A Beautiful But Brief Beach Trip
Author: Katelyn Wissinger| Student, Living Education – Charlotte, 2025-26
This past Sunday, we traveled to Sunset Beach, NC, for a relaxing afternoon and a welcome reprieve from the past week. While a trip to the beach is quite dependent on the weather, and ours was cut short because of the unwelcome rain, we enjoyed it nonetheless and got our fair share of the sun.
Around 8 am, we packed up the vans and headed off on the road, full of anticipation for what lay ahead. At about 12.30 am, we arrived at the beach, and thankfully, there was little trouble in finding a close parking space that made our walk to the sand a whole lot shorter. Once on the beach, students and faculty set about putting up the gazebos and setting up the camping chairs. Scarcely were we there for more than a few minutes before students eagerly dashed towards the beckoning blue expanse in front of them. Others, a little famished, stayed back and dived into the prepared pasta salad bowls for lunch. The sun was at its full height as it shone strongly on all the beachgoers. Some of the students took the opportunity to rest under the gazebos on the warm sands, but most eventually made it into the waves and enjoyed rolling and jumping into them. As expected, some got to experience the taste of the delightfully briny water a little too much. As the afternoon rolled on, the ominous grey clouds in the distance and the echoes of thunder drew closer and closer. Students and faculty prepared themselves, repacking our belongings as we closely watched the droplets of precipitation getting ever closer. The downpour eventually hit our location, and we all made a mad dash for the vans.
While the beach trip may have been cut short due to the gloomy weather, the time we did enjoy on the coast made memories and allowed us to appreciate God’s creation. For some, it was their first time they were able to go so far out into the water to jump waves, and for others, it reminded them why the beach is such a beautiful place.
