Adventures In & Around Camden, Maine

The only thing that is constant in life is change.

We're inching toward the first day of autumn, only twenty days away and yet in Maine only the merest hint of the leaves changing color. In the week we spent there we saw pine forests, lakes, blue skies, seaside coves, lighthouses, apple trees, white clapboard houses, sunflowers and zinnias.

Wiscasset

Maine -- if you're not familiar with its charms -- is impossibly beautiful. The distances are long. There are great treks between towns marked only by a few tourist road signs pointing out a pottery works or a blueberry jam stop. The blueberries are abundant. You see them on the side of the road -- 3 quarts for $12. Mainers are obsessed with blueberries. There is no choice but to try the blueberry pancakes in the blueberry season and although I'm not a great fan of cooked blueberries (I find them a little bland) the blueberry pancakes at Marriner's in Camden were fantastic. There are blueberries and then there are lobsters. Lobsters in Maine are cheaper than chicken in California. By this time of the year the locals are a little sick of lobster, but in the four days I spent on my own while my youngest child was on a surfing fieldtrip with her Bates classmates, I made it my mission to find the best lobster roll in Maine. Here is my discovery: the best lobster roll (and the cheapest) is at Owl's Head General Store, a tiny little place off the beaten track. So that's breakfast and lunch. Supper was eaten three nights in a row at Shepherd's Pie in Rockport, Chef Brian Hill's award-winning (but most reasonably priced little gastro-pub). The grill-roasted oysters with chimmichurri were sublime.

The town itself is full of white-spired churches, white picket fences, an abundance of flowers, cute little boutiques and a harbor full of enormous ocean-going yachts. I expected Jessica Fletcher to pop up at any minute in her busy way.

My favorite beach close to the town was Ducktrap Beach, which is where you will find the best sea glass.  I parked myself under a tree on two large rocks and read Persuasion in my bikini, completely alone and listening to the wind.

reading on Ducktrap Beach