Something Different

As long as I can remember, I've had a desire to travel. I remember going with my parents on long car rides and I would love looking out the window and seeing everything and anything there was to see. I explored new places with attentiveness and curiosity. When I turned seventeen, I was invited by a friend to go with her family to South Caroline and of course I agreed. I'd never been to the southern east coast and on the night before the trip, I couldn't even sleep. I was utterly enthralled. When I saw the first palm tree, I knew I was somewhere different, somewhere new. I could feel adrenaline winding through my veins. It didn't even have the same smell as Illinois. It didn't smell like exhaust fumes and city grates, it smelled like ocean and humidity. I took in deep breaths and shut my eyes and tried to absorb every little detail. There was this plant called Spanish moss and it draped all of the trees like a bride's veil. It seemed brighter here, and more vibrant. Flowers grew with ease and they seemed abundant. All of the homes were lifted off the ground with lanky poles and they all had porches, and balconies. They weren't brick, like Chicago buildings, and they weren't crammed together within a vast city block. People had their space and they didn't walk with such determination as the business men and women in the city that I was used to. People here took their time and seemed to have nowhere to be but where they already were. We stayed on Edisto Island for two weeks. We rode bikes around the quaint island and we relaxed on the beach. The last night of our stay we took a late night walk down to the ocean. I sat on the sand and stared at the stars. I tried not to blink because I knew that I would miss them when I got back to Chicago. I felt something on my leg and I jumped up quickly. We looked down and there were baby sea turtles coming out of the sand. They were talking about them all over the island, and people were paying good money to participate in guiding them to the ocean, but they'd come a week early and the only thing guiding them was us, and the moon. I cried the next morning when it was time to leave. I got home and I unpacked my things and it all still smelled like South Carolina. I breathed in deeply and started to unpack.