Really, I wanted to title this piece “Do You Miss Times Square on NYE?” Because the two days we spent in Maine were so mobbed with people during the day that I began to question 1) my sanity about traveling there during August, and 2) where exactly did all these people come from? However, once these “day-trippers” left or retired early to their vacation homes or assorted inn/hotel accommodations, the town in question, that would be Camden, was totally dead at night.
I was a bit put off by the quiet, but let me start at the beginning. We hadn’t been to Camden, ME, in 33 years and thought we’d drive to Falmouth, MA, first, then Salem, MA, and head up Route 1. In theory, it was a good idea. We hit a minimal amount of traffic and had a late lunch at the Lobster Trap in Bourne, MA. I looked at the price of a lobster roll ($35!) and decided I would spring for the fresh cod ($14) instead. We had a view, a glass of wine, and the food was good. The lobster roll could wait.
We checked into our hotel in Falmouth that had made a really big deal about the “contactless” service they were offering. This became an annoying point since even 24 hours before our arrival they were bombarding me with text messages. “When will you arrive?” I was asked. Followed by, “please send us a copy of a photo ID (either driver’s license or passport).” I complied but thought it was a bit odd. When we finally got there, I texted them “we’ve arrived,” only to be told to “pick up your keys at the front desk.” So much for not being in contact with anyone!
On the map, the hotel looked like it wasn’t very far from town (15-20 minute walk tops). In reality, it was set in a residential neighborhood with a road I knew would be dark at night with a sidewalk on only one side. Walking into town for dinner I thought could be dangerous.
But first we drove down to the water, parked the car, and walked briefly on the beach. When we drove back through town, people were already eating dinner. It was only 5:30! In fairness, it was Sunday and I realized quite a few of the restaurants close early Sunday night. By the time we had showered and changed and decided where we were eating (a seafood place on the water), it was 7:50 p.m. A relatively normal eating time in our household but apparently very, very late for this part of the country. We had checked the restaurant’s website which said they were open until 9 p.m. When we walked in at the above mentioned hour, the hostess informed us they were closing early tonight, 8 p.m. to be precise, and were not seating any more customers. Lynn and I looked at each other.
“Sushi?” I asked him.
We had seen a sushi place in town and drove quite rapidly, I might add, to get there. Of course, it was packed. Obviously, we didn’t have a reservation. Fifteen minutes later we got a table and while I didn’t expect my first dinner in Cape Cod to be sushi, I thought well, why not?
Since we are pretty adventurous eaters, we didn’t limit ourselves to just sushi. To start we ordered mussels in a spicy red curry sauce with basil and lemon grass, followed by grilled octopus with fingerling potatoes. The octopus was a bit soggy but I appreciated the Jackson Pollock- inspired presentation on the plate. Only after we had devoured these did we move on to the sushi: crunchy tuna and spicy salmon rolls.
By the next morning, we decided we had seen enough of Cape Cod (and realized we had never stayed in Falmouth at all; it had been Hyannis!) and drove to Salem. I thought I remembered Salem. I didn’t. Since we had last visited, the Peabody Essex Museum had been renovated but unfortunately, the day we were visiting, it was closed. We had lunch – a lackluster overpriced lobster roll that I won’t even show here (it’s not worthy) which we ordered only because we had refrained from getting the overpriced lobster roll the day before. (Two lobster rolls and two beers with tax and a generous tip cost us $90.44!)
Besides walking down to the historic maritime area, the real reason for our visit was to see the House of the Seven Gables and the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Fun Julie fact: I had never read Hawthorne. Stupid Julie fact: I checked out the novel prior to our visit and couldn’t get through it. That said, I believe we had visited this historic house before but didn’t remember it. Maybe we just did a drive-by?
This time we opted for the self-guided garden tour which also gave us the history of the house after downloading the audio portion, too. Also on the property is the house Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in which was moved to the current site in 1958. Lynn felt the house lost some of its “authenticity” with its relocation. Here are some photos of the house and the beautiful gardens.
