Hollie Reid Experience #1

Provided you have the time, and don't have to use the restroom, Jockey's Ridge in Nags Head is awesome. I went a few times over the summer, but my favorite time was when my boyfriend planned it out so that we would have a little dinner and watch the sunset. I had been having a really stressful week at work and it was the height of vacation season so traffic had been terrible and everywhere you went there were tons of tourists that had no idea what they were doing. I'm used to traffic since I grew up in Northern Virginia, but at least the people in Nova know where they are going and how to get there. These people were stopping in the middle of the bypass, driving down the wrong side of the beach road, and leaving their turn signal on for two miles while trying to figure out which turn was theirs. Absolutely ridiculous and incredibly irritating. The beach had been so crowded that it almost wasn’t even worth it to go until late afternoon when most of the families had left. Anyway, after I got off work, my boyfriend and I drove to the dunes (the biggest dunes on the East Coast, by the way) and parked the car. To get to the big dunes, you walk along this little path for a bit and you come to the beginning of the dunes. When you look straight, there is nothing but sand for as far as you can see. This always kind of overwhelms me because I get worried about if something were to happen, how would we get help, etc. Jockeys Ridge is a big tourist attraction, so naturally there were a ton of tourists there, which kind of ruined it for me at first. It's hard to fully appreciate the magnificence of something, along with a thousand other screaming, running, complaining, talking, walking people. Like I mentioned before, we had been there a few times before, so we knew some areas that were less likely to be crowded, although they were quite a trek away. When we finally got there, most of the tourists had cleared out since the park closes at dark, but we weren't concerned. We sat down on a blanket and watched the sunset together and it was beautiful. All the colors dancing together in the sky as the sun sank below the horizon. If you listened hard enough, you can hear the sound or the ocean, take your pick. Since, the sun was going down, it wasn’t too hot or muggy out. It was pretty much the most perfect conditions you could ask for. The best part was, it completely alleviated all my stress. It's amazing how something as simple as the sunset, which occurs everyday, whether you see it or not, has the capability to do what so many people spend hundreds of dollars on drugs, or thousands on therapists for.