Tag Archives: beach

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Batson River Fish Camp

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After another week of unsatisfactory carpet shopping I had to throw the husband a bone so we headed for the coast.

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Wells is probably the longest stretch of sandy beach in Maine and is overwhelmed with tourists in the summer.

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But on the off season it’s quiet, which is how we like it.

After a stroll, we headed for beer.

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And while we’ve visited other Batson locations, this was our first trip to the laid back Fish Camp version.

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It was more casual than their other locations.

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With an attractive fishing vibe.

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A few raspberry lime sours in…

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I opted for the duck fat cornbread with maple honey bourbon butter.

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Ooh la la! Sheer perfection.

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As was the digital fireplace that didn’t trigger my hot flashes.

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Not sure what they put on top of this outdoor table to hold down the cover…but it looked like a giant wine cork to me.

😉

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Pre storm morning beach walk…

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Not wanting to waste any precious time on our week long vacation, day four threw a monkey wrench in my carefully planned trip.

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We woke to overcast skies, an egret in the pond and a forecast of what turned out to be a mini hurricane. Heavy rain, high winds and dangerous surf are not prime beach resort conditions.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I burned breakfast. Again…. due to the stupid flat surface stove that had two burners in one.

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High level heat if you turned right, high level heat if you turned left. This proved too much for my under caffeinated morning brain to handle and henceforth, the husband was on his own when it came to eggs.

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But at least the dish sponge was happy.

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Not having walked the beach since we got there, I forced my spouse onto the sand before the storm arrived. That’s his arm to the right of the photo, pointing out which unit was ours. I’m not sure why as we had just exited it and I was unlikely to forget that quickly.

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My husband is not a beach guy, not an idle walker. He needs a destination and purpose…

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I told him pleasing his wife of 40 years should be motivation enough.

😉

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We had the beach to ourselves, but it was cool, dark, damp and hellaciously windy.

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As proved by my epic hairspray fail.

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On the far right side…

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The marina.

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In between?

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Lots of marvelous shore birds.

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Even my husband likes to watch those.

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It’s hard not to smile.

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Windy beaches, selfies and fake stars.

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After discovering the lighthouse we’d come to see was closed, we decided to walk the Hunting Island beach instead.

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Following the rubber highway across the dunes we hit the sand and were just about blown away.

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I packed for the south, where it’s supposed to be warm…. and I swear the week we spent in South Carolina was colder than Maine.

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The beach was lovely.

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But to be honest it was too cold and windy to enjoy.

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The husband was less than thrilled to be walking in arctic wind, but I persevered.

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For a little while anyway.

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You know it’s windy when the sea foam is bouncing down the sand.

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We left before frostbite set in and continued on.

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Past a shrimping fleet and towards Fripp Island which we were told was lovely.

It might have been, but we’ll never know because it’s a gated private island where we were told to turn around and leave in no uncertain terms.

Didn’t they realize the rental vehicle we were driving cost $100k? That should have counted for something.

I mean really… it had a dashboard star display.

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What more could they want?

🥴

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York Cliff Walk .. part two.

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If you ever visit Maine you have to do one of the cliff walks. It’s a truly fabulous way to experience our coast up close and personal.

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Rugged, rocky and glorious.

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You won’t find many straight sandy beaches here and that’s just fine with me.

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Windswept and craggy is more my style. Look at that house! Pure perfection.

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If you don’t mind a little wind.

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The cliff walk is well named as you’re basically walking along the edge of a cliff.

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Some sections are wider than others but the views are all the same.

Beautiful.

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Was I in rock heaven?

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You betcha!

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I know it’s hard to tell but this is a photo of a bald eagle fishing the ocean.

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Such majestic creatures.

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Around this next bend was a beach.

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And nice we ducked through the trees…

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To be continued…

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Stonington, part four.

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Our last stop in Stonington wasn’t planned, and we just happened to drive by… but it was a lovely end to the day.

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Random public access to beaches is common in Maine. They’re not marked, they’re not named, they just are.

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And sometimes they have a fabulous rock that looks like a sleeping walrus.

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Ah, Maine…

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This float had been pulled up for the season.

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And if you know anything about the coast of Maine, you know sand is at a premium.

Mostly it’s rocks, which my ever intrepid husband continues to climb…

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Not always gracefully.

😉

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For the love of all that’s holy… no.