Truthfully, I also walked around the house and only counted SIX gables. So, if they lost one along the way, well, good luck finding it! Also in case you don’t know, here’s a fun fact about Hawthorne; he changed his name! Why is that? Because he was so embarrassed that one of his great-great-great-grandfathers (that would be John Hathorne) was one of the judges in the Salem witch trials that he decided to add a ‘w” to his name to lessen any association with this relative.
We decided to forgo buying any “witch” souvenirs or get a “spiritual reading” on the way back to the hotel. We also ignored the individuals hawking nightly “candlelit ghost tours,” preferring to spend our evening eating.
Finz, one of the few restaurants on the Salem waterfront, could have been hit or miss. It was a warm evening and everyone wanted to sit outside. The place was larger than I had anticipated but luckily, unlike other places we’ve encountered this summer, they seemed to have adequate staff.
Oysters to start? Yes, please. A bottle of Hitching Post Pinot Noir to wash it all down? Absolutely! (I won’t go into my utter surprise at seeing this particular bottle of wine on the menu, but if you have read my book, you will know that Sideways is one of my favorite films and this particular wine features prominently in the movie. ) Did I mention we also had a view? As the sun was setting? Of a schooner?
The following morning we drove to Maine. Someone once told me that Maine is like Long Island except Long Island has better bread and Maine has better blueberries. As I’ve mentioned before, we hadn’t been to Camden, Maine, in 33 years. Before i-phones and Instagram, I wrote down where we traveled, sites we visited, and (obviously) what we ate in “composition” books that are nearly the same price now as they were then! I have since gone back to writing this way since I often find that while a photograph will accurately capture a place, my notes tend to convey the spirit of the moment.
I was pregnant with our first child back in July 1988 and here are a few of my observations.
July 25, 1988: “Tried Ben and Jerry’s for the first time! The chocolate was very rich and the chocolate chunks were good.” (Since I still only occasionally eat ice cream but am a purist and dislike ice cream that has “stuff” in it, I can only attribute my pregnant state to the fact that I ordered something with “chunks” in it. )
July 26, 1988: “Drove to town [Camden] after breakfast and it was so foggy you couldn’t see anything. Decided to get back in the car and take Route 1 to Bar Harbor. Along the way we saw one lobster pound after another; many of them had big vats of water boiling that were heated with wood fires. We came back to the [Whitehall] Inn to have an early dinner because dinner hours are short – 6:00-8:30. There are also no TV’s or phones in the rooms. I did see lots of puzzles and games in the “parlor” along with a whole bunch of Edna St. Vincent Millay memorabilia. After dinner though, it seemed like us, people didn’t quite know what to do with themselves – maybe everyone just goes to bed early.”
July 27, 1988: “From Camden we headed up to Quebec. The smell of pine trees and fresh cut lumber was incredible. We saw quite a few lumber trucks carrying enormous logs and every so often a few mills, too. We realized we were running low on gas and wanted to fill up before we crossed the border, so stopped at the first no-name gas station we found. When I asked our gas station attendant (a young high school kid) where we were, he replied, “Jackman, Maine, which is 50 miles from nowhere!” ( Read on about how history repeats itself 33 years later in the pursuit of gasoline.)
Let me talk about Edna first. According to my “sources” (that would be wikipedia), Edna would recite poetry and play the piano at the Whitehall Inn in Camden, Maine, during the summer months. Lucky for her, a wealthy arts patron was so impressed with her talent that she offered to pay for her college education at Vassar! Four words: “Way to go girl!”
While we had in fact stayed at the Whitehall Inn back in 1988, this time there was no availability. In fact, we couldn’t get a hotel room for two consecutive nights in Camden so ended up staying at an inn one night and a hotel the second night. Unlike 1988 though, the weather was perfect – sunny and hot and hazy.
But let me get back to the point before we got to Camden. Before lunch, we went in pursuit of lighthouses. After all, isn’t that what Maine is known for? Besides lobster and blueberries? As previously noted, back in 1988, the fog was so intense there were no lighthouses we could see. This time would be different; we started by visiting Owls Head Lighthouse. The minute we walked up the steps to their gorgeous tower, there was a light breeze and you could smell the sea. Gosh, the view! Just like a postcard!
