By Celia Rivenbark
Oh, goody. It’s tourist season.
Here in Eastern North Carolina, life is “fixin’ to” get a little more interesting as the annual Great Migration from Ohio, among other sad, ocean-deprived states, begins in earnest.
Their schools have shuttered for summer, and the Honda Odyssey is stuffed with all manner of beach paraphernalia as they steer toward our beaches with the determination of the great homesteaders bouncing across the country in their covered wagons. For the next week to 10 days, these scary-pale visitors will find themselves succumbing, joyfully, to all-U-can-eat shrimp, completely avoidable sunburn and $5 beach towels with a thread count of 25. Good times.
Of course, we are thrilled they’re coming!
OK, maybe not thrilled. We’re not dumb Charleston, always winning “Best Mannered” awards and the like. Suck-ups. We’re not rude but, TBH, we’re also not completely happy.
Because from now until mid-October (Oh, tourist season, when did you get so loooonnnnngggg?) everything becomes a little bit more difficult for us locals. Driving. Parking. Going out to eat. Going out to ANYTHING. We must allow extra time and cultivate a quality I’ve mostly just read about in books: patience. Ugh.
As the tourists arrive, their energy akin to a Jack Russell terrier on bath salts, we are momentarily amused. They just want to have a good time. We are all tourists somewhere at some time. (Did I not scream a heartfelt “Dayum! It’s so purty!!” while atop Seattle’s Space Needle? Yes. Yes, I did.) We need to put our noses back into joint and appreciate the cash infusion, too. Practically speaking, all these tourists boost our local coffers considerably. Here in Wilmington, we may huff a little as gaggles of tourists simply stop, inexplicably, in the middle of the sidewalk, but it’s a small price to pay for what they bring to our economy.
For Eastern North Carolina, this is our time to shine. Sure, some of the tourists plant themselves in the mountains for their week of vacation, but I’m assuming this is because their cars broke down and they couldn’t make the six-hour drive across the state to a “real” vacation. Pity.
Honestly, if your vacation didn’t include a Britt’s doughnut or four, devoured with cold milk on the Carolina Beach boardwalk, did you even have one? Survey says . . . “No.”
So, yeah. We need to breathe deep and welcome the tourists with broad smiles and abundant good cheer. They won’t be here forever, and we can talk bad about them once they leave, bless their hearts.
In the meantime, we will go to OUR beaches very early in the morning while the tourists are still sleepin’ off frozen daiquiris from a spinning gizmo that probably hasn’t been cleaned since the Clinton administration. Me? I like to go to the beach in the early evening when the tourists have moved on to Skee-Ball and the hotel’s indoor pool. I can practically hear the sand itself sigh deeply, savoring the sudden quiet. Where did they go, I imagine the sand asking. And why did they dig these awful ankle-breaking holes? WHY??????
For the next few months, we’ll prevent road rage by leaving a few minutes early for our entirely average appointments with the dog groomer, the eye doctor, the lunch with friends . . . You forget it’s tourist season at your own peril. Just don’t.
If a favorite local restaurant takes reservations, we know to make one and we also know, even with that, we’ll wait 45 minutes. That’s OK. It’s summer! You grab a silly hot pink cocktail and lay claim to the last available 8 inches of space in the corner of the bar where beach music, which you honestly hate, is playing way too loud. No matter. You’re in Eastern N.C. Zen Mode. If nothing else, tourist season coaches us to chill out, man. When the HIGGENBOTTOMS, PARTY OF EIGHT finally exit the bar, you thank the tourism gods and find an actual unoccupied stool, a mini-vacay in itself!
This is what’s known as “leaning in” to a situation, and it’s really the only way to survive tourist season in Eastern North Carolina. Well. That, and a couple of those frozen daiquiris from the spinny thing. EB
Celia Rivenbark is a New York Times bestselling author who wouldn’t think of living anywhere but Downeast.