Dear Reader,
There’s an old New England joke that Doug likes to tell me. It goes like this.
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A tourist pulls up to a Maine gas station, looking for directions.
An old, crusty Maine Down Easter (watch Bert and I to learn more) walks out of the building.
The man approaches the tourist’s fancy car and asks, “Can I help you?” The tourist gestures to the map on his lap and asks, “Can you tell me how to get to Bangor from here?”
The Mainer takes his time, lights his pipe, and then says …
“You can’t get there from here.”
Frustrated, the tourist looks at him in disbelief, gestures to the road in front of them, and says,
“Well, can you tell me where this road goes?”
The Mainer looks at him straight in the face and says with the perfect ironic accent,
“Don’t go nowhere, stays right here.”
I love that joke so much.
Once, when we lived in Livingston, Montana, a confused tourist stopped us to ask for directions to Yellowstone National Park while we were walking on the 9th street island. The 9th street island is in the middle of the Yellowstone River.
‘‘Can you tell me how to get to Yellowstone National Park from here?” she asked.
We paused. I looked at Doug. He looked at me. We were both so tempted.
So when I walked into the Maine tourism information center on Saturday, I was thinking about that joke, because I was about to ask for directions.
The two tourism counselors working the desk looked up with excited faces. I was the only one in the building. Someone to talk to!
“Can we help you?” the woman asked, wearing a gray fleece vest, and a warm smile.
“Well,” I said, “A friend (that would be Amy, from Love from Portugal) told me that I should walk the Marginal Way at Ogunquit. I’m looking for directions on where to start the walk?”
Oh boy, did that start a twenty-minute conversation! Out came the area fun map, a red Sharpie marker, a notepad, the computer, and an entirely new plan.
“GPS will not take you the right way,” the tourism counselor instructed me as she drew red arrows on the map. “So don’t use it. You’ll need to follow this map.”
She drew a path with a red sharpie on one side of the fun map to York, Maine, just south of Ogunquit, where she recommended we drive the seacoast north.
That’s when the other tourism counselor whipped out a magazine with a photo of the Nubble Lighthouse.
“You should stop here on your way,” he said, pointing down at the lighthouse. “Also, do you like something funny? You would really enjoy the piano bar in Ogunquit. Everyone sings along.”
By the time I got back to the car, I had a restaurant with gluten-free selections picked out for dinner, entertainment ideas, and directions.
Doug looked at me quizzically as I walked up, “That took a while. What happened?”
“I have a new map,” I said, handing him the fun map and a series of unintelligible directions written with the red sharpie on a piece of a paper.
“Guess what? You’re navigating!”
By the time he had deciphered the word “building” that I wrote in poor cursive we were already to the next step, “turn left at the stop sign.”
We followed Route 1 north until we reached York and turned onto the Shore Road, driving slowly to take in the historic houses, and get glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Stop!” Doug said when he saw a beach coming up. “I want to get out.”
I didn’t object (even though this technically wasn’t part of the plan - okay, my plan). I was thrilled to see the ocean again, and it wasn’t lost on me that we would be crossing this ocean soon to get to Portugal.
So I pulled over to park at Long Sands Beach in York, and we hopped out. Not many people.
The beauty of traveling off-season to a popular place is that even on a warmish day for November standards, even on a Saturday afternoon, you don’t have to worry about crowds.
You just have to remember to take it all in.
We walked the beach from end to end, about 2.5 miles in total, marveling at the waves, the dogs on the beach catching balls thrown high in the air by their owners, and the beauty of the sand.
By the time we finished, I wasn’t sure we’d have time to walk the Marginal Way before the sunset (we didn’t), but I was determined to see the Nubble Light.
“Just don’t ask me to climb to the top,” Doug said. “I don’t think I have it in me after that hike yesterday.”
“I won’t,” I promised, but not really meaning the promise. Of course we were climbing out to the top!
We drove out to the edge of the coast where the lighthouse was perched on a “nub” of land (hence the name), and walked from our car to the edge of the parking lot, where I thought there was going to be a walkway or something that would bring us to the lighthouse proper to explore.
Nope.
We stared in amusement at the small bit of ocean that separated us from the lighthouse, and took turns taking photographs.
Finally, I turned to Doug and said, “Well, turns out you CAN’T get there from here!” Let’s hope we can get to Portugal from here.
Love, Janelle
P.S. Many thanks to Amy for recommending the Ogunquit Marginal Way. Even though we actually ran out of daylight, and went for lobster stew instead, it ended up being a marvelous day in Maine because she mentioned going there! Thank you Amy!
P.P.S. If you want to hear some more classic New England jokes, listen to the audio recording of this article. You can listen to it right in the newsletter, or go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. Please do!
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