Driving in the Dark

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Like many people of, ahem, a certain age. I'm not wild about driving after dark. Which makes it unfortunate that I live in southern Maine, where the sunset time swings between 4:30 to 4:00 and back again in the two months surrounding the solstice (this Sunday! Get your bonfire wood ready!)

 

There aren't a lot of opportunities to avoid driving in the dark during this period, unless you're sheltering in place at home. However, last night, I made the hour-and-twenty minutes drive from Wiscasset, where my grandson and his parents live, to my house, and I realized there was, actually, so much to love about nighttime driving in December.

It's wonderful to see houses lit up, some with extravagant displays that look as if they bought out the entire stock of Home Depot, and some with single white candles in their windows. There are homes swagged with exuberant, flashing multi-colored strands, and stately early-19th century manses with ground-set spotlights showing off their ropes of greenery.

 Her local volunteer fire department has the station house outlined in red, white and blue (I can only guess it also serves for the Fourth of July) and mine has bands of red and green shining over the enormous truck doors. Up the road a bit, the public works department has parked a bucket loader at the entrance to the sand and salt storage, well-polished and shining with festive colored lights.

 

Driving over the long bridge from Woolwich to Bath, the skyline is dominated by Bath Iron Work's iconic "Big Bertha," a maritime crane strung with lights and carrying a whole Christmas tree at the top of its boom. 

 

 

Arriving in Portland on Route 295, you get a sweeping view of Maine's largest city (pop 69,000!) from the spotlight-illuminated Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (1869) to the dome of city hall with its golden flying ship in full sail (1909 - it's the fourth one, the other three burned down) and our weird and beautiful park lights designed by artist Pandora LaCasse. (Are they eggs? Fruit? Aliens? Ornaments? Nobody knows.)

 

It's such a gift; all the work that goes into these decorations, done by employees and volunteers and homeowners and renters. You don't see your lights from the inside, not really. They're a present for all the strangers, like me, driving past your house or your workplace, making it a joy to be driving in the dark.

 

Dear readers, what do you see after dark in your neck of the woods this time of the year? 

Dos and Don'ts for Tourists

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's that time of year when we welcome peoples from all over the US and abroad to Vacationland, i.e., Maine. (If you're planning on visiting, please ignore what I said Monday about it being a cold summer. It's perfect.) We genuinely like to see folks traveling here, loving the same landscape and waters we love, and, to be perfectly honest? we need your money. 

 

(Separate note: we especially love our neighbors from the North, but we understand and empathize with your reasons for not visiting this year.) 

However! Having lived for close to four decades in a tourist destination (and for four years in DC before that) I have some dos and don'ts for you that will make the difference between Mainers saying to each other, "Gosh, weren't those nice folks?" and slashing your tires when they see your out-of-state license plates (Ha! Ha! No, we only did that during the early days of Covid.)

 

Don't feed the sea gulls. Yes, I know they seem beautiful and graceful and that you read Jonathan Livingston Seagull when you were 12. They're rats. Aggressive, feathered rats.

 

Do merge a half-mile (at least) before the actual merge point. We see you, with your out-of-state plates, zooming past all the Mainers who got into the right lane as soon as they saw the MERGE sign. We are judging the heck out of you.

 

Don't wear jewelry on the beach. This isn't the Jersey Shore. 

 

Do park in the appropriate spot. Yes, you may have to walk a little farther. But it's probably a lot less expensive than it is where you come from, and trust me, the local cops or sheriff's deputies will be wicked keen to have you towed out of Skip Tarbox's driveway.

 

Don't try to imitate a  Maine accent. Please. I beg you. There are third and fourth generation Mainers who can't do the accent. Neither can you.

 

Do wear the lobster bib. Yes, it's silly. But that delicious treat is messy, and you don't want to have butter stains sitting on your shirt until you get back home.

 

Don't show up dressed head to toe in brand new LL Bean clothing. Beat up old LL Bean clothing is acceptable, as is one new item with the rest of your outfit suitably worn, verging on shabby. See: not the Jersey Shore, above.

