DD In Maine

We had the best time in New England this summer. Truly Mark and I were on a second honeymoon. Although we never had a first one, we have traveled so much we hadn't missed it. Nonetheless, it was marvelous. Boston was a blast. We held back at nothing, we walked, road bikes, saw theater, went to movies, museums, ate great food, and went to a Red Socks game. The Red Socks were playing the Oakland A's so we cheered loudly for the wrong team, but avoided a fight. We walked back to our hotel that night under the glow of the Citgo sign having had a great time. All the way around it was fun. 

We dropped our daughter off at camp in Maine and both of us were quiet for two days. It was hard to think of vacationing without her. Maine lovingly embraced our tender
hearts. The weather was lovely: warm, rainy, sunny. The hiking was magical and invigorating. Rockafeller in the 1920's, being one of the "Rusticators", built fifty miles of carriage roads through Mount Desert Island. These roads are still maintained today and are used for cycling and hiking. They meander over cobblestone bridges, around lakes and through forests. We loved the ease and beauty of these carriage roads wishing that we had something similar in Santa Cruz county, maybe along the rail lines.

 The food in Maine was fabulous, lobster is hard to do wrong. Portland Maine boasts having the most restaurants per capita next to something like Manhattan. It also boasts two James Beard award winning restaurants. We ate well in Portland belgian fries and gruyere and duck confit panini sandwiches. The diners we met were friendly and proud of their award winning city. We got some great ideas for our little cafe.

Mark had booked charming yet funky cabins with wonderful views. Once I got past the smell of long winters and disinfectant I grew to love these charming "cottages". We were successful in avoiding overly friendly innkeepers, a fear that I had in going to Maine and staying in inns.

 But most of all, the time that Mark and I spent together, discovering, laughing, admiring, adjusting, (as one has to do in travel) was perfect. We had trauma with a torn retina in my eye, but we luckily moved through that okay.
 
 On the last day of our travels before picking up our daughter, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts. These are hard to avoid in Maine, they seem to be about every ten feet on the highway. It was dumping rain and we stopped to use the facilities and grab a cup of coffee, a habit that insures more Dunkin Donuts stops. We sat in the offensive orange and pink interior and laughed at how much we liked the weak coffee. At that moment I remembered a day in my high school years. I had driven down to the beach early on a foggy summer morning with a friend for her birthday. We went to a breakfast cafe, had the usual fare, and laughed in our teenage girl way. At that Dunkin Donuts in Maine I was reminded of this morning so many years past.

I remembered dreaming of a rainy day, cozy, inside a place like this. A day I would sit with a man that I loved and feel the same intense friendship and relaxed humor that I had with my friend. I have shared countless meals and experiences with Mark and others, some memorable and some not. It was curious that the memory bubbled up so
fiercely that morning. 
  
I have had this amazing love/friendship with Mark for twenty five years now. As with any life it has been sprinkled with intense joys and sorrows. At that moment I realized that I have been living my dream of so many breakfasts past. What I didn't anticipate was that I would connect that memory with my present in a Dunkin Donuts in Maine.