Living in Newburyport, summers always bring tourists and fried food stands, and local business flourishes. Although not as populated in the winter months, shops and restaurants remain open year-round. Newburyport is a charming seaside town, but it’s nice to visit other places in New England; so I drove to Maine with my mom, stopping in York and Ogunquit. I’ve gone to Maine plenty of times in summers past, and these small towns are usually bustling with tourists and smell of lobster and sun block. This time, however, both were nearly deserted, except for the occasional pick-up truck and a group of surfers braving the freezing water.
In York, I was looking forward to some peppermint taffy from the Goldenrod, a small candy shop with a soda counter, that is, admittedly, a tourist trap, but they do have the best taffy around. Like every other storefront, they were boarded up for the winter. York, unlike Newburyport, is a town that only lives and exists for summer vacation, as do I, and has no winter appeal. Before my family moved to Newburyport, we would drive up from Boston to go to the beach in Maine, watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, or wander through York’s Wild Kingdom (which looks pretty dull in February). I have a lot of good summer memories in Southern Maine, and it was a little depressing to see a favorite childhood spot, usually bustling with activity, look so desolate.
We drove over to Nubble Lighthouse, where I almost killed myself sliding down snow and ice covered rocks and definitely annoyed some couples enjoying the frigid and apparently romantic breeze. The visitor center/bathroom was locked, as was the lobster restaurant nearby, which didn’t open until noon. After taking some pictures, we continued to Ogunquit, hoping to find an open restaurant, or at least some sign of human life. My wish for lunch came in the form of a small restaurant offering brunch (on a Saturday! Who knew?), and I had the best waffle of my life.
It was actually nice to spend the day with my mom; she’s been busy working and taking care of my grandparents, and I feel like I don’t have five minutes to myself between school, and work, and babysitting, and piano lessons, and clubs. Usually mother-daughter bonding trips include both me and my younger sister, Diana, so spending a day alone with my mother was very restful and quiet.
It was a good opportunity to talk, though the main topic of conversation was school, which is one of my least favorite things to talk about, and college. I like talking about college because I can’t wait to go, hopefully out of state, and my mother usually isn’t as thrilled as I am because she thinks that if I leave, I won’t come back. Though partially true, I always promise her that I will come home for the holidays. My mom decided it was time to head back, so we did, and I obligingly stopped at every secondhand store we passed just in case they had something she’d been looking for. She didn’t buy anything. At her excitement, we stopped at Stonewall Kitchen on our way through Kittery, which smelled of clam chowder and was overflowing with overpriced merchandise. We bought a bottle of peanut sauce, took some recipe cards, and left.
Although Maine has a summertime charm that can’t be found anywhere else, York and Ogunquit are alive only in the summer months, when ice cream is a necessity and green heads are abundant. It was actually reassuring to know that in a few months, the warmth of summer will breathe life back into these seaside towns, that they will not remain snow-covered and gray.
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