A Much Needed Break

You guys know we pretty much were in reno hell since June last year.  We thought maybe we'd get a nice break for the Mr's 50th birthday in Traverse City but the day after (or half the vacation) we both got sick (not Covid- we tested) from the mold in the waterfront house.  So that wasn't quite what we needed.  As soon as we got back, it was back into the reno and having our vacation countdown clock turn into a 'loomsday' clock and  finishing up only days before leaving for our holiday trip to Vermont.  That trip was going to be the mental respite we needed to recharge from the months of reno failures and pivots.  Instead what we got was a storm warning going into the trip knowing we had two days of having actual fun before needing to get supplies to hunker down then being without power over the days leading into Christmas to then rush to get everything made and then our time in Stowe was over.  We never got the rest and chill time we needed so what's the best way to recover from that?  Dive into the experimental drywall project that may or may not be worth it (it wasn't) only to finish up a few days before our planned trip to Maine.  I say planned like I ever actually planned ANYTHING.  I didn't.  At all.  That's never good.  

Before we even left, things were not looking good.  About 4-5 weeks before we left, the Mr was having horrible SI joint pain and was a hobblemeister.  A week before we left, it started in on me.  It got to the point for 2-3 days I could barely put weight on my left leg.  I tried doing the PT he was doing for his and it was excruciating.  I did it in the morning and at night in bed praying it would do a little strengthening.  By the time we left, I was at least able to bear weight but knew sitting in a car for 8 hours to get to our halfway point house was going to inflame things.  I was just looking forward to having some down time in NY and resting.  The day before we left, I street viewed the place and saw something that did not sit well.  What we thought was the neighbor had two large, rusted out city or hauling trucks in the driveway.  😖

There was nothing we could do about it so I didn't bother to alert the Mr.  (Turns out he saw the same thing and didn't want to alert me and set off my gripe alarm.)  When we pulled up, we were greeted with the visual equivalent of the Sanford and Son theme.  (Click here before scrolling down to get the full effect)

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Hmm, that wasn't in the VRBO pics.  As the Mr was backing the car in, I went to open the door into the house from the garage.  The steps are from the 50's with a shallow step and huge lip I didn't see until my shoe got caught on it and I fell forward.  Shins meet concrete.  Well, shins, left knee, wrist and shoulder so I didn't smash my face into the concrete.  (I guess the bright side is I still have reflexes?)  As the Mr got out, I told him I fell and my shins were on FIRE.  I thought for sure there would be blood but I didn't see any and I was too scared to look.  Just the jeans laying against my skin was like a cheese grater.  I pulled them up and the Mr didn't see anything, just red but I needed to get my legs up and on ice.  My wrist wasn't as lucky.

Those were my NY souvenirs for the entirety of our trip which went through the stages of a lovely plum, lavender and finally yellowish brown at the end; looking like I got firmly beaten about every inch of my body.  The only one you could see was the wrist one which was a lovely 6" navel orange size a few days later.  I immediately told the Mr after it happened "in 10 years, this would take me like 2 months to heal from."  So I guess I'll take the less than a month heal time.  

We stayed at a place in Kennebunkport Maine for two weeks.  We just needed a place where we could kick back, relax and there was no pressure to cram in a lot of sightseeing because we'd been there before.  It was close to town and a mile from the beach so we could walk to both which we did several times.  The first week was our dream week.  Rainy, windy and abandoned from tourists.  No one likes to be out and about in the rain for some reason so that is when we strike.  We did our most walking during that week.  The second week, unfortunately the blazing sun was out to set our skin on fire and bring people out from under their rocks.  Too hot to walk comfortably longer than a mile to Dock Square.  It was nice just taking a break from reno and not having to wear any earplugs because of jerk ass neighbors as I slept.  

Day one was an unexpected nice day though as the rain that was forecasted didn't happen but the howling winds were in full effect.  We got our first lobster roll from Mabel's and took it up to Walker's Point (where the Bush compound is) and watched the ocean look dark and mean.  When we got back, we kicked our feet up and had a visit from a woodland friend.

The next day it was time to do a little antiquing.  Wells has some great antique shops all huddled into one spot so we went there first.  We said hi to a puppy friend on our way into one that benefits the humane society.  There was another one that I was sad to find out later in the week would be closing for good at the end of June.  It was nice to poke around but I didn't find anything I needed.

