A couple weeks ago, while in Wilmington, NC for our friends’ wedding, we took a morning to slip down to Carolina Beach to check out Britt’s Donut Shop (we’ll have another post specifically about those donuts soon!). After chowing down on a half dozen donuts, we wandered around the Carolina Beach Boardwalk and stuck our feet in the ocean.

Morning time at the Carolina Beach Boardwalk was quiet and still and it felt as if you just stepped back into time where the physical structures still exist, but all the life has moved on. But I imagine that feeling only lasts a few hours. Later in the day the boardwalk will begin to fill with the hustle and bustle of shoppers, families, high school couples, the whirring and flashing of amusement park rides, and screaming kids running around with cotton candy.

Just on the other side of the sand dunes though, beach goers were already strewn on the beach with umbrellas, chairs and towels. Little heads bobbed up and down with the waves in the water and whole castles were being built with plastic shovels.