Waterfront Wandering (Elizabeth City, NC)

This was taken on the first day of my last extensive road trip. We called it our Super Summer Southern Sizzler Tour (inspired by our local musician friends — they named their tours, and doggonit, so could we). After spending a relaxing week at a beach house with several other couples in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, my partner and I knew we’d be wrestling with some cabin fever. To recover, we spent the following week driving back to Michigan in exactly the wrong direction: by going to Memphis instead (he is a huge Elvis fan). And not necessarily in a straight line: we hit Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi on our way. Because who knows what adventures — and at the very least, photo opportunities — might lie in store for us, if we allowed the space for them? So we did just that.

We kicked it off by driving over to Elizabeth City (where the above was taken) to visit a theatre friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in almost 15 years. Since we were in the neighborhood. Truthfully, it was about an hour out of our way, but I wasn’t about to split hairs.

We were a bit early arriving, so we did some exploring of the town before our rendezvous. The boardwalk in this picture was the first non-beachy thing I’d had the opportunity to photograph in 8 days. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to find a bench and crouch behind it with my camera phone.

We had a ton of fun catching up with my long lost friend and her super spunky seven year-old, and cooling off in a restaurant booth (I think the area was hitting record highs that week). We then hit the road for the official start of our tour. But admittedly, in my version of the story, this brief photo shoot by the water was the actual “starting gun” of our adventures. With lines and shadows like that, how could it not be?

Shot on Google Pixel 3, black and white filter.