 

Do ask how to crack the lobster. The locals next to you are willing to help! We love introducing visitors to our iconic dish.

 

Don't get to close to the sea in rough weather. We have some lovely sandy beaches. We have a lot more stony, granite-boulder stretches that can be genuinely dangerous under certain conditions. If you see a warning sign, yes, this does mean you.

 

Do shop like the locals, at Reny's and Mardens. Reny's is "out" as a Maine staple, and you'll actually see people in New York and DC wearing their labeled gear. There are no labels at Mardens, but it has wicked great bargains and a jingle everyone in Maine can sing. 

 

Don't drink and boat. Do you want to come home tired and happy from your vacation? Or do you want to come home in a box? Those lakes are deeper and much colder than you think.

 

Likewise, Do be aware the ocean is friggin' cold.  The Gulf Stream, which makes the Jersey Shore so warm and delightful, is way the heck off the continental slope up here. The average water temperature in August is 61° to 64° (16° to 17°.)

 

Don't amble across Route One. Like, you don't have to run, but be as brisk as possible. We're trying to get places, people.

 

Do visit some out of the ordinary locations. Maine is more than the ten mile strip along the Atlantic. Check out a concert in Bangor, or the slow pace in the Lakes Region, or the charming towns near the southern NH border, like Cornish and Fryeburg.

 

Don't think you can get ahead on Route One by speeding and passing. It's a two lane road, bub. Cool your jets.

 

Do wear sunscreen!  The sun can also kill you, though not as quickly as being foolish around water.

 

Don't write articles about how quaint and idyllic our life is. There's a whole genre of newspaper commentors who come to Maine and then produce lovely, poetic paeans to the peaceful, authentic way of life and how noble and wise the natives are. Yes, our state motto is "The Way Life Should Be." But it's idyllic because you're on vacation, bub. Come to my house in January and you'll sing a different friggin' tune.

 

How about you, dear readers? Any suggestions for when we visit your neck of the woods?  

My Perfect Summer Day

 RHYS BOWEN: I don’t know about you, but every year, at the beginning of summer, I look forward to those perfect lazy summer days. I’ll take a picnic to my favorite little beach on the Bay. I’ll drive up to wine country and sit in a vineyard, I’ll take the ferry across to San Francisco. And then suddenly it’s September and I realize I haven’t done any of those things I’d wanted to. 

Summer has slipped away from me again, stolen with busyness–that book deadline. Those unexpected guests, the doctor appointments.

This year will be different. This year I will write on my calendar, at least one day a week: RHYS ESCAPE DAY.  And nothing will come in its way. Clare and I had our picnic here yesterday--smelly cheese, crusty bread, olives and chilled white wine. Not bad.

Which makes me think: what would be my perfect summer day? A picnic, definitely. There is something so romantic and old-wordly about sitting on a rug in the shade, eating cold chicken or ripe peaches (if the wasps will kindly keep away. Any recommendations for that?)

Then beautiful scenery: a beach or the mountains or a perfect garden. Then the question: good company or blissful solitude. Should that picnic be alone or shared?

I remember two picnics that stay in my memory: When I was working at the BBC two friends had the same time off one day. We bought a picnic at Selfridges food hall, took the train to Kew Gardens and rented a rowing boat. We drifted down the Thames until we came to a tree overhanging the bank. Then we moored and ate our picnic: cold chicken, crusty bread. Good cheese. Grapes. Cold white wine.  About as perfect as you can get.

Another blissful picnic was when my mother turned 75 in Australia. We sat in the shade on the cliffs over the Pacific. My brother and his wife provided the food. It was every type of seafood: lobster, oysters. Local crab. Prawns. Several salads. A cheese board. Champagne. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more. Then went down the cliff to swim. Came back. Tried another oyster. That was still my most perfect meal.

I can’t duplicate that but I am going to try this summer. I’ll keep you updated.

(This is China Camp, fifteen minutes from me, where I often take my picnic to eat. )

Now it’s your turn, Reds. What is your perfect summer day? Perfect summer meal?

