My mother, little sister and brother, and I got up at 3 a.m. to start our 14-hour car ride to sunshine and happiness in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Saturday, April 1.

We traveled 842 miles, through six states, under two mountains, and stopped at three toll booths to get to South Carolina. We arrived at Dunes Village Resort at 4:30 p.m., and it was an amazing  75 degrees outside.

When we first arrived to our hotel we got out, stretched our bodies, and checked into our beautiful room. Our balcony overlooked the ocean.

After we got settled, we decided to go into town to see what it had to offer. We found lots of small shops and beautiful homes on the beach.

Sunday morning, we drove through the tourist part of Myrtle Beach. After getting back home we got in our bathing suits to go into the ocean.

After waiting 16 years, I finally went into the ocean. It was amazing. The cool, windy air, salty water, and sandy beach was awesome.

I’m not much of a fan of water, though, so I went up to the beach and sat in the sun for hours.

We went on the Sky Wheel, a large Ferris wheel, a little later in the day when the sun started to set.

While we were in town, I bought a hermit crab and named him Todd. He joined our hermit crab home here in Michigan with our two others, Peter and Flame. Our newest addition is about the size of a golf ball, double the size of our smallest crab.

Monday morning we went to the Ripley’s Aquarium for the day. We took a ride in the glass bottom boat and got to pet many different types of sea life: a sting ray, jellyfish, and some sharks.

After that, we went outside and shopped in the strip mall area for a bit then headed back to the hotel.

On Tuesday, we got up and really had no plan for the day. We decided it would be a lazy day. We went to the beach and walked looking for sea shells. We found some and also saw about six jellyfish washed up on the shore.

The rest of the day we went to the pool a few times and I hung out with junior Emma Boychuk. Somehow we planned our vacations on the same days at the same resort.

We really did nothing but enjoy the warm weather, and, as the day came to an end, we went to Chili’s for dinner, then went back to the hotel.

Apparently, at sunset if you go out to the beach you can find crabs easily under the sand. So Emma came over and we all went to the beach. We tried and tried to find some crabs but failed. After awhile, we gave up and just ended up taking a bunch of photos by the ocean.

This was an awesome way to end my last day at Myrtle Beach. We went back to the hotel, packed up, and went to bed.

Wednesday was our last day of the trip so we got up and hit the road again.

I enjoyed every second of this trip, and it couldn’t have been any better, except not leaving would have been nice.