A future trip to Rodanthe

I can spend hours looking at maps and fantasizing about traveling to an unknown place. Sometimes I come across a name that fascinates me so much that I read up all I can about it. Sometimes I watch a movie and am so enamored by a place that I end up visiting it. That is how Vienna happened to me earlier this summer, after watching the movie “Before Sunrise” multiple times. After hours of walking on the streets of Vienna, I even found the bridge where Jesse and Celine walked while the trains passed by. What a eureka moment that was for me.

I recently watched the movie “Nights in Rodanthe” and have been unable to take my mind off it ever since. Based on a story written by Nicholas Sparks (whose novels have been giving me a lot of wide-eyed, lachrymose nights ever since), there was something magical about the place, and the house where the movie was shot. Leave aside the endearing story plot, the great acting by Richard Gere and Diane Lane, and the heart wrenching realities of life that makes sitting with a box of tissues while watching this movie mandatory. I fell head over heels in love with the location and the house. Everything was so blue, the magnificent coasts of North Carolina, the sea, the birds, the wooden bridge, and the lovely house. You should see the house for yourself, if you are an admirer of nice houses in movies like I am, you will fall in love with this one (the other house I fell in love with was the one from “The Notebook” that Noah built for Allie, based on a novel written by Sparks again). After watching the movie, I could imagine myself sitting by the beach watching the sunrise and admiring the beauty of the oceans forever.

So, whenever the weather gets better, and there is more sunshine and warmth, I am going to drive down to Rodanthe, no matter how long it takes me. I am going to try finding the house (unless they have dismantled it) and am going to sit by the beach for hours watching the ocean. There is a possibility that perhaps everything was spruced up for the movie and the place is actually not that pretty as it was made to seem in was. I will find that out for myself when I visit the much acclaimed beaches of North Carolina perhaps sometime next year. For now, this movie has given me the name of a random place I never knew existed, that I can look up on the map and drive to. And I so hope the place lives up to my expectations.

sunshine