20th Anniversary Dream Trip Contest

Great Travel Moment

My future fiancé and I were dozing in the sun on the beach in her home of Wilmington, North Carolina, one gorgeous and breezy summer day. Suddenly, as we opened our eyes from a catnap, a surreal and incredible sight greeted us...a gigantic, vibrant yellow octopus hovering high above our heads, both menacing and cartoonish. It took a few moments to realize what we were actually staring at: an enormous kite being flown several meters away from us, framed perfectly by the azure blue sky and the burst of sun that was peeking out from its head. Photos rarely capture the vision of what you imagine in your head during that split second between awakening and awareness, but this one managed to, magically. Even now, first-time viewers of the picture usually cannot make heads or tails of it…astonished guesses have included a jellyfish in the ocean, or a computer-generated alien.