Sunset Beach

We went to check out the beach at the town of Sunset Beach.  Sunset Beach is a pretty small town, about 3500 people, and has only been around since about 1955.  It is partly on the mainland, and partly on a barrier island, and until 2010, the only way to get to the island part was to cross a one-lane wooden pontoon bridge.  Every hour, for 10 minutes, the car traffic would be stopped so the bridge could swing open for boat traffic.  There are very few businesses in town... A few restaurants, a couple of souvenir shops, a grocery store or two, a couple of gas stations, several golf courses, but the majority of the town is vacation rental homes, with only about 100 full-time residents.

The beach there is beautiful... And look, day 1 find!

There were actually very few sea treasures on the beach, just lots and lots of incredibly soft, fine sand, the kind that, where dry, squeaks when you walk over it.  

This was our first view, on the walkway over the dunes from the public parking lot.

There were quite a few people here, but nothing like the beaches we went to in South Carolina and Georgia.  And the people thinned out as soon as we moved down the beach, away from the parking area.

The jellyfish we saw along the beach are a different variety than what we saw at Galveston.

We had a purpose to our walk today... I wanted to find the Kindred Spirits mailbox.  I happened upon a story about it while looking up what to do here.  Basically, a woman named Claudia put up the mailbox just at the edge of the dunes and the beach because she just kept seeing a vision of that.  It's been in this location since 1983, and it is kept stocked with stenographer-type notebooks and pens, and people stop and write in them, many people coming back year after year to write in it.

Very cool!  I had to leave my own message.

To get to the mailbox, you have to walk about a mile and a half down the beach, so we got a good walk in!

Back at the parking lot, I had to check out these beautiful, delicate flowers on the cactus.

Rain was forecast for this afternoon, and it came in right on time, so we're taking the opportunity to just relax.