Our Anniversary trip to Main was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The whole thing was like a dream, and the satisfaction of those memories will last our lifetime.
Both ways, we stayed at a pet-friendly Red Roof Inn in Wooster, Mass, to take the edge off driving. We couldn’t take turns because it was Merry’s standard and she won’t let me drive it. It does get insane gas mileage, though. We also hit peak foliage for Fall in New England, though it was too late for whale watching and other iconic wildlife, which apparently includes puffins. Didn’t care before, but now I want to see one!
The Craignair Inn, our bed-and-breakfast, was really homey. After travel trials and tribulations (none too difficult, and amusing in retrospect), we pulled up to our destination under an evening gale. It was raining and what some would consider “bad” weather, but the smell of the sea and the electricity in the air told us we made the right choice. The room was small and due to weather, fatigue, and a bit of back trouble, we rested there much of the time. But there was the library/gallery, and we did go out — a lot. We started really becoming acquainted with the area, and we made forrays up and down the Mid-Coast. We found out that the lighthouse at the end of our peninsula, Marshall Point, was the one in the movie Forrest Gump. Collecting shells and wading in pools at the edge of the Atlantic was a religious experience. At least once a day we walked the causeway to Clark Island, but after I got two ticks (my first ever), I declined to go to its interior to check out the abandoned marble quarry turned swimming hole.
We did a lot of antiquing and acquired a lot of nice finds. We even fell in love with the Heavenly Threads Thrift Shop in Camden (now following on Facebook), which can best be described as the love child of East Aurora and Disney World.
We also did a lot of eating, perhaps the main reason for the destination. Mer had oysters for the first time (yes, I tried them, and still, “yuk!”) and we had the obligatory lobster rolls and other lobster-related meals, despite being just past the end of the season. It seems to be a year-round part of the culture, however. There must be ordinances requiring property owners to decorate with buoys. We did bring one home and posted it on our backyard fence, just to be sure we comply.
There are too many stories to tell, and will enjoy telling them for the rest of our lives … but maybe another time as far as blogging. We chose Maine because Merry said she always wanted to live there (but had never been there). I toyed with the idea of moving the longer we stayed, but alas, the value of our house here would barely buy a broken-down trailer there. Regardless, we’ll always feel a deep connection to that time and place.