A week in Peaks Island, Maine

What a wonderful time we just had up at Peaks Island in Maine! We rented a house on the island with the folks, and had people pop in and spend time with us throughout the week.

John and I started our journey on the Friday evening of 25th August - we wanted to hold off until most of the weekend traffic had left the city before we ventured out (of course, DC people tend to start fleeing the city by about 2pm!). By 7.30pm, we thought it was safe - the car was packed to capacity with everything but the kitchen sink.

We hit traffic almost as soon as we left our street, but then it thinned out the further north we drove and the later it got -- we made it as far as Edison, New Jersey, before we called it a day (about a 4 hour drive). We stayed in a hotel that murder/mystery authors write about - there's always something slightly dingy, dark, and sleazy about staying at a hotel off a motorway! Especially when one turns up at midnight......actually, it wasn't that bad, although the walls were paper-thin and we had a very loud couple next to us - a woman with a really high, squeaky voice that could pierce through metal, and she talked incessantly from about 12am-3am, until John got up and yelled at her to shut the heck up....luckily that worked!

We got a nice early start in the morning (couldn't get out of the hotel quick enough!), and after breezing through NYC and Hartford, we made into Massachusetts by mid-morning, and were house-hunting in Concord, MA by 11.30am. We saw some great places -- driving around and getting a feel for it again (4th visit) has really re-affirmed our decision to look for a house here.

We then wandered over to Andover and Winchester and did the same; by 3.00pm we were exhausted, so we headed into Boston, where we were staying at the newly-opened Westin Waterfront hotel - a far cry from the one in Edison. NJ!! We really pampered ourselves that evening, not only staying in a nice hotel, but having dinner at Anthony's on Pier 4, a Boston landmark which has been around for ages and has wonderful views of the harbour/city. We both had lobster (of course!), which was positively yummy, before heading back to the hotel and enjoying our lovely room with a view.

We headed out of Boston in the morning, stopping in York, Maine to do a bit of food shopping before meeting the folks at the ferry in Portland - they had just as much stuff as we did! We loaded it all into the car and got onto the ferry for the lovely little 20 minute trip across the harbour to Peaks Island. It always feels so far away when you get on a boat!

The house we rented was on the back of the island, more secluded (which was a mixed blessing as I'll write about in a minute!), and it was truly gorgeous. It was not your every day rustic cabin or cottage, but a modern place, with huge open-plan rooms and loads of windows to enjoy the spectacular views of the ocean.

On an island with limited connectivity, it really was easy to wile the days away reading, sewing, walking around the island, and generally sitting and watching the beautiful sea.

The inability to use technology (mobile phone, wireless connection, etc) was a bit of an issue, as both John and I were working during the week - we had to laugh that every time I needed to make a conference call, I had to hop into the car and head down to the tennis courts in town, as that was the only place with a cell phone signal! And that if I needed a wireless connection, I had to hang outside the public library and use theirs!! Still, even with those minor inconveniences, I'd rather no connection in a place like that - it's not meant to be a hub of technology, it's a place to get away from all that!

While we were there during the week, we had numerous visitors and people staying with us, which was just lovely. It was great seeing everyone and spending time playing Scrabble, eating lobster rolls, and walking along the rocky shore. The weather was kind to us as well, which is always nice when you're on holiday!

This is the view from our porch - a stone's throw away from the ocean. We went swimming one day, which was numbingly cold!

When it came time to leave on Sunday, I hated to go; I really had switched off and was not ready to get back into the 'real world' just yet -- I guess that's the sign of a good vacation!