Sunrise, Sunrise
Oak Island, NC — May 18-19, 2022
Our next stop after Charleston remains one of my favorites. It was a very quick stop over on our way to our friends’ house in Raleigh. Our original plan was to go to Myrtle Beach but we thought it might be a very similar experience to Hilton Head and wanted to try something new. James did some googling from the car and found a place called Oak Island, a tiny little beach town in North Carolina. We booked a hotel about 10 minutes from the pier. We only stayed for one night but it was magical. It was on a little peninsular area that made for both beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The sun touching the ocean really never gets old.
It felt like we had found North Carolina’s best kept secret. The beach felt like it was virtually untouched, distinctly different from all of the other beaches we’d been to so far. We woke up early and watched the sunrise with some fishermen on the pier. We packed a picnic and ate at the beach. I loved the solitude of Oak Island and we both talked about it for months. It was one of many happy accidents on our trip. Sometimes the best parts about travel (and life in general) are the spontaneous and the unplanned.
We hope to someday go back to Oak Island and spend more time there. My favorite part was the low prices (your girl loves a good deal). But I also think it was the restful, quiet pause during our already crazy travel schedule. It was a good reminder to take a break and smell the roses, or in our case, smell the ocean. Reflecting on this tiny leg of the trip comes at a good time as I’m experiencing a bit of burnout from a (self-induced) packed work schedule.
Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and take in the sunset or the sunrise. 🌅