Afterwards we stopped at Hills Seafood Co. in Rockland, ME, and had really delicious clam chowder and lobster rolls with fries and slaw. While this lunch was just as expensive as the crappy one we had in Salem, the chowder and the lobster roll were both delicious and worth it. (Hint: it turned out to be the best lobster roll of the trip.)
After lunch, the Rockland Breakwater lighthouse beckoned. I had read about this “walk” and thought “no problem.” Still, I wasn’t really prepared for all the big gaps between each of the enormous granite boulders. A sign before one ventured down the nearly two mile “walk” to the “house” at the end indicated one should make sure one was capable of the journey. Also one was admonished that “accidents” happen when one is not paying attention and above all to “look at your feet.” I took that advice seriously. Lynn held my hand, we were careful, walked slowly, and made it safely there and back. I’m really glad we did that walk. And, most importantly, it was fun!
Yes, the “artistic” me did in fact have to capture the green shutters on this lighthouse (which look black in the photo) especially because there’s so much seawater damage to the building and platform it’s on.
And then it felt like it took us forever to get to Camden. Why? Because of the traffic! It took us nearly 15 minutes to simply get from one end of Camden to the other. It reminded me of the awful drive one has to endure on a certain part of Sunrise Highway to get to any of the towns named “Hampton” on the South Fork of Long Island. At least I knew where most of the people who were visiting the Hamptons were from (hint: NYC). But people who were visiting Camden, where did they all come from? (A few years back I caught up with an old Munich friend and he told me he had visited the Hamptons one summer with his family. My only reaction to this was “why?”)
We checked into our inn and were told we were actually not staying there but rather in a house a few blocks away. Lynn and I looked at each other, got back in the car, and simply pulled out into traffic hoping no one would cut us off or rear-end our car. Looking at this insane traffic and all the people in this town, I’m just glad we had actually found a place to stay. (Fun fact: our server for breakfast the next morning informed us that Camden is a small “hamlet” of 4,000 residents year-round. That number apparently quadruples in the summer months. But I’m convinced it had actually octupled the two days we were there! )
Luckily, dinner-wise we had planned ahead. We had reservations both nights at two of the few restaurants in town that were open mid-week. Lunch, however, would became more difficult. I will talk about that later. Our first dinner was at Nathalie’s at the Camden Harbor Inn, a Relais & Chateaux hotel. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. Was it the menu? The service? The lovely amuse bouche? Maybe it was the funky decor? Wait, isn’t that the same Ikea table lamp we have at home except in a different color? Perhaps it was as simple as we hadn’t eaten out this “high end” in 18 months? Where should I start?
How about here: 1. Halibut ceviche. 2. A ring of cold poached shellfish with a bouillabaisse sauce in the middle. 3. Cod on a bed of quinoa and topped with crispy pork belly. 4. Raspberry sorbet “intermezzo” (not shown because I ate it before I remembered to take a picture). 5. Pork tenderloin with mushrooms and greens. And finally, since Lynn and Julie always prefer a cheese plate before the dessert, we did just that. If you are wondering if those are in fact beets on the “chocolate beet cake” with some raspberry sorbet, they are! (Full disclosure: the meal was a lot of money but it was the night before my birthday. I had wanted to stay at the hotel, too, but the rates were, to be honest, outrageous!) I’m just really happy we were privileged enough to eat dinner there and both the food and service were amazing.
Want to see the Ikea light I was talking about? And the Relais & Chateaux plaque? (Also focus on the mountain in the background which we’ll get to later.) I did ask our server if she had an extra Relais & Chateaux pin I could wear during the course of the meal. I started to go into a story about how when you were younger and got on an airplane, the “stewardesses” (yes they were always all women), would come around the cabin and hand out these little gold metal wings if you were a kid. I realized, however, she was very young and unless she had seen something like that in a movie (and remembered it), she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I didn’t get the pin but I still had a good time. And yes, the shellfish bouillabaisse was in fact my favorite dish. I mean, look at it; it was beautifully plated and tasted amazing.
