MAL: Nope, you're fine. Oh, there she is!
MAL’S GRANDMA: Now I got you! RHONDA: And we got you!
MARK: We always see your mouth.
RHONDA: And your necklace.
I love your necklace.
STEPHEN: Hello everyone, welcome to Wednesday.
Started the day off by having a little FaceTime call with your grandma.
you got a chance to wish—MAL: It’s her birthday!
STEPHEN: They got a chance to wish her happy birthday.
MAL: She's 93.
STEPHEN: Wow.
MAL: Right?
STEPHEN: Yeah.
She's still doing great, which is nice.
Now we're going to be riding out and doing some a few different random things today
I think we're going to try and go to Atalaya.
We have a guest. MAL: Who is it?
STEPHEN: I wonder if it's Mark.
We've never been to Atalaya on the vlog before right?
MAL: No we haven’t.
STEPHEN: That was before—MAL: Yeah.
STEPHEN: we, me and Mal went once and it was while we were dating.
MAL: the first spring I came here.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
MAL: for spring break.
We went to Charleston and we stopped there on the way.
STEPHEN: and the story behind Atalaya is it's— MAL: the people who do Brookgreen.
STEPHEN: the people who run Brookgreen.
It was their…
It's in their family?
MAL: Well okay, so, Brookgreen was created by Anna Huntington, and she was a sculptor,
and they built Atalaya as their house and she had a sculptor or a sculpture work space.
like an indoor and an outdoor one. STEPHEN: Mm-mh.
MAL: And then they owned where the gardens are, and then she put her sculptures there
and all— most of the sculptures are hers, I think, the big ones.
STEPHEN: yeah so we've been Brookgreen multiple times.
MAL: And then it got gifted to a… she's passed.
This was like Pre-World War One.
STEPHEN: Yeah, it’s been a while.
MAL: And so now it's Huntington State Park named after them and then Brookgreen Gardens
which is, was also their property.
STEPHEN: Yeah, and Atalaya is just the name of the?
MAL: Castle!
STEPHEN: The castle, mansion, house.
MAL: It's like a Spanish— STEPHEN: Yeah, it's definitely Spanish influences.
It's neat.
But we haven't been there in like many, many years so we're gonna maybe try and do that today.
Assuming they're open, we haven't checked.
MAL: Oh, I should probably check.
STEPHEN: We’ll just drive that direction and find out.
MAL: So we came back to the Marsh Walk because we realized we were right next to it and I was hungry.
So I decided we were getting lunch here, and the goats are back! We were here with Paul
in like, March and the goats weren't there yet.
But like as of a week ago they put the goats back it's always on the news like, oh,
the goats are back on Goat Island.
I’ve never seen them until today.
And that's all I know about it there's goats on the island.
STEPHEN: That's a big sandwich.
It looks good.
MAL: It’s flounder.
STEPHEN: That's a good looking sandwich.
RHONDA: And you also have flounder?
STEPHEN: Yeah, Mal and her dad both got that.
Yeah, I like the look of that sandwich.
I ended up getting salmon a little weird for lunch, but it's good.
And yours looks good too.
RHONDA: Yeah it's a queso jalapeno tomato dip.
Yeah, it's really good.
STEPHEN: When it first came out my brain said it was soup and I was like
what kind of soup is that?
RHONDA: I would eat it as soup. [STEPHEN and RHONDA laugh]
STEPHEN: It’s a pretty kitty. MAL: It has a collar. [STEPHEN laughs] RHONDA: Really?
STEPHEN: Are we going to Huntington now?
MAL: Yep!
STEPHEN: Okay.
It is a beautiful day.
It's a good day for this.
So I’m not sure how good of a job we did at explaining it before, Huntington state
park is located across the street from Brookgreen Gardens.
Brookgreen Gardens is a place we've been to many times before on the vlog.
It's where I proposed to Mal, and then also we've been there for the
Night of a Thousand Candles a few different times over the years.
Huntington State Park is a big state park.
There's plenty to do, so if you come to Myrtle Beach and you like
state parks, you do have an option while you're here.
Atalaya is just one of the places inside of it.
It’s $8 to get in to the state park and then an additional $2 if you want to tour Atalaya.
It's a bit of a windy day so I think what I might do is I might just like,
shoot inside here and then do a voiceover after.
Kind of wish I would have brought the FX3.
I didn't want to haul it around today because we have some other things we're doing,
but now I kind of regret it.
That's all right, iPhone to the rescue.
Okay, so first things first it's At-uh-lie-uh not At-ah-lay-ah, oops.
I’ve called it the wrong thing my whole life.
Atalaya (At-uh-lie-uh) actually makes a lot of sense because it's a Spanish word for watchtower,
since there's a watchtower in the center of the courtyard.
Atalaya was the winter home for the Huntingtons, Anna, the sculptor
and husband Archer, a philantropist and poet.
A little more about them, Archer was born in New York City in 1870 to a very wealthy
family his stepfather was Collis Potter Huntington, who incorporated Newport News Virginia
and developed the shipbuilding and dry-dock company there.
Collis was also one of the big four responsible for the first transcontinental railroad.
Archer's mom was Arabella Huntington, who adored the arts and culture
and passed on those interests to her son.
She was also the wealthiest woman in the country at one point.
So yeah, that whole family was loaded.
Archer was one of the world's leading experts on Spanish poetry, but also loved nonprofits
and used his wealth to donate land, money, and collections to establish museums.
He had a hand in all of these places:
Anna was born in Cambridge in 1876 her father was a zoologist and paleontologist
and also helped found the marine biological laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
During the early 1920s, Archer and Anna who was already a world-renowned sculptor,
worked together on exhibitions for the national sculpture society.
