Well we just returned, sunburned and weary, from a great camping trip in Ogunquit Maine. We stayed at our usual campsite, Pinderosa, and were surprised to find it packed to the gills. With there only being 2 bathrooms with 3 showers each and hundreds of campers, we were a bit concerned! But things worked out fine.

Our first day there, we realized that we forgot the following things: 1. An axe to cut firewood. 2. Paper plates to eat on 3. A sleeping bag (!). But we managed.

We lucked out with beautiful (but HOT!!) weather every day. Our first full day there it was so hot we decided to head to Water Country, a water park in NH, not more than 30 minutes from our camp. We were happy to get soaked while spiraling down “The Black Hole” and tubing it down the lazy river. It seemed like everyone and his brother had the same idea that day, so waiting in LINE to get wet wasn’t fun. But it was worth it once you got that splash of cool water! While waiting in line, we noticed how many people get bad tattoos. To each their own, but the “butterfly/tribal design on your back” is very overrated, and the “dream catcher with a tiger in it” is a little too much. And not everything with eagle claws around it looks cool. But tats are tats and we shouldn’t judge, really.

Our second day we headed to Drake’s Island, a small beach in Wells, Maine. We were happy to spend that day in the 90 degree heat with the cool ocean breeze surrounding us. The breeze can be deceiving, however; we thought we were meticulous with the sunscreen but when you’re not sweltering you forget how much sun exposure you really get. Hello, major sunburn!

Day 3 was spent at the outlet stores in Kittery Maine, because we wanted to nurse our sunburns and stay out of the sun, but it was too hot to do anything else!

Every night at dusk we headed over to Footbrige beach and took a nice long, romantic shorewalk into downtown Ogunquit for “Kathy dinner” (ice cream, of course). Downtown Ogunquit is charming with nice little shops and cafes. Overall the atmosphere is very small town and friendly.

A good 90 percent of the campers at our campground were from Quebec. Everyone was extremely nice and polite, yay Canadians! It was also nice to hear nearly everyone speaking French. It felt like a European vacation. In the evening, we’d see many families sitting down to a nice dinner via campfire light, with glasses of wine and cheerful conversation. It was such an amiable atmosphere. One night while we were on the beach, a nice French Canadian man saw that we were trying to take a picture of us, and without being asked he ran over to our rescue and made sure he took one just right. He only spoke French but seemed pleased when I told him he was ” tres gentile”. It seems that at least in one country, politeness hasn’t gone out of style.

We had some good eats while we were in Maine (sorry, no lobster for us). Breakfast was our usual meal out as it was an easy vegetarian bet. We had decent veggie benedict at the Maine Diner, yummy french toast at Nancy’s kitchen, mediocre omelettes at The Egg and I (not worth the wait in line!), and fabulous lemon bread french toast at the Amore cafe, complete with fresh blackberries and blueberries. They even gave you coffee while you waited in line, allright!

Most days we ate a late lunch back at the campsite. Our favorite new thing to eat is corn on the cob, grilled with the husks intact, then covered with basil chevre. Beats a pat of butter any day! We stocked our cooler with plenty of ice cold Coronas and sliced lime, which was the perfect thing on a hot day. We ate jiffy pop and s’mores, camping traditions; and some not-so traditional eats such as grilled frozen stuffed pretzels (they were good!).

Dinners usually consisted of ice cream in some form, usually a frozen yogurt on our nightly beach walks. One night we ate at a little ice cream place called “Sundaes at the Beach”, which made their own ice cream and had a make-your-own-sundae bar. Yum!

It was a nice little break from the usual grind, a time to unplug and unwind and have no outside distractions like phone or email to weigh you down. We had fun just hanging around reading books (note to self : “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaleid Hosseini is an excellent book. WAY too sad, however, for a vacation read!). I beat Chris at rummy most nights but he was a good sport, AND he taught me how to play poker! He also defended us from the possibility of scary bears.

As much as we miss the smell of citronella and fire, the feel of the ocean breeze and the taste of smores, it is kinda nice to be home. Especially to be able to go to the bathroom at night without taking a flashlight with you and walking 1/2 mile!
Photos located on the next page