We finished dinner and walked back to the Inn. How about a walk through town? How about a nightcap? Ha, Ha, Ha. Turns out like many resort towns we’ve been to, this one closes up at night. There wasn’t a bar or pub that was open. There were no cars or even people on the street! Seems that even 33 years later, (at least at night) not much has changed.
In the morning we checked out of the Inn and attempted to do some hiking. I specifically say “attempt” because once again I got sidetracked by people writing reviews of how “easy” the trail was to walk. But yet, when we got to the Maiden Cliff Trailhead, it proved too steep for my comfort level. We walked nearly half the way but found the roots were just insane. I mean, really, look at them!
I was more than happy when I saw a few signs that had been stapled to a couple of trees indicating that the trail ahead had eroded. This enabled me in good conscience to turn around. After all it was time for lunch!
I need to divert a bit and talk about the state of the restaurant industry. I read daily about the struggle to find workers and how to cope with the enormous demands “guests” are putting on these restaurants. I’ve seen restaurants post on social media that they can’t open because they are short-staffed, employees haven’t shown up, or worse, they’ve quit all together. But more and more I also read about guests who are hostile to those working in the industry. This saddens me deeply.
Case in point: in Camden, Maine, there is one particular restaurant that is on the water. We tried to go there for lunch only to hear the hostess say over and over again that the wait was 2+ hours and a table outside couldn’t be guaranteed. There were a lot of angry people raising their voices at this poor woman, yelling that they had a reservation, why weren’t they seated, and they had already been waiting nearly 45 minutes! I also noted that the parties who had been able to snag a coveted table didn’t have a single plate of food in front of them. I felt sorry for the staff but more importantly angry at the customers who hadn’t thought of a plan B.
We always have a plan B. We got in the car, drove six miles up the coast, and found a local lobster place. We ordered half a dozen oysters to start that were so large I almost thought we were on the Pacific not the Atlantic coast! Two lobster rolls, some onion rings, and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc rounded out our lunch. It wasn’t the best lobster roll we had on the trip (which I’ve already revealed) but it came in a close second.) Plus, we were right on the water! And the lobsters we had just eaten were in the “holding” cages right in front of us.
Did I mention we realized half way to our Plan B that we were almost out of gas? Just like 33 years ago, we found a no-name gas station about eight miles away after eating lunch before heading back to Camden. But wait, first there was a state park that was demanding our attention. You could drive rather than hike up to the top of Mount Battie?
Isn’t the view of Penobscot Bay pretty? And there’s even a tower you can climb to truly feel “on top of the world.” And then I realized the night we had eaten at Natalie’s, we had been staring at Mount Battie all along!
And then, on the drive down Mount Battie, Lynn said, “Look, an owl!” I pulled over to the side of the road and proceeded to take about 100 pictures of this lovely animal. He/she was a bit shy but luckily, I got the shot I wanted. And, yes, I had never seen an owl before which is why I’m posting this picture three times!
After the adventures of our wonderful day and checking into the second hotel of our stay (run-of-the-mill with no amenities or staff) – a sign of the the future perhaps – we went to Franny’s for dinner. A first for us: a sign outside the restaurant saying “we are fully booked and even if you want to sit at the bar, a reservation was required.” I felt a tinge of guilt as I saw many couples approach the restaurant, look at the sign, shake their heads and walk away.
The restaurant is in a residential neighborhood in Camden, so your view (especially when sitting outside like we were) is limited to looking at houses across the street. It didn’t bother us though since our attention was on the food! Shrimp dumplings with a cucumber slaw; mussels in a cream and mushroom sauce; swordfish with grilled peaches and a yogurt drizzle; lamb chops with salsa verde, and finally, a delicious almond cake with strawberries and cream for dessert. After all this food, we walked around Camden, found a waterfall, but got a bit spooked that the town was so dark and deserted!
On our drive home from Maine, we decided it had been a good trip and resolved to come back in the fall when it will hopefully be less crowded. And I did in fact stop at a roadside stand to pick up some fresh blueberries. These, with the help of Marisa McClellan’s wonderful cookbook, Food in Jars, became my first attempt at making blueberry jam. I have to say, it turned out pretty darn good.
Until our next “Let’s Go” adventure.