I highly recommend that anyone in need of a vacation (or just something fun to do) spend a week at the beach. I realize that not everyone has the means to pay for a week's lodging near the beach, so at least spend a day at the beach or get a hotel a couple miles from the beach. It all works. The point is to spend multiple days in the sand and salty water. It's tremendously relaxing.

We managed to slip our vacation in right between two big tropical storms--T.S. Gaston and hurricane Frances. Driving down to Charleston we were surprised at how much rain and wind there was; when we finally stopped for a break, we got a paper and learned that we'd been driving through a tropical storm that had just got done ravaging Charleston and was now flooding central South Carolina. When we did arrive, nearly everything was closed or w/o power, water covered the roads, and trees were down all over. I'd never seen anything like it, it was pretty awesome, actually.