Day 11 - Ogunquit, Maine
Another crisp, bright and somewhat chilly day as we left New Hampshire for our sixth and final state, Maine. Today proved to be very much a "winding down" day with not a huge amount on the agenda.
After a leisurely pootle south through the New Hampshire countryside we had a mid-morning stop at the New Hampshire town of Wolfeboro, a picturesque little resort on the side of Lake Winnipesaukee. This mug for sale in a local store perhaps summed up our "last full day of the holiday/not a lot going on" blues!
We crossed the border in to Maine for an extended stop for lunch in Kennebunkport - as Hyannis is the holiday destination for the Kennedy family so is Kennebunkport for the Bush family. It is easy to see why that is so as it is a delightful coastal town with lots of quirky little properties:
Tracey and I had been saving ourselves to sample lobster in Maine so we chowed down on Maine Lobster Bisque for lunch - it was lip smackingly good, definitely worth the wait and right up there with the other great soups of this tour, Massachusetts Clam Chowder and Vermont Cheddar Cheese and Ale soup.
A few miles down the coast we arrived in the mid-afternoon sunshine at our final overnight destination the Ogunquit Beach Hotel Ogunquit is best described as a larger version of Pevensey Bay with lots of beach side hotels and motels and a wide choice of restaurants all dotted along its crowning glory of three miles of sandy beach (it often features in the list of Top Ten USA Beaches). It was a shame that the temperature had dropped so much as on a hot sunny day it really must be quite the place to be (we arrived 2/3 days too late). The guy behind the desk at our hotel told us that the season really only runs from mid-July to mid-September and that the place pretty much closes down for the remainder of the year as, like the rest of New England, the winter month are very harsh with perishing temperatures and lots of snow.
This was the view from our hotel bedroom window:
As we missed out on a tour of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory in Vermont last week we visited the Ben and Jerry's store in Ogunquit and had a Half Baked Milk Shake - awesome. In the evening under the light of a Harvest Moon, we walked down to a restaurant perched half on the land and half on trestles in the sea, The Ocean Lobster House, for our final evening meal in New England and shared a lobster, bacon, lettuce and tomato toasted brioche (another winning combination) washed down with a Blueberry Vodka Lemonade and topped off with a slice of Key Lime Pie. As on our previous trips to the USA we have certainly eaten well:
And finally, as Abraham Lincoln may (or may not) have said:
Tomorrow is another three state day as we leave Maine, pass (briefly) back though New Hampshire and return to Massachusetts for our flight home from Boston in the evening. Accordingly, the Day 12 blog will be written when we are back in Blighty.
After a leisurely pootle south through the New Hampshire countryside we had a mid-morning stop at the New Hampshire town of Wolfeboro, a picturesque little resort on the side of Lake Winnipesaukee. This mug for sale in a local store perhaps summed up our "last full day of the holiday/not a lot going on" blues!
We crossed the border in to Maine for an extended stop for lunch in Kennebunkport - as Hyannis is the holiday destination for the Kennedy family so is Kennebunkport for the Bush family. It is easy to see why that is so as it is a delightful coastal town with lots of quirky little properties:
Tracey and I had been saving ourselves to sample lobster in Maine so we chowed down on Maine Lobster Bisque for lunch - it was lip smackingly good, definitely worth the wait and right up there with the other great soups of this tour, Massachusetts Clam Chowder and Vermont Cheddar Cheese and Ale soup.
A few miles down the coast we arrived in the mid-afternoon sunshine at our final overnight destination the Ogunquit Beach Hotel Ogunquit is best described as a larger version of Pevensey Bay with lots of beach side hotels and motels and a wide choice of restaurants all dotted along its crowning glory of three miles of sandy beach (it often features in the list of Top Ten USA Beaches). It was a shame that the temperature had dropped so much as on a hot sunny day it really must be quite the place to be (we arrived 2/3 days too late). The guy behind the desk at our hotel told us that the season really only runs from mid-July to mid-September and that the place pretty much closes down for the remainder of the year as, like the rest of New England, the winter month are very harsh with perishing temperatures and lots of snow.
This was the view from our hotel bedroom window:
As we missed out on a tour of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory in Vermont last week we visited the Ben and Jerry's store in Ogunquit and had a Half Baked Milk Shake - awesome. In the evening under the light of a Harvest Moon, we walked down to a restaurant perched half on the land and half on trestles in the sea, The Ocean Lobster House, for our final evening meal in New England and shared a lobster, bacon, lettuce and tomato toasted brioche (another winning combination) washed down with a Blueberry Vodka Lemonade and topped off with a slice of Key Lime Pie. As on our previous trips to the USA we have certainly eaten well:
And finally, as Abraham Lincoln may (or may not) have said:
Tomorrow is another three state day as we leave Maine, pass (briefly) back though New Hampshire and return to Massachusetts for our flight home from Boston in the evening. Accordingly, the Day 12 blog will be written when we are back in Blighty.
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