an afternoon in marblehead

Living in New England, I’m (still) constantly amazed by how close together everything is. Drive a few hours from Boston and you could be in any one of six states. We drove to Maine for the day last month, just because we could. (I grew up in west central Texas, where we routinely drove two hours one way to play district high school football games.)

We’ve got plans to explore all the New England states, but I also love taking off for an adventure closer to home, when we didn’t plan ahead but want to discover a new place, and get back in time to make soup for dinner and watch a little Castle. So on Saturday, we hopped in the car and let Agatha, our trusty GPS, point us toward Marblehead.

I admit I had an ulterior motive: I’d heard about the Spirit of ’76 bookstore. And yes, we went, and it was lovely. But before we hit the bookstore, we found some other gems, such as these autumn leaves:

Marblehead has a charming little downtown area, lined with quaint old buildings, and we spent a couple of hours browsing the shops, picking up a few treasures. We bought a wee Christmas-tree-shaped ornament made of shells (with a tiny starfish on top), and I dragged J into Artists + Authors, where I found a lovely old edition of Eight Cousins for $10. (And so many other books I wanted to buy. But I’ll be back.)

I could have snapped dozens of photos of the signage (I love unusual signs), but this one was a favorite:

(The toy store itself was also fabulous – crammed with cool toys, puzzles and games.)

It was one of those crisp autumn afternoons, a little chilly in the shade but perfect in the sunshine, with trees gently waving their vivid leaves and the sun making us squint and smile at the same time. Especially when we found a street called Darling:

(That’s my darling. On Darling Street. All together now: Awww.)

We bought chai lattes from a little cafe and sipped them as we