They decided to get married on March 10, 1923, which was also their shared birthday.
Unfortunately, Anna developed tuberculosis shortly after
so they sought a warmer climate for the winter.
In 1930, they purchased what is today known as Huntington State Park and Brookgreen Gardens.
In a short time, their home Atalaya was built there are a ton of rooms here.
Studios, kennels, stables, and animal pens, since Anna used live animals
including bears for modeling studies.
And also a library for Archer's poetry however,
you won't find ant rooms dedicated to social functions.
So no ballrooms, no billiards, no formal dining rooms, etc.
And that's because Atalaya was an escape from the social demands
that they dealt with in New York.
(music)
Did you see it all?
MAL: We gotta walk around the courtyard but, STEPHEN: Okay.
MARK: Then what? Go out that way?
MAL: We gotta go out that way but then we can go around the outside that way.
MARK: Oh, okay.
STEPHEN: It's neat to be back here.
we haven't been here in such a long time.
MAL: 10 plus years?
STEPHEN: Yeah, it's cool.
MAL: A few things have changed.
STEPHEN: Yeah, they even do tours and stuff.
MAL: Yeah, they also have an audio tour, their tour guide's not going.
STEPHEN: Yeah, it's a cool place to visit.
There's the watchtower.
So back through those trees is At-ah-lay-ah, or At-uh-lie-uh.
I learned it's Atalaya (At-uh-lie-uh) I’ve been calling it the wrong thing for a decade.
Anyway, Atalaya, and there's a little alcove that you can walk down to the beach from.
And I remember very vividly, whenever Mal and I first came here you know
11-12 years ago, whenever.
Longer?
Oh god.
13 years?
Anyway, a long time ago, you know we actually explored the property,
and then we came through that really picturesque walkway and walked down to the beach.
And just got a chance to see it.
It was a cool moment because one of the things that you often see whenever like,
I'm shooting footage of a beach here in Myrtle Beach, is you see a lot of buildings.
There's a lot of properties, and there are none.
And it's kind of weird, honestly.
Like you can it's not until like, way, way, way down there
that you can start to see some more like, high rises and stuff.
There's none of that like right here so it's a very odd spot, that's really cool.
It’s also still really windy.
And I did not bring sandals.
(music)
How are you doing? MAL: Good I got warm, so I took off my hoodie.
STEPHEN: I was surprised you left your hoodie on as long as you did to be honest.
MAL: Yeah.
STEPHEN: I got rid of mine pretty early on.
Oh, this is cute.
(music)
MARK: Hi! MAMA GEORG: There you are. RHONDA: Yup!
PAPA GEORG: It's good to see you! RHONDA: Hi! (indisinct chatter)
Did you get what you always get?
It's like—MAL: Yeah.
STEPHEN: Okay, would y'all get on yours? I’m just curious.
MAL: Basically, the same.
MARK: Spinach, tomato, green peppers.
RHONDA: Sausage, peppers, tomato, ricotta cheese, mozzarella. MAL: I love ricotta on there.
MARK: That's interesting. RHONDA: It’s really good.
STEPHEN: You guys did salads but those look good too.
I’ve never gotten the salad.
PAPA GEORG: Really good.
STEPHEN: I see no one else did the ranch swirl.
I guess it doesn't go so well with the vegetables.
MAMA GEORG: I usually do pesto when I get a pizza. I get the pesto sauce. STEPHEN: Oh.
Do y'all see our new art?
MAMA GEORG: Oh my gosh, that's so cute!
Is that your new painting?
[EVERYONE laughs] MAL: That was a birthday gift.
STEPHEN: Yeah Mal, I didn't know if you wanted to talk about that for a second.
MAL: My endo friends Kaitlyn and Diana sent that as a birthday gift.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
I hadn't shown it on camera yet. MAMA GEORG: I thought you painted that.
But we just opened that today and it's really, really great and I love it.
So thank you both, because it's wonderful.
It's wonderful.
STEPHEN: Oh how are you— oh!
MARK: I’m cheating.
STEPHEN: Oh, yeah, this is one way to make a friend.
[STEPHEN laughs]
Yeah he'll like you a lot if you're the one giving him the Churu.
[STEPHEN laughs}
RHONDA: What? Oh!
[EVERYONE is laughing]
RHONDA: OH!
[MAL laughs]
STEPHEN: Oh my god.
[EVERYONE laughs]
RHONDA: How is this even possible?
I don't get it!
MAL: Jo's a heartbreaker. [STEPHEN laughs]
I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at on the right.
STEPHEN: Anyway Pooper deserves to win. I don't know.
MARK: It’s an alien or something. [STEPHEN laughs]
[EVERYONE laughs] STEPHEN: It looks like something from a horror movie.
Oh, Head!
Idiot versus Head!
Is that Donald Duck?
[EVERYONE laughs] Pooper’s back.
Another day done and it was a good day.
We, it was a pretty full day because we got up pretty early and had you know,
quite a few things on our agenda.
But it was fun.
It was fun to to visit Huntington again and, to be honest, I’d love to go back
at some point to spend like a whole day there.
because there's all sorts of trails and stuff there that you can just you know,
walk or bike or whatever, and that would be fun.
I’ve seen very little of the entire state park.
for now, I’m gonna get some sleep.
Breakfast Stream in the morning, and then more activities tomorrow.
I’m tired.
MAL: Me too.
STEPHEN You're tired.
Yeah, I need to get some rest. Okay.
Thanks for watching, and as always, let's meet back tomorrow shall we?