Author: Rae

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Travels Without Miranda, #9: Ogunquit, Maine

I like traveling solo. There are no compromises to make and you get all the alone time you want.

But I discovered during a long weekend in Ogunquit, Maine, that there are advantages to traveling with a like-minded friend. You can make memories together, share in the driving, and help each other if one gets hurt. Our weekend might have required some compromising over pizza toppings and restaurants, but I still got to run on the beach and read on the b&b porch by myself, and we can both laugh at our shared memories of getting soaked a few hours upon arrival. And let’s not forget the calamari, one those moments for which ‘you just had to be there.’

Ogunquit, ‘beautiful place by the sea’, is a picture-perfect resort town. The beach is endless, the seafood fresh, and the shops quaint. It was my first time in twelve years breathing in sea air and I reveled in it.

downtown Ogunquit

downtown Ogunquit

The weekend didn’t go entirely as planned as the friend who had invited me ended up spraining her ankle and lost an afternoon to recuperation. Once I’d done all the first aid I could, I took off in her car to do some antiquing.

The next day we went for a drive to the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse, just west of Portland. I could not believe the view around the cape, all black rock and turquoise ocean and wispy cloud sky, contrasting with the concrete remains of the Fort Williams battlement and the emerald green grounds.

Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse

Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse

That evening, we walked Ogunquit’s Marginal Way, a paved mile-long seaside walkway, from the neighbourhood of Perkin’s Cove to downtown.

Walkers on Marginal Way

Walkers on Marginal Way

On our way home the next day, we stopped for dinner at a chain restaurant my friend had been to and loved called ‘Weathervanes.’ Then followed the funniest moment of the whole trip. The calamari I’d ordered were… strange. Oh, they were yummy–very sweet and not rubbery at all. But they weren’t the rings that I was accustomed to eating in Ottawa. Instead, it looked like I had a plate of… legs. I picked one up near the bottom of the plate and found myself holding a small whole battered squid. It was the most revolting thing I’d ever seen in my life. According to my friend, my expression reflected this thought. But it was her next expression that will remain engraved in my head forever, when I shrugged off the disgust, yanked a couple of legs from the squid, and happily ate them. An hour later, she still couldn’t get over the fact that I’d eaten it! I’m still laughing as I write this… and drooling. Yup, I definitely like squid. And I don’t eat beef?!

I think my friend enjoyed sharing this town and area she loves so much while I enjoyed being able to tag along.

It can be nice to travel with friends, something I rediscovered when another friend suggested we go to Seattle for a day.

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The Night Is Young…

And it is cold.

I’m pretty sure that it’s not quite as cold as it was in Prince George in October, but I’ve got the electric heat running, so that could skew my numbers a tad. Like that night, the furnace is no luxury!

The forecast has worsened, not improved, with the low tonight dipping to minus nine. We are approaching scary number territory! If that happens, I will, of course, move to the house; no sense being super uncomfortable for nothing. But so long as we don’t hit minus eleven, I prefer to bundle up and sleep in my own bed.

I actually pulled out my long winter coat, something I didn’t do last year. The wind coming in from the ocean can be quite brutal at times, so I’ll appreciate being covered down to my ankles with a warm coat and having a (faux) fur-lined hood for my five minute walk to work.

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Travels Without Miranda, #8: Tybee Island, Georgia

I finally made it to Savannah in the spring of 2008, six months before I left Ottawa with Miranda. This harried road trip featuring bad motels and restaurant food convinced me that there had to be a better way to travel.

After spending a sticky day exploring Savannah’s historic district, I decided that the next day should be spent visiting the environs, my expedition culminating at Tybee Island, Savannah’s ocean playground.

It was the first week of April and still bitter cold back home, but on Tybee the sun was shining and it was hot. The Atlantic ocean beckoned me and I heeded its call, wading in carefully, then plunging in head first when I discovered, to my delight, that the water was warm!

Tybee Island lighthouse

Tybee Island lighthouse

view of Tybee beach from the top of the lighthouse

view of Tybee beach from the top of the lighthouse

Swimming opened up my appetite and I went off in search of lunch, finding it at a shack-type restaurant right on the beach called the North Beach Grill. I decided to take a chance on it since it was packed. It was a fantastic experience; a cruddy little restaurant open to sea breezes, salt shakers rusty from the sea air, rum flowing liberally, and Caribbean-style music booming from speakers. I ordered ‘grilled shrimp’ which was nothing like what I expected. I got whole shrimp, still in the shell with the legs on ’em, swimming in a cajunny-style sauce with a helping of freshly cut fries. It was one of the most undignified, delicious, and fun meals of my life. It took forever to peel those suckers using my fingers! It was there that I realised that coastal Georgia is a world unto itself where sweet tea runs freely, huge mountains of sweet shrimp big as a thumb cost less than a burger, and the people know how to take the time to breathe and enjoy a moment. It’s not paradise, but came pretty close to that for a sun and warmth-starved gal who had just fled winter!

That day in the water reminded me that when I am drained, water can renew me. I remembered this my first day in Edmonton.

(As a side note, that night I received an email that changed my life forever. But that’s another story, part of which you read whenever you visit this blog.)

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Travels Without Miranda, #7: Chicago’s Navy Pier, Illinois

Chicago is one of my favourite cities. It is vibrant, clean, friendly, and approachable. I’ve been there twice, spending a week in 1999 and stopping over on my Great Lakes adventure in 2005 to return to Navy Pier. I also went through O’Hare on my way to Colorado in 1996, but I’m not sure that counts. 🙂

Until I visited Chicago in 1999 I considered myself to be a country gal with little use for cities, finding them to be ugly. Vacations were meant to be spent in aesthetically pleasing places; I had only come to Chicago to visit a friend, otherwise I would have spent my travel dollars on a great camping excursion instead.

My week in Chicago changed my opinion of cities in general and Americans specifically. Until Chicago, I thought all American cities were like filthy New York City and all Americans like its rude residents. I still had a lot to learn about not making sweeping generalizations about places and people.

One of my last stops during that 1999 trip was Navy Pier, a tourist trap jutting out into Lake Michigan that is filled with souvenir shops and over priced food. It’s one of my favourite places in the United States. 🙂

I walked down one side of the Pier that day and up the other, stopping in my tracks as I did so to take in the sight of Chicago. It awed me. Glimmering obsidian sky scrapers shimmered against a perfect blue sky, their reflections bouncing off the turquoise waters of Lake Michigan. I was looking at a downtown traffic snarl at the same time as I watched volleyballers frolic on a sandy beach. Cities can be beautiful, I thought with awe.

(I went through a long spell of traveling without a camera)

(I went through a long spell of traveling without a camera)

Six years later, I decided to return to that spot on the Pier and it was as though time had stood still. Chicago was exactly as I remembered her to be and while a stay over wasn’t on the plate for this trip, I was reassured that my memories hadn’t been romanticized over the passage of time.

Chicago taught me that cities can be beautiful, a lesson that I clung to as I so desperately worked to fall in love with Vancouver.

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Safety Complacency

I usually feel very safe in my RV, whether I’m parked in a campground, a Walmart, or a turnout. If I’m overnighting in an urban area, I choose a spot with a couple of exits and good light. If I’m in the boonies, I try to stay out of the sightline of passing vehicles. I’ve only had one scare that taught me to keep my cellphone handy and charged at all times, otherwise I’ve been very lucky so far as intruders go.

Nick and Terry Russell weren’t so lucky the other night. You can read about their terrifying encounter with an armed intruder at the Gypsy Journal blog.