JENN McKINLAY: Oh, Rhys, you’ve made me nostalgic for picnics. My parents were big on Sunday picnics by the lake or the ocean. It really was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I really have neglected the Hooligans horribly, no picnics that I can remember unless you include food by the campfire while camping. A perfect summer day for me would be spent with an ice cold lemonade, a cheese board and a box of pastries, sitting on a blanket with pillows under a  shade tree, reading a book. Anyone is welcome to join me, but they have to BYOB - bring your own book!

HALLIE EPHRON: Ah, picnic. I love it when someone else puts it together. Because a perfect summer day definitely has a lovely menu but please, no prep. 

When we lived in Manhattan ages ago the destination would have been Sheeps Meadow in Central Park with food picked up at Zabars. Here in New England my favorite summer place is a cottage on an island in Casco Bay, hanging out with my kids and grands, walking along the shore, dipping my toes in the icy cold water, boiling lobsters and just-picked corn, lining up at the local ice cream store, exhaling and sitting on the porch and watching the sun set. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My perfect summer day/meal is a lot like Hallie’s, because it’s on the Maine coast. I’d start with baseball in the afternoon, watching our Portland Sea Dogs at historic Hadlock Field. Then, off to a lobster shack for all the goodies Hallie described, but made by someone else! I’d finish off by sitting under the stars on some friends’ patio, enjoying an icy drink while talking around the firepit. 

I have to tell you all - you don’t know summer until you’ve visited Maine!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I will happily take your perfect summer day! A little boat on the Thames with a picnic is just too Wind in the Willows perfect.

There will be no picnics here in Texas!! It's too hot, too humid, and too buggy. I would, however, love to sit on my deck in the cool morning with my cup of tea, watching the birds and the hummingbirds at their feeders and enjoying my flowers. Then, lunch on a patio at a nice restaurant. A nap in the afternoon, with a good book, then cooking something easy on the grill in the evening. Bliss!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I wake up. Someone brings me coffee, or I smell the fragrance from downstairs.  Three newspapers, a sesame bagel, and absolutely no responsibilities for the entire day. Oh, I cannot even imagine. Nothing due, no deadlines, and a great idea in the back of my mind.  It doesn't need to be glam or elaborate or planned, I just get to soak up the niceness.

LUCY BURDETTE: All of those sound so lovely! My mother was a beach hound so we spent many a summer day at the Jersey shore with sandwiches and lemonade made from a frozen can of slush. These days, I would skip the sand in the sandwiches part and order a perfect tuna melt with potato chips at the snack bar at the beach club. That would be washed down with an Arnold Palmer, half iced tea and half lemonade. Then I’d go sit in the shade and watch the grandkids frolic in the Sound.

RHYS: What about you Reddies? Your perfect summer day?

Oh and I've just realized its Friday 13th. Drive carefully, watch out for idiots!

"Keep Looking. Keep watching the skies!"

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: For millions of people across the US, from Texas to Maine, today is the big day: total solar eclipse! The swath of the totality is notable for being so accessible to such a large share of the population, and seems to be a sort of divine economy booster for the many towns and small cities in its path. 

 

Here in Maine, for instance, one of the best places to see the eclipse will be in Houlton, a city of 5,800 most noted, in my family, for having a great Circle K truck stop, perfect for all your needs after driving four hours from the Portland area and before making the next hour and a half up to Limestone, where Youngest went to boarding school. 

 

But today, Houlton has a LOT more than rest stops going on. They’ve been prepping for months – adding rooms to rent and Air BNBs, planning three days of public events, laying in supplies for thousands of restaurant meals and bringing in what sounds like an entire troop of the state police to handle parking. 

 

The Maine Office of Tourism is estimating the eclipse will add millions to the state's economy. Now that’s solar power!

 

I’m staying put at home, content to see the spectacle via properly-filtered video streams. I got to experience a half-totality during the 2017 solar eclipse. It was very cool! We did the pinprick in cardboard thing to watch. However, driving eight hours round trip? Not so much.

