Category Archives: Travel

Eventually the sky brightened – glimpses of blue and peeks of sun emerged – though storms and rain were encroaching and surrounding us at all times, occasionally rearing some rainy moments. One time we were at the beach, just skirting the entrance, when the skies turned dark so we had to hurry back to the inn – there’s a photo below of that, but before we got there we did manage to find some lilacs in full bloom – their scent evocative of childhood and happiness and springs that came before. 

Not only were the traditional lilac lilacs in bloom, but the more rare white lilac was putting on a show – an elegant and slightly softer-scented version of its ubiquitous cousin.

They held their heads up in the face of incoming stormy patches, when the sky started spitting rain and the wind picked up in slightly menacing fashion. It was just enough drama to keep things interesting – and as long as it wasn’t a steady downpour for hours at a time, we managed to be in and out and variously about to make the most of this precious part of Maine. 

Breaks of sun made for pockets of bloom time for some of the understory flowers and shrubs, who lit up the cloudy sections with their pastel prettiness. 

By Sunday, our last full day in town, the stormy patches had passed and the Marginal Way was sunny.

The waves were still being dramatic, which made for wonderful moments of wave-watching. 

Having made our way to Perkins Cove, we picked up a few gifts for Mom, including a fabulous scarf from Kiki’s (where I once found a glorious blue boa that will one day fill a blog post as promised).

The walk back was as beautiful as the way there, only it felt like it went by faster, as is usually the case with pleasant experiences. 

The whole long Memorial Day weekend went by that way… the way life should be. 

Our last morning dawned in sunny and fine fashion – the way every single departure day from Ogunquit has always gone – I’ve a mind to schedule an extra day in the future just to play with fate. As we checked out with Anthony at the Scotch Hill Inn, we booked our fall visit – a little bit of hope to ease the end of summer when it comes.

How fitting that I am writing about our latest Ogunquit adventures on a very rainy Saturday morning. Rain is very clearly our spring theme – forget about dreaming – and to be frank, this rain is BULLSHIT. Anyway, even with the wet stuff, we can never have a bad time in Ogunquit, so let’s revisit our visit.

Our Thursday entry into town was – surprise! – a rain-soaked endeavor, reminding us of the first few years we started coming to the Beautiful Place By the Sea, where every trip was accompanied by steady rain. This marks our 25th year of visiting Maine together, and it’s always a treat. This was the very first trip that Andy and I took as a couple. It felt right 25 years ago, and it still feels right today.

While the drive through Massachusetts was a rainy one, once we arrived in Ogunquit the sky was only spitting a bit. Heavier rain would return for our dinner at Walker’s later that night, but for the first few minutes there was a little reprieve. We made a quick walk across the street for a lunch snack, while a wind, decidedly too cool for a spring visit, danced around us. The sky threatened rain again, so we hurried back to the Inn.

We settled into our favorite room at the Scotch Hill Inn, which is a sanctuary of comfort at every time of the year and in every sort of weather condition. Coupled with the amazing breakfasts by inn-keeper Anthony, we could be happy simply staying in, and for the rainy periods that’s largely what we did – it was heaven.

While the rain allowed for guilt-free lounging, it also afforded blooms and water-accented leaves of beauty for passers-by who happened upon them.

The town was largely in full bloom – apple blossoms and iris and azaleas were all putting on a splendid show, even through the rainy weather. 

I found my way to a favored woodland walk, where wake robins were in their charming bloom – usually by the time we arrive their show has already taken place. The weather worked in our favor this time, as they were at the pinnacle of their floral magnificence. 

What we gained from the trilium, we lost in the form of very few Rosa rugosa blooms, though we managed to captured this lone white version. It had to carry all the charm of the spring in a single blossom, and it did.

We don’t take many vacations, so it takes a while to get into a vacation groove. While I pretend to be hard-wired for lounging and ease, the truth is I’m a hard-working Virgo who rarely just relaxes. That takes a while to calibrate, and I remember a former co-worker many years ago telling me that she needed two weeks for a proper vacation – because the first week was simply learning how to decompress – and I totally get it. 

It’s a little easier to more quickly find vacation bearings in Maine, where the living and eating is so good. As Friday dawned, the sky looked a little lighter…

We saved one of our favorite jaunts in Ogunquit for our last full day. Walking the Marginal Way was the first thing we did on our very first trip here all those years ago, and it was an introduction that made the most marvelous impression on me.  It never loses its majesty, and it’s never quite the same journey twice. That seems impossible for those of us who have been walking it for almost a quarter of a century, but it’s absolutely true. The ocean, the sand, the shore, the wind, the air – they are in constant undulation and motion, never appearing in exactly the same way from moment to moment. There’s magic in that, as in the way the first beach roses of the season unfurl and spark their fiery focal points of visual interest. 

