Soon after entering Maine, we made it to a seaside town, York Beach, where we’d rest our heads at The Grandview Hotel for the night.
This throwback wind-whipped three-story motel was right on the ocean with only a road to cross to the endless beach. The lady at the front desk reminded me of Maud from the 1971 cult classic movie Harold and Maude. Maude tried to convince us to spend our week here and nowhere else. She was quite persuasive. After a night exploring the scene, I could see her point.
On closer examination, when we ascended the outdoor stairs to the rear entry of our room, I wondered how long this place had been here and how much longer it would stand. The rooms on the second and third floors had walkout balconies. The connected balconies stretched the length of the building, facing the ocean, with a waist-high wood divider between each guest room balcony.
It was my kind of flop pad.
After walking the surf, we found a lobster restaurant. I had never eaten lobster before, so I YouTubed a tutorial for fear of embarrassment. It showed me all the places to break the crustacean open to extract meat. I studied like I was cramming for a college exam. I let our waitress know I was a rookie to pre-empt any embarrassment I’d become.
When she came by later to check on us, she paused to say, “I’m serious when I say I’m impressed. You’re getting the meat out of places a lot of people don’t even think to try.”
I asked if they had any gold star stickers for the tourists who could pass as locals. She laughed. I think we both knew she was getting a generous tip.
Oh, and I’m serious when I say that lobster was incredibly tasty! I couldn’t wait to try it again.
That night, after lounging on the porch, I dragged myself to bed. It felt so nice with the porch door wide open. The sea breeze soothed me. The sound of waves slapping just outside lulled me to sleep. I didn’t care that I left the balcony door wide open. We were left completely insecure to anyone who could walk the balconies looking for a room to rob. I must have been out of my mind, but after the long day and great meal, it felt too incredibly comfortable to care.
Our main stay for the vacation week would be a place my wife and I found in independent searches. In my search, it was called the Writer’s Cabin. In my wife’s search, it was called the Teacher’s Retreat. As a writer and a teacher, it must have been destiny, so we booked it. Besides, it was very economical compared to everything else available. Acadia National Park has two sides as opposite as our grown kids. One is all about activity and people and Bar Harbor. The other is laid back and …quiet, thus referred to as The Quiet Side.
The last stretch of road to our mainstay cabin on The Quiet Side was unpaved. The draping greens were untrimmed – I later found a hacksaw and trimmed them so my car wouldn’t get scratched. Our parking spot was by a shed deep in the brush. Then came the grassy walk of about 500 feet along the edge of the brush to get to a gravel walkway that hugged the front of our tiny cabin. The one-room cabin looked like a converted boathouse.
The gravel path continued to a private rocky beach and elevated pier with the most spectacular views. Private means this scene was reserved for us and two large cabins on the hillside. The entire front of our cabin opened like a door, leaving a screened wall. Half of the adjacent wall did the same. There was no air conditioning or heat. It was mid-summer in Acadia, so neither was needed; the days reached the upper 60s to lower 70s, and nights dipped into the 50s. The front of the one-room cabin had comfy sitting chairs. The back area had a queen-sized bed and a little kitchenette with a counter, mini fridge, toaster, and microwave. In the middle of the back wall was a door that opened to the outdoor shower and a private enclosure for the toilet.
The place came with no keys. The only lock was the doorknob lock in the back. At night, I barricaded the front door with a rock I could barely lift. Anything of value was put in the car for our excursions away from the coziest of stays we ever stayed. We lit the grill, ate steak, and drank wine outside, stargazing until who knows when. There was little to no light pollution, so the black canopy popped with so many white dots overhead it’s no wonder they call it The Milky Way. Shooting stars crisscrossed the sky. We felt how small and insignificant we seemed in the grand scheme of it all.
On a side note, our Amazon purchase of a portable cordless, flameless, sprayless, scentless mosquito repeller kept our outdoor lounging bug-free. Our peace of mind while sleeping behind the rock lock system was sealed by the portable motion detector and alarm we set up. Although it scared the living #%$* out of me when I found my route to the bathroom triggered it in the middle of the night.
It was so quiet at night that you could hear a conversation a quarter mile away.
From a dead sleep, my eyes opened while my mind tried to catch up. It was loud once the footsteps found the gravel walkway that hugged our cabin en route to the pier. At that moment, I forgot about all the instructions of what a guest may expect to encounter and did what I’d do if a bear came knocking – shout my lungs out in the most intimidating manner I could. As soon as I went to catch my breath, my wife was kicking and shushing me. I instantly realized I probably scared the #%$* out of vacationers from one of the hilltop cabins just coming to see the Milky Way from our private but shared pier. Still, it was three in the morning. I immediately felt embarrassed, so I laughed (hysterically) to try to brush it off. Needless to say, I think they took a wide, grassier course on their return.
In the morning, from bed, I had a panoramic view of the shoreline. I lay there trance-like, for I don’t know how long because time didn’t matter.
I loved showering outdoors so much that I wondered if I could pull it off back in the Cincinnati suburbs. My wife assured me I could not! The morning ritual was capped with coffee on the pier. The doe and her fawn nibbled at the blueberry bushes. The family of loons swam away from the gurgling boat nearing. I watched a lobster fisherman check his traps. We later learned that a fixed number of these licenses were allowed, and some people spend many years next on the list waiting for someone to retire, quit, or die. The burly guy I watched along with a juvenile bald eagle in a tree overhead found his marked traps empty in a bay of many competitors. The penalty for poaching another’s traps is too severe to try. By the expletives I heard over the water at yet another empty trap, I wondered if the thought crossed this lobsterman’s mind.
Completely spent after one of our more energetic days of exploration, we collapsed into our lounge chairs in front of our cabin and watched a thick fog roll in with dusk. Maybe my phone heard the foghorn sounding. Whatever the reason, I was offered the 1951 Ray Bradbury science fiction short story, The Fog Horn, in audio. You bet we listened to it. Our foggy setting made for a virtual reality that had a lot of REALITY. We laughed when it was over, realizing this old tale completely captivated our imaginations in a way that listening to it anywhere or at any other time would not have.
By Frank Rocco Satullo, The OhioTraveler, Your Tour Guide to Fun!