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What the Hell Texas!

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Loyal readers know I dislike dolls. Those dead eyed, soul stealing little human replicants have haunted my dreams for decades. So when I read about the abominations washing up on shore in Texas?

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I cringed.

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Figuratively and literally.

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The thought of casually strolling down the beach and bumping my toe into that makes me want to scream.

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Thirty.

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Of those…. things.

😱

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Thank you John. You’re doing the world a great service.

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Burn them.

Burn them all…..

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Random stuff cluttering up my phone.

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Am I the only one who does this? You see something and think to yourself… I need to blog that. Then you save it on your camera roll only to have it languish there for weeks because it doesn’t deserve its own post?

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Yeah, like that. Weird, probably worthy of a joke, but not enough to build a blog around.

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And I’m sure that’s perfectly delightful, for everyone but the chicken who’s suffocating in a plastic bubble and probably terrified at the cornucopia of sweaty flesh on display at the shore… but an entire post? No.

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Maine real estate has always been high, but right now it’s absolutely insane. When the average median price for a house is 3/4’s of a million? You know people have lost their minds. And in case you’re wondering, the cheapest price shown is in a town that was nothing but redneck trailers and two bedroom ranches a decade or so ago.

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Yes, I could blog about how no one but the wealthy can afford a home up here anymore… but that’s too depressing.

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So I’ll end with Lord Dudley Mountcatten helping me make the bed.

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Needless to say, the bed did not get made that morning.

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Jennette’s Pier Part 2…. and some fish whispering.

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By the time we reached the end of the pier and turned around? We were walking icicles from the frigid wind…

 

 

And I think the husband was starting to rethink this whole marriage thing.

 

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I kept telling him it was a beautiful, brisk, clear day….

 

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And he kept stifling his impulse to heave me over the side.

 

 

Yes, like that.

 

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Heading back to the building we followed red memorial fish…

 

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Agreed wholeheartedly with a turtle….

 

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And discovered there was a miniature aquarium inside.

 

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Fish are wonderful.

 

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And sometimes wonderfully strange.

 

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I always wonder what the heck they’re thinking.

 

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Here’s my husband, the Fish Whisperer, having a moment.

 

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It’s odd. He sidles up next to a tank and they flock to him….

 

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Which allows me to get some fun shots.

 

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Is it me…

 

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Or is that an awfully small head for such a large body?

 

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Interspecies communing over, I thought about trying to get the husband to walk the beach with me…

 

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But I was envisioning another wife with a bad idea buried under that mound of sand and called it good.

 

 

 

 

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Jennette’s Pier, Nags Head North Carolina…. cold wind, cursing, birds and the death of a hairdo.

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Continuing farther down the coast of the Outer Banks, I wanted to stop and walk out on a pier.

(Have I mentioned that I have a knack for picking the coldest, windiest, most frigid days to do this? Seriously… it’s a gift. If there’s one bitter cold day on an otherwise delightfully warm 2 week vacation? That’s the one I’ll choose to walk out on a pier.)

 

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There’s the husband, bracing himself against the wind and giving me (and my phone) the evil eye.

 

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And there’s the entrance to Jennette’s Pier, the biggest and best in Nags Head.

 

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Gladly.

This type… and the other. It was too damn cold for either of them.

 

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Approaching the entrance…. you don’t follow a yellow brick road.

 

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But a line of memorial blue fish.

I love this idea!

 

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A quick peek at the beach…

 

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The map…

 

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And me mumbling ‘Holy Crap it’s freezing! Can you read the pier history a little faster please?’

 

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A quick peek at the beach on the other side.

 

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Through the gate…

 

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Past the turtle.

And finally, the door…

 

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Where the husband had to hold on to his hat so it didn’t fly off.

It was that windy.

A brief warm respite inside to pay the $2 ticket price and out we went.

 

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As piers go?

It rocked.

 

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Even the birds agreed.

 

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These guys were everywhere.

 

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Fighting the wind just like us.

 

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Hairdo?

Not so much.

 

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So we walked….

 

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Shivering in the arctic blast…. with the husband cursing me under his breath.

 

 

Good times.

 

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Every now and then there would be a wind break where we’d huddle to catch our breath.

 

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And then finally, we reached the end.

 

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Where the husband realized we had to walk back, into the wind…. and started cursing me under his breath all over again.