Originally Posted on March 31, 2021

My trip to the beach turned into a winding walk around the Pearl, where I stumbled into what felt like a dream land—with pastel-colored buildings, bronze-tinted street lights, and aisles of white light-covered palm trees lining the busy Wednesday night street.

Without setting my GPS to any destination, I walked along the brick sidewalk until I spotted a row of food trucks along the side of the street near the bay.

The pink-and-white-striped design of Crazy Cookies caught my attention. Carefully weaving from sidewalk to sidewalk and across the median, I made my way to the cookie truck.

A few minutes later, I opened a tiny pink box; inside was a classic chocolate chip cookie with melted chocolate seeping into its core.

It’s not recommended to meander through a city without directions—but the experience was freeing—like I was an overlooked character inside a book sitting on the shelf in an abandoned library.

The experience was all my own and an escape by nature.