The Big Picture

The Big Picture

In what has become part of my Saturday morning ritual, I found myself brewing a cup of joe this morning and reflecting on the week that was in the rear-view mirror.  After a highly anticipated family vacation to Duck, North Carolina, I wanted to delve into the pictures on my cell phone.  After all, you can't go on a vacation without posting a picture on every social networking site possible, right?  Duck is an impressive little village on the Atlantic with a population of 384 vibrant and charming occupants.  Upon arrival, I was in awe of the number of residents and vacationers that I saw riding bikes through the town.  Automobiles seemed virtually out of place here.  I knew immediately that we were destined to have a vacation that none of us would soon forget.  With a daughter leaving us for college in the fall, we needed this time to move as slow as molasses on a January morning.  Soaking up every second of a worry-free week was the goal and we had complete tunnel vision.  I locked us out of our room on accident within the first five minutes of checking in to our condominium, but that was just part of the fun.  We bolted up to our condo with great anticipation to check out our view for the week before bringing our bags up.  It indeed lived up to its online promise of being ranked as one of the best places to stay in Duck. In my phone was our keyless entry code to get into the front door, which of course I left on the kitchen counter before going down to get our bags.  That was my first clue.  I had forgotten about my phone and it wasn't glued to my hand like it is on any normal "nonvacation" day.  This wasn't the only time that I would "misplace" the contraption that I am typically enslaved to.  We started our mornings with running on the beach, yoga sessions led by my daughter (beachside of course),  and walks to a café that served everything from smoothies to Turkish breakfast sandwiches.  We fished the cold waters of the Atlantic, swam, played cornhole, had intense shuffleboard competitions, and just simply talked.  With the arrival of each sunrise, we would talk about how we needed to take pictures during the day ahead, and with each sunset, we talked about how we had forgotten, once again, to get those pictures.  This morning, while sipping my coffee and looking back through my phone for vacation pictures, I found something.  What I found was a camera roll that had three pictures from Duck, North Carolina.  Only three photos to prove that we ever walked the beaches of North Carolina.  Our footprints in the sand aren't even proof, because they have long washed away.  So no, I didn't get the photos, but I captured something much more substantial.  If you decide to embark on an adventure with your family, make sure to take a look at the big picture, and forget the picture.  

Kristen Hamilton