A bucket, some crates, and a shovel. This was all "Still Life In Maine" of me.

Here I go again, planning the everliving HECK out of my next vacation, six months in advance. It’s what I do.

This year my husband and I are heading back to Maine. I haven’t been home since June of 2007. Three years between visits is VERY MUCH NOT OKAY. Man, I didn’t realize how much time has passed until I looked it up on my blog just now. How depressing.

The cure for homesickness-induced depression? Planning my vacation! As long as I know, now, when I’ll be home again (July, it looks like), the wait is bearable.

The Portland Head Light in Maine

We’re flying into Boston, Massachusetts – word to the wise, if you’re headed to the northern-most New England states, it’s a lot easier and less expensive to fly into Boston than, say, Manchester NH or Portland ME. For one thing, I can get direct, non-stop flights from Arizona to Boston. If I fly into New Hampshire or Maine, I end up having to switch from a nice comfy jumbo jet to a prop-job puddle-jumper in either Philly or Pittsburgh. On our last visit to Maine, on the way home we missed our connecting flight out of Philly (we’d gone the Manchester route – for the last time!) and had to spend a truly miserable night in the airport. Yeah, never doing that again!

Anyway, the plan is to spend a night or two in Boston, so we can explore the Freedom Trail. My husband is a big history buff so I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it.

A lobster roll and a shrimp plate with fries and cole slaw, at the Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth, ME. Wicked good!

Then we’ll drive north and spend a few days in and around the Portland area. I will be sure to stuff myself on seafood accordingly. I plan our visit to coincide with the Yarmouth Clam Festival, which I attended every year when I lived in Maine.

From Portland we’ll drive north again and spend a few days in Bar Harbor. We’ll explore Acadia National Park and probably go on a whale watching trip. We’ll be there during my birthday, too!

Then it’ll be back down the coast to Portland again for a night or two, before driving back to Boston (which takes about two hours, by the way) and flying home again. It’s always so easy to envision myself living in Maine again, and it’s wrenching to head back to Arizona again after a good visit. I hope it’s in the cards for us that we’ll be relocating in the not-too-distant future. Come on, housing market! Come on, job market! Come on, economy!

Photo Credits (all): Tiffany Joyce.

(As a quick side note, you’ll notice that the posts attributed to “Laura Charon” are now appearing under my actual real-life name, Tiffany Joyce. I started blogging under a pen name for anonymity’s sake back in 2000, and decided a couple of months ago to, well, just be myself!)