What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Have you ever had to write that dreaded first day back in school essay, What I Did On My Summer Vacation?  I don't really remember writing one myself, but I do remember the my son wrote when he started second grade.  My husband and I heard about it at the parent-teacher conference a few months into the school year.  She was a bit skeptical about his story: how the truck he, his cousins, and his grandparents were in caught on fire.  Unfortunately, it was a true story  - but not a tragic one. It was just a small engine fire (no explosions) and didn't impact their camping trip too much.  Besides, it made for a great story (even if the teacher didn't quite believe it at first).

But nothing like that happened on my summer vacation. Nope, it was just days of driving, relaxing, drinking, eating, and having a great time with my husband.  (Although I was hit with a bit of mommy-guilt for not taking my son to college for his last year.)

We started off by driving up to Boston and had dinner with the hubby's boss and his wife.  While we waited, I started what was clearly going to be trend for vacation:

This is a Moscow Mule, I believe.  The magic ingredients of ginger beer (not to be confused with ginger ale), vodka, and lime juice were served in a chilled copper mug.  I had two of these (one before dinner and one with dinner) and it quickly became my favorite drink.

On Saturday, we meandered up from Boston to Wentworth by the Sea, New Hampshire.  It was a great hotel, with both a regular indoor pool and an outdoor salt water pool.  I'm not much for pools, but it was nice to hang out poolside:

Okay, so that one wasn't a Mule, but it was still tasty.  It was some kind of lemonade concoction...very nice on a warm summer day.

And we did some tourist stuff: walked through downtown Portsmouth, NH to shop and eat.

We took a day to head to Portland, ME.  It's been a long time since I was in Maine (apparently I was about 5 or 6 the day we went to Maine for dinner...but that's an entirely different story!), so I was looking forward to checking out the downtown area.  Unfortunately, nothing we saw from the car excited us, so with the help of all-knowing Google, we found something we thought we'd like: lighthouses.

So we drove across town and hit the shoreline.  We drove through some picturesque streets, and noticed several For Sale signs.  Again, with the trusty help of Google, we found out the asking prices and OUCH!!  These little postage stamp parcels of land = at least $750,000 and more often over a MILLION dollars.  And the houses were so small and sometimes looked so worn-out, it's hard to imagine anyone buying it would want to keep that structure.

We got to a lighthouse and parked.  My experiences with lighthouses is limited (okay, I don't recall that I've ever been to a lighthouse), so I wasn't sure to expect.  The walkway to the lighthouse was this:

Big slabs of rock with gaps.  Unsteady, bumpy rocks.  With gaping holes.  

As we made our way back to shore, a woman passed by and advised that we take our shoes off and walk barefoot for better balance.  

Not that you can see it, but this is a picture of my sandal down one of the gaps.  Yup, it slipped out of my hand and down a fissure.  Luckily, my hero the hubby was there.  He found a stick (an interesting feat considering there weren't any trees around) and was able to grab it up for me.


We had some great meals:

And of course another Mule - this time a Maine Mule.  (Don't ask me why they are different - it's got the same stuff in it!)


After our time in New Hampshire, we drove back home.  We had a few days before a big church event my husband was co-chairing.  So we kept up the relaxing with occasionally working on the event.  And then we spent Saturday working the event and Sunday recovering from the event.  With Labor Day the next day, we even got one more day of relaxing before it was time to get back to the real world.

But the real world did come knocking...vacation was over.  And I'm working my way back into the groove. I might even get there...in a week or two.