Beauty as Well as Bread...

We spent most of last week visiting the Coast of Maine, staying at Goose Rocks Beach near Kennebunkport. What a refreshing time! The weather was perfect, the air so fresh, and the views spectacular. Two mornings we drove to Ogunquit to walk the mile-long Marginal Way. The view above is of Ogunquit River and the Atlantic taken from the foot path.

There are overlook benches and markers along the Marginal Way, and I was taken by the above placque with this quote from naturalist and preservationist John Muir. "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike." How true! And this is certainly one place that checks all the boxes on that list.

At the end of the Marginal Way is the small fishing and shopping area known as Perkins Cove. Here's the view from the footbridge that crosses the waterway. Passersby sometimes have to raise and lower the bridge for a boat to travel through. Jack was called on to render this service on our visit. He's done it in the past, too, and we like to entertain ourselves with fake newspaper headlines like "Tourist Causes Traffic Jam for Perkins Cove Boaters" or "Florida Man Falls from Footbridge While Operating Lift". We are easily amused.

Our rental cottage had a picnic table in the backyard which overlooked this marsh, part of the Wildlife Refuge. We saw lots of bird activity, and welcomed the peacefulness, while we also enjoyed our lobster dinners.

One of our favorite places to eat is the Cape Neddick Lobster Pound which serves the best lobster rolls on the open-air deck.

And every night we drove into Kennebunkport to stroll around, shop, have some ice cream, and admire the beautiful flowers and inviting courtyard gardens.

One evening some rain fell, but we were rewarded with a rainbow at the end of the brief shower. Of course we visited the local quilt shop, Knight's Quilt Shop in the Cape Neddick area. That's the day we also visited the iconic Nubble Lighthouse near York Beach. We returned to Florida a day earlier than originally planned, but we packed a lot in the time we had. Lovely, lovely! And good to be home.

Just before our trip I listened to the recorded book titled "Maine", currently on some bestseller lists. I enjoyed the narrator's New England accent, the storyline of family dynamics, plus the mentions of the many landmarks we've become familiar with over the years of vacationing in the area.