Next was to Kennebunk to this super cool salvage place called Old House Parts.  We love poking through salvage places because there's always such cool old architectural stuff.  It's always way out of a price range I'm typically willing to pay but still fun to see what they have and be startled by some of their displays.

Highly recommend a stop there if you ever find yourself in lower Maine.  

We grabbed some goodies like a Nutella latte and croissants from Mornings in Paris on our way to Gooch's Beach.  It was a windy, cloudy morning perfect for walking.  We passed a nice little fairy door in a tree on the way and when we got to the beach it was approaching high tide so there wasn't much beach to stand on.  A feathered friend stayed close by as if to say "you gonna eat that?"

We took a drive up to Freeport/Brunswick which is where we stayed in 2018.  We visited the LL Bean flagship and home stores, walked around town in the rain which was awesome at keeping people away, went antiquing in Cabot Mill Antiques which is a must stop if in the area as is Gelato Fiasco.

Our 27th anniversary was super low key.  We started off the day with Congdon's donuts because they are by far the best donuts we've ever had coast to coast.  To walk a few off, we walked to Dock Square just taking in the surroundings and enjoying being outside in nice 60-some degree weather which is my spirit temperature.

We got several road trips in while we were there too.  We went to Laconia NH to visit the Mr's nirvana... Funspot.  They have hundreds of old school arcade games on the top floor playing 80's music and we got $20 worth of tokens to split and spent 2 1/2 hours there playing our childhood faves.

We also drove 90 minutes to Rockport MA which was the latter part of our 25th anniversary trip two years ago.  It was nice to visit an antique shop we liked in Essex Junction as well as watch the lobsterman load up the trawler to go out and set their traps.

We considered road tripping to Acadia National Park but it was at least 7 hours driving round trip and that was two days before we were starting the road home.  We've seen it twice and it wasn't really appealing to either of us so we skipped it.  The masses started rolling in for Mother's Day the day before we left so we were glad to be getting out of dodge.  I will tell you one thing, I had seafood no less than 8x on that trip and it all sucked except for the chipotle lobster roll and the seafood risotto which was in a cream sauce.  I don't know how you're Maine and have crappy cooks to insult your biggest export.  Sigh.  Maine was the first place I had a Connecticut roll which is warm lobster with butter.  We both know we had it and we couldn't find it, even at the place we got it from, because they do them cold with hot butter which is gross.  Oy.  A culinary home run, it was not.

We started the journey back and just before we left I booked the only decent house I could find at the halfway point a few days before we drove to Maine.  It seemed fine and was only for one night.  We arrived at 8:15pm after 3 additional hours being added to our original drive time and were exhausted.  Well, when we walked in it smelled like old people.  Like I'm pretty sure the owners parent passed there because it had that smell to it.  It was also hot AF in there for a place that listed AC (our MAIN requirement for booking.)  We saw window units in the closets.  I was SO pissed and emailed the host asking where the controls for the AC were because we couldn't find them and it was too hot to sleep upstairs.  (Knowing full well they didn't have central air at this point.)  He wrote back an hour later and said it was forecasted to be cooler- sorry.  Use the fan in the garage.  Oh, you mean the garage that smells like gasoline and that if I lit a candle we'd rocket to the moon??  I wrote back and included a screen shot of the A/C listed as an amenity and said that was disappointing as that is the only requirement for rental's for us and he should list they are window units and are installed during certain months so people can decide if they're okay with that.  I attempted to go to bed downstairs on the couch after opening all of the windows in the house but got no sleep.  In the morning, I woke to an email saying he would refund the night and would make sure he had the AC installed by May from that point forward.  I told him unfortunately for hot sleepers every season is AC season so we appreciated the almost full refund.  (VRBO obviously still kept their share and he still got his cleaning fee so we didn't get all of it back and honestly, it wasn't worth those fees either.)

We got on the road and I can highly recommend Dave Grohl's The Storyteller audiobook.  We listened to it on our travel days back home and there's just nothing like listening to him telling the stories over reading it in a book.  So that made time go a little quicker.  We had a nice, relaxing vacation mixed with  little adventures and it was a much needed break.

Have you ever been to Maine?

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