 

How about you, Reds? Do you have plans for the 2024 solar eclipse? Anything exciting going on in your state?

 

LUCY BURDETTE: No, Key West is not on the path so we'll stay home too, Julia. I remember the last one we looked at we'd constructed a safe viewer using a cereal box. Honestly, I don't remember that we saw much at all! I sure hope the weather's good for the rest of you!

 

HALLIE EPHRON:  My part of New England isn't on the path, either. Though I have a relative who's long planned a trip to Texas to experience the real deal in an ideal location. She's had it booked, air travel and hotel room, for months, long before I was aware that a solar eclipse was on the way. Smart, too, since I'm not sure the clouds will part enough to truly experience it even if we were in "the path". We are, after all, having a very rainy April.

 

JENN McKINLAY: I had to go see where the AZ Observatory said the spot in AZ would be: “This eclipse’s path of totality goes from the Pacific coast of Mexico through central Texas up through the Midwest and over Niagara Falls and then off the Atlantic coast of Canada,” said Theodore Kareta, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. 

Bummer. If I was in our cottage in Nova Scotia, I bet it would be amazing. I do remember being in the path of totality when I was a very little kid in CT and my parents let us watch from the rooftop. Ah, the 70's no seatbelts in cars, drinking out of the hose on hot days, having your parents reminded by a PSA on TV to look for you at 10 PM, and apparently perching on rooftops to stare at the sun without safety glasses. The good old days!

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are right smack in the path of totality here just north of Dallas! And, dang it, our forecast is now for overcast and rain!! People have come from all over the country to watch it here! But, hey, this is Texas, after all, and the weather can change.

We had originally planned to go to some friends who have a place in the country south of Dallas, but then we started hearing reports of how bad the traffic is going to be and decided that our back yard was just fine. Now the public safety department is warning that many major freeways may actually be shut down. Yikes. I think it will be crazy.

We have our eclipse glasses and will be prepared, however the weather behaves, for our own backyard--or inside--party. Fingers crossed! 

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, we are all set with special glasses (I got 12, because they came that way, but maybe neighbors will need them.) We also have the pinhole gizmo Jonathan made last time out of a big box.

I think we are supposed to have 93% here, so that's going to be very exciting to see.

(Jonathan and I are bonded over celestial events--we met in the midst of a Perseid meteor shower, and  saw shooting stars that night. So...it's all very cosmic.)

RHYS BOWEN: I remember a full eclipse when I was in school. I think we watched it through 2 layers of photograph negatives. Anyway, it was cool. Here in Arizona I think we get 70 percent coverage, which should be good. Unfortunatly my termite man is scheduled for exactly the same time. How is he going to spot a tiny termite when darkness covers the face of the Earth?

Clare is bringing me good glasses to watch tomorrow and I can pretty much guarantee it will be fine.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your plans for the eclipse of '24?

 

 Photo of specialty cameras by Phil Hart. Graphic of the eclipse in Maine from UMaine Versant Power Astronomy Center. Original artwork of Houlton, Maine from local artist Cynthia Taylor (who has amazing prints perfect for those of you who love the Pine Tree State!)

Labor Day 2021 - the Ideal and the Real

To all our friends celebrating, Happy Rosh Hashanah!  

Shanah tovah um'tukah.  

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Labor Day is truly the Janus of holidays. New Year’s Day actually takes place in the month named for the double-faced god who looks both ahead and behind, but nowadays we tend to do most of our reminiscing about the previous year in the run-up to New Year’s, and save the actual day for black eyed peas, hangovers and planning for the days to come.

But Labor Day is genuinely divided between looking back to the summer now gone and looking forward to the fall. So, for a change, I’d like to pause directly on the day itself. Usually part of the last long weekend for a while, Labor Day Monday is often spent mostly on the road by travelers who need to get back to the city from the shore/lake/mountains. But this year, of course, a lot of us are staging closer to home. And the mass get-togethers of the past are also fewer and further between right now; ball games, big BBQs, outdoor concerts. After all, it’s not just an ongoing pandemic out there - to paraphrase a tweet I saw, half the country is on fire and the other half is underwater.

