My favorite part of the trip was the walk we took right after breakfast on Saturday.
It was sunny out, but 45º and breezy. We layered up and headed down to the (rapidly receding – oh, how I forget about tides!) water. It was strange to walk around on the sand with socks ond shoes on, and the temperature made Wrightsville's pale, floury sand look and feel like snow at times. There were only a handful of other people on the beach, a sharp contrast to when I've been there in the summer. One of the reasons we picked the hotel that we did (Shell Island Resort, if you're curious) was that it was the northern-most hotel on the beach - so the only thing to one side of us was a marshy delta of the Intracoastal Waterway. We slowly walked towards that, looking for shells, snapping photos, and absorbing as much vitamin D and sea-air as possible. Sometimes we would veer away from one another to explore the dunes or a particularly interesting shell, periodically looking up to check on the other, then resuming our slow amble along the shoreline.
It was just... really nice. Really laid-back and beautiful and tranquil. I visited Wrightsville Beach the first time I came to Durham, and it really solidified how far away I was from Oklahoma, and how different one place can be from another, and the power of that geographical difference. I think that's why I've felt so bad for not taking Micah there until now, and how happy I was to finally walk along the beach with him.