?!" Again, we all laughed. If we didn't laugh, we would have been complaining. 

Five Hours later

We finally arrived at our destination at 9:20 that evening! Yes, it took us 5:20 minutes to drive 20 miles down N. Kings Highway in Myrtle Beach that day. We learned a good lesson from this first trip, NEVER go to Myrtle beach during any biker weeks again. We weren't able to see the beach that evening but the sight of it the next day made the trip worth it. We took the girls to Myrtle beach every year until they were around 16 years old. So many good memories. I took my daughter and her friend with me when she was a senior in high school .  My daughter told me our Myrtle Beach vacations left her with so many great memories  and mother/daughter bonding time! 

Here is what we saw the next morning when we woke up after the sun rose.

To the left of us we saw the Garden City Pier

Images Courtesy of Google Images: Header- http://cdn.hiphopwired.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/viceblackbikeweek9.jpg

View from Condo: http://images.myrsol.com/sc_ccar/1603615_12.jpg

Pier: http://www.thinkmyrtlebeach.com/images/garden-city_im.jpg