So Reds, let’s plan our ideal Labor Day for 2021. Where would you be? What would you be doing? And most importantly, who would you be doing it with? 

LUCY BURDETTE: I know what I’ll actually doing--not much! I will be making fried shrimp tacos for the back of book #12, and maybe lying around reading:). However, I read an interesting article in the Real Estate section of the New York Times on Saturday about how renovating old motels is a new trend. There was a photo of one with ten rooms and a big outdoor kitchen and lounging area--wouldn’t that be a perfect place for a Jungle Red writer get-together and writing retreat? I think I’ll go with that… 

 

JENN McKINLAY: I’m on deadline so that’s what I’ll be doing. Wah! Although, I’m planning what would be my ideal Labor Day weekend for Thanksgiving. A family vacation to San Diego with a house on Mission Bay/Beach near Belmont Park (amusement park). Hub and I will ride bikes, skateboard, boogie board, and stand up paddle board and then eat our body weight in fish tacos. The Hooligans will join us with their Plus Ones - for the first time on a family trip - and I expect we’ll only see them at meals or when I badger the bravest among them to go on the old wooden rollercoaster with me because I love that stupid thing so much. Let’s hope this trip actually comes to fruition because...2021 has not proven much better than 2020, at least to me, and frankly I could use a break. 

 

 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Lucy, LOVE the retreat idea. I am now in fact, in full retreat. I have so much to do that this morning it crossed my mind--what if I simply don’t do it? What would it really matter? And then I went back to work.

What I’d love to do:  float on rafts in the pool and read in the sun, with maybe lemonade and bird song. If the baby children came to visit--that would be great. 

What I will do: Labor. Type type type type type.  And in the evening, we will have a gin and tonic, and prosciutto and melon, and cook out, and count blessings that we are not sick, not underwater, and not on fire. And that the lights go on. YIKES. 

JULIA: Hank, that should be our new standard for complaining. Am I sick? Am I underwater? Am I on fire? If no, then all is well.

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m just back from a week on Peaks Island in Maine - the perfect end of summer break with walks and beach and time out for special meals in Portland. The grands doing cartwheels on the lawn. It was nippy enough to need my sweatshirt,and we were only grazed by Ida. And when I got home my basement wasn’t flooded. Come Labor Day I’ll be home… which is pretty much my favorite place to be right now. Boring, I know. But it’s my cozy place and as the weather turns, it’s what I yearn for.

RHYS BOWEN: Jenn, your wish was exactly what we did this summer with the whole family. Big house on Mission Beach. Lots of paddle boarding, kayaking,boogie boarding and eating. Perfect

But Labor Day usually depresses me as it means darker days are coming. This year I’ll be packing for a trip up the coast the next day ( a consolation prize for the canceled trip to Hawaii). A few days getaway over the ocean should revive my spirits 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Lucy, sign me up for the motel REDS get-together! I wonder how much of the motel renovation trend is due to Covid and how much to Schitt's Creek?

 

But until then, I'm voting for somewhere at least fifteen degrees cooler than it is here in Texas.  Whenever I hear about other people's Maine adventures, I think that sounds perfect. Maybe we'd get a couple of cabins, one for us, one for the kids, and do all that beach/lobster stuff that sounds like so much fun--especially the part where you don't melt the second you walk outside...

 

 

JULIA: So far this weekend, I've gotten to have a pretty-close-to-perfect Labor Day experience, with a lobster bake at friend-of-Reds Celia Wakefield's place, and the following day a luncheon (and private communion service, which probably isn't everyone's ideal) on her deck overlooking the lake. The only thing missing is my traditional visit to Maine's largest white sand beach, Old Orchard, but I'll be hanging out there later this week with author Jessica Ellicott!

 

How about you, dear readers? Share your ideal - or actual - Labor Day!