For those of you still planning your summer vacation, I very enthusiastically recommend that you give Ogunquit a shot - I honestly think it's just the most perfect summer town ever, and has something for everyone (carnivals, antiquing, gorgeous beaches, great food, fishing, et cetera). It's pretty busy on summer weekends, but if you can steal away during the week you'll find better prices on hotel rooms and shorter lines at restaurants.
A few of my favorite area must-dos:
A blueberry pie from Pie In The Sky (just ate a piece for breakfast)...
And this thing (a present from Kendrick that I think is a wine glass and is obviously amazing).
Ogunquit Trip from Jordan Reid on Vimeo.
Little pieces of the last few days...
My view in the mornings.
Indulge me for more post and we'll move on...swear. (Can you tell I love this town?)
- "Allow" your husband to beat you (sigh) at mini golf or try your hand at Skee-Ball at Wonder Mountain (in neighboring Wells)
For my birthday, Kendrick decided to surprise me with a weekend in Ogunquit - where I spent time every summer as a little girl, and where we got married two summers ago.
That time we went to Maine and got married.
A little over ten years ago today, Kendrick and I - and his best man, Matt - arrived in Ogunquit, Maine, and checked into our respective hotel rooms. The rest of our family and friends weren't set to start trickling in for a couple of hours more, so we decided to wander down to the main part of town and get some lunch, maybe check out the beach.
We wandered into a little jewelry shop - a touristy gift place, full of t-shirts and hats with GONE FISHING and IT'S BEER O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE and such on them. I spotted this necklace - a gold starfish studded with tiny crystals - and I loved it so much, but when I say that we were broke after paying all of the wedding expenses, I mean we were let's-not-get-coffee-at-the-deli-today-because-it-costs-a-dollar-style broke. The necklace was only twelve dollars, but still. That was twelve coffees.
There are some places in the world that hold your memories as if they were people. A few of mine: the Wiccan shop that used to be in a basement storefront on West 81st Street, where a woman with long red hair and her HIV-positive best friend sold me candles and helped me figure out how to survive being a teenager. A terrible dive bar in the Valley called The Green Frog, where I learned to play darts and that I should never drink Jack Daniels. The entire town of Ogunquit, Maine, where I hunted for hermit crabs on the rocks at five, ate Strawberry Shortcake and lobster rolls on rickety wooden patios at fifteen, and then walked down a flower-lined aisle buzzing with mosquitoes (one of which was busy investigating my right eyelid) towards my husband at twenty-seven.
And the Cayman Islands; maybe there most of all.
It's the places where we vacation when we're kids that always get us through the heart, isn't it? I wish I had some wise thoughts that might explain why, but the best I can come up with is that our vacations let us be our purest selves at whatever age we're at, while still giving us permission to dip our toes into what came before and what's still to come. We get to hold on to our childhoods by playing in the sand just a little bit longer, and also get to have our first kisses just a little bit too soon. We get to play miniature golf with our parents, and hug them back when they hug us even though we think we're supposed to be too old for hugs - because really, who's watching?