Along with the aforementioned changeability of the scene, the bluets seen below (Houstonia caerulea) have switched their position as well – this year they staked out a daring perch amid the rocks closest to the sea. Usually they hide further inland, within some protected nook shaded by juniper boughs and bittersweet vines. This year they were right there in plain sight – exposed for all to see – and they looked all the more jubilant for their exposure. 

We took our time meandering along the rocky coastline, occasionally stopping to take in the view. My departed Gram is here, and now it feels like Dad is here too – a memory of watching him watch the pumpkin carvers at the Anchorage on a sunny October day by the Marginal Way haunts me in a mostly happy way. Beauty is only a bit of a balm at such times – the rest will have to come with time. 

Returning to the house, we continued a relatively new tradition – because finding new traditions twenty-four years into visiting this Beautiful Place By the Sea is one of the best reasons to keep coming back here. Afternoons when the weather is fine, and it’s too glorious to nap it all away, Andy and I would take a cup of tea or coffee onto the front porch and watch as the beachgoers returned to their lodgings, while others walked back into town. Life walked by in all its stunning variety, as ours stilled for a moment of sacred, shared togetherness. 

I ran into the front yard to grab a picture of Andy, who promptly made a funny face. 

Thus our last full day of this trip came to an amusing close.

We can’t wait to come back. 

At one point or another on every trip or vacation we take, I will often find myself alone, as is my wont (and a secret as to how Andy and I have gotten along for these twenty-four years). On this weekend, it consisted of a walk through town, and an excursion to a little woodland stretch off the beaten path where I usually miss the Trillium in bloom. This year they were holding onto their flowers, which felt like another gift after the lilacs and peonies in our room.

A bleeding heart dangled its precious pink cargo at the other end of the path – a true harbinger of summer – and I paused there to take in the day, and to accept a little bit of gratitude. No matter how rough the times in-between our trips to Ogunquit may occasionally be, in this space I have always found a place of peace. 

It wasn’t only the woods that were bursting with blooms, as this line of irises leading up to the Scotch Hill Inn proved in pungent purple fashion. Bearded irises, and their spicy scent, bring me back to summers in Suzie’s garden, where I would also wander on my own – the only kid entirely entranced by the irises and peonies and plants in the semi-secret garden of the Ko’s side yard. 

We’d already ticked more than halfway through our trip to Ogunquit, and I wanted to slow time, so I leaned into an iris bloom and inhaled a memory…

While the lilacs of Maine were in full bloom as we arrived, we were missing the first flush of peonies back at home. Refusing to completely be absent from that most magnificent moment of the garden, I picked a bouquet of blooms to keep in our guest room. After setting up on the table by the window, they provided an unexpectedly-potent source of beauty and perfume, and a new memory that mingled the perfume of a peony with the happiness of a vacation with Andy. Memories are bound most powerfully by scent and new settings, especially in spring or summer. 

Outside the window, a catbird sang us a morning song, and then joined us as we enjoyed one of Anthony’s delicious breakfasts at the Scott Hill Inn. Sharing the first meal of the day on the front porch as the sun streamed in and the promise of an afternoon at the beach presented itself would be one of the more joyous moments of our entire weekend.

Beach days are never a guarantee in Maine, particularly this early in the season, but this year we lucked out. Spending a day at the beach is a favorite escapade of Andy so we made our way to one of the best beaches in the country and set up our towels in the sand and sun. The ocean cast its typical spell, its waves gently beating a seductive rhythm of tranquility, enough to lull the most jaded or stressed among us into a state of peace and comfort. 

Returning to our home-away-from-home, Andy took a nap while I padded out to the front porch to take in more of the afternoon light and do my daily meditation. A bright yellow azalea bloomed beside the granite posts of the Bed & Breakfast sign – prettiness and sturdiness at once – and another beautiful coupling that adds to the enchantment of Ogunquit. 

I tip-toed back into our room and snuggled into bed for a little nap myself. Meanwhile, the peonies continued to bloom… 

Our very first trip to Ogunquit, Maine occurred in the late summer days of 2000 – almost twenty-four years ago. It was our first vacation anywhere together, and neither Andy nor myself knew or had an idea of how it might play out. Just three months into dating, it could have gone any number of ways, but the weather was behind us – glorious sunny days of early September – and our mutual desire for one another kept us consistently entertained in our knotty pine room. Most people can get along in those early days of dating; it’s how they fare twenty-plus years into things that is the true test of love and time. 

