Coming to Sunset Beach isn’t coming to the beach.
It is coming to Sunset Beach.
It is being a Beach Bunny, a member of a diverse group of smart, creative, don’t mess with me females who have been coming here for twenty-three years.
It is coming before Memorial Day.
It is returning year after year to a favorite house.
It is exploring Mary’s Gone Wild Art.
It is accepting the BB mandate to do what you want to do during your visit.
It is connecting with, learning from, laughing with a wide variety of BB, some only once and others regularly.
It is posing f
or the group picture taken each year.
It is discovering 40th Street and Madd Inlet.
It is visiting Orton’s Pond to see if osprey are nesting
It is going to Southport and eating at the Provision Co. every year.
It is making trips to Myrtle to Dick’s Last Resort.
It is going to the Beach Quarters or a Southport shop and splurging on an outfit you wouldn’t buy at home.
It is learning new skills like crocheting flip flops or geocaching or felting.
It is laughing…sometimes at very weird stuff.
It is accepting the changes that came and will continue to come with the new bridge.
It is reading what you want to read.
It is catching up with those friends you just see one time a year.
It is joining in on the fight to preserve Bird Island.
It is
finding quiet time for yourself on the deck or walking the beach.
It is repeating family history, job history, husband history, health history several times because with four people talking at once it takes awhile.
It is looking at the photo albums and wondering when the dark-haired beauties were replaced by the gray-headed lovelies–or how many shades of blonde there are.
It is painting someone’s toenails for the first time in their life.
It is canoeing and kayaking and bike riding.
It is getting up in time to make it to the beach for the sunrise.
It is playing Scrabble, poker, Trivial Pursuit, Dominoes, Head and Foot and
Catan.
It is bird watching and keeping track and still not coming up with the name immediately or maybe having a small disagreement over which bird it really is.
It is walking to Bird Island, hopefully at least once during a visit.
It is writing in a notebook at Kindred Spirit, and it meaning something to your heart to read what others have left for 
you to know about them.
It is riding back from Southport at night and listening to Patsy Cline.
It is knowing women who bring so much to your life just from the time spent here.
It is sharing this special place with your daughter.
It is laughing a everyone’s stories BUT when Sara or Hurleen talk, you listen and you find yourself asking for a repeat of your favorite, like Sara and Roger and their two young children trying to get off the wrong airplane or the complications of your son’s girlfriend who has Tourette syndrome answering the phone in your home.
It is having a bet going on how many rolls of toilet paper 14 women can use int 3.5 days.
It is working a crossword puzzle or the Sunset Bridge jigsaw puzzle as a group.
It is skinny dipping on a dark night
It is contributing money to save the old bridge house.
It is taking
a gazillion pictures of the sunset each year.
It is seeing the fiddler crabs at low tide in the marsh for the first time.
It is the catch in your throat when you realize it is the last day.
It is hoping that God will be generous and you will return next year and the next and the next.
Carpe Diem, An Imperfect Blog 
Love everything about this story – thanks for the story and great pictures!
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That gave me goose bumps. I have had my own “Sunset Beach” times and it is just as you described so perfectly.
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