forty-fifth parallel

After being ridiculed by the border guard entering back into the US (He asked, “Do you have anything to declare?” We said, “Yes, two t-shirts.” Him, guffawing: “Big spenders, eh?”), we pulled into the house where Dan spent his early childhood in Perry, Maine— “halfway between the equator and the north pole!”—around dinnertime. We had picked up some groceries on the way, planning to be self-sufficient for a few days, and Dan made pizza for dinner while I happily worked on a few beers and enjoyed the gorgeous sunset.

Friday morning brought thunderstorms, and we couldn’t have been happier since rain meant no gnawing guilt about spending the day lazing around the house reading books, playing the occasional game of pool, and sorting through pictures on the laptop.

In the late afternoon, we ventured out to buy a couple of lobsters for dinner and then came right back to our books. Even though the summer lobsters should be softshell, these guys were tough! It took all my strength to crack the tail, as evidenced below. (We also accidentally tortured the lobsters before killing them.... Even though we put them in the fridge first to put them to sleep, and put them in the boiling water headfirst, the little buggers fought like mad, and Dan actually had to hold the lid down to keep them from escaping… oops.)

On Saturday, the weather was marginally better, so we took a walk down to Gleason’s Cove and spent some time reading outside. In the afternoon, we took a drive into Eastport—“the easternmost city in the US!”—and walked around the downtown, browsing in an antique shop or two. I had made lobster stock the night before with the leftover lobster shells and so for dinner put together a lobster and corn chowder.

Although Perry wasn’t in our original vacation plan, I was thrilled that because of twist of weather-fate, we got to spend a few days at the house. It was like tacking on a long weekend to an already great vacation. Plus, it had been years since I had been able to get up to Perry, and, like our Vineyard house, it’s one of those places that just feels like vacation to me the minute you pull into the driveway. I hope we can find time to get up there again soon!

(ok, I promise that's the end of the vacation blabbering!)