My First Trip to The Outer Banks And I Found a Message in a Bottle

This trip was taken several years ago, but the memory remains fresh. While we were walking over the dunes to the ocean, I noticed something green amidst the waving grasses. I thought it would just be some trash, but I was curious. The closer I got, I realized it was a bottle and jokingly said,” Maybe there’s a message in it.” You should have seen how big my eyes got when I saw the message.

I was so excited about opening the bottle. I was even more excited when I read the message. It was a class project for an elementary school. They wanted to see how far the balloon would take their bottle and if anyone would write back. The school was in Kentucky and made it to the Outer Banks. I couldn’t wait to write to this little girl.

I went to the closest gift shop and picked up several postcards with pictures of the Outer Banks. I was ready to go home and write my letter. I didn’t care about collecting seashells anymore; I wanted this girl to know about her bottle.

I described the area and told her I was enclosing postcards so she had a better image of the Outer Banks. Then I explained that the bottle was found in the dunes and that if the wind had carried it any farther, it would have ended up in the ocean and probably wouldn’t have been found.

I don’t know if this is the only letter that made it back to Kentucky, but they were so excited that they contacted the local newspaper and told of the girl’s bottle and the return letter and about the postcards. She wrote back and sent me a copy of the article. I was so pleased to have made that girl so happy.

We became penpals for a while, but with all the relocating I was doing back then, I lost track of her and cannot remember her name, as hard as I’ve tried. I want to think that the memory has stuck with her as long as it has me.