We made our Memorial Day weekend pilgrimage to Maine on a sunny day that soon threatened a storm, but we had some time before that quick bit of rain, and in one of those happy strokes of floral timing, the lilacs were in full bloom (a couple of weeks after ours in upstate NY had finished their show). Usually the most magical perfume is when the beach roses mingle with the sea-spray along the Marginal Way – on this trip, it was lilacs and sea salt – and it beat all the cologne bottles I brought along for the journey. 

In the quickly-closing window of time before an anticipated spell of rain, Andy and I made a short walk to have a snack and take in the sea. The instant its blue-green shade comes into view, and its intoxicating marine perfume delightfully tickles the nose, a calm invariably comes over our countenance. It’s immediate and visceral, and something that is most powerfully effected by our approximation to the sea. 

After our first trip here in September, we started returning in May – and for about a decade every single Memorial Day weekend ended up being cold and gray and rainy – and still we fell in love with Ogunquit. So on our first afternoon here this year, a little spell of rain didn’t dampen our spirits, even as we had to rush back to our bed and breakfast to stay dry. 

It was a quick spell, and would be the only bout of bad weather until our day of departure, so our meteorological fortune had finally turned. The clouds moved off for the remainder of the weekend, and after dinner at the Crooked Pine, we made another walk to the shore. 

It’s a view that never gets old, and that we never take for granted. Another spring seaside retreat had begun, and the lilacs lent their magic to the festivities…

For the first decade or so of our spring visits to Ogunquit, it invariably rained and produced dismal weather for the unofficial start of the summer season, yet for all of those rainy times we never once let it get us down. Maybe it was the giddiness of being on vacation, or the beauty that surfaced even in the subdued grays and wet leaves all around us, or the delicious food that tasted even better when it was the highlight of the day – whatever the reason, we always embraced our time in Ogunquit. 

When the downturn in weather happened three days into this year’s summer kick-off, we simply pulled out a couple of umbrellas, slipped on an extra jacket, and went about the business of relaxing. On the cozy porch of the Scotch Hill Inn, we began with a glorious breakfast, setting the deliciously-languid tone for a lazy couple of days. 

Rainy weather does not make for a comfortable walk along the Marginal Way, so the only way to get to Perkins Cove for a lunch was by car. At our ever-advancing ages, the two-mile hike wasn’t missed. We found a place that looked over the cranky ocean, tumultuously throwing one of its spring tantrums and rocking several groups of water birds and their little offspring dangerously close to the shore. When faced with such a chill and a possible dampening of spirits, a platter of fried whole belly clams is an ideal antidote. Comfort food at its most simple and sublime. 

In the way that the universe will occasionally throw us a bone, the skies lightened a little by the time we finished lunch. After driving back to the Inn, I went for a walk while Andy napped, finding this little pocket of beauty and solitude following the rain. 

Rain does lend its own beauty to things, such as these forget-me-nots cradled among some rose-hued pansies. If I wasn’t on vacation, I’d likely be too preoccupied cursing the gray skies or cruel temperatures to notice them, but here I pause at each patch of flowers along my path, culminating at a stand of beach roses beside the outlet of the Ogunquit River.

The sun was still valiantly attempting to show itself before we departed (it always does so on our last morning in town – always) but on this afternoon it didn’t make much progress, and that evening’s dinner at Walker’s looked to be a fall-like affair. A June night that recalls the air of October is not something to be celebrated, yet our first experience at this restaurant was one of those happy twists of fate that worked out perfectly.

A roaring fire heated the main dining room, while a line of wood-fired ovens emanated more lovely heat. It was the coziest restaurant we’d been in for quite some time, and its warmth was the ideal setting for a chilly night. The food was as lovely as the atmosphere, and the service was even lovelier. (I’d remarked how much I liked the soap they used in the bathroom and our server managed to sneak a container of it to us at the end of the meal). We wished they had been open the next day as we would have made an unprecedented return to try them again (the menu was filled with too many options to test in a single sitting). 

It was a new restaurant for us, a happy surprise that rescued a rainy day, and the perfect ending to a spring trip that felt more like a tease than a promise fulfilled. That might be what fall is for, when Walker’s may be the newest jewel in Ogunquit’s culinary crown. That is how we will close this pair of vacation posts – with the idea of a fall return – ending on a note of cozy warmth to greet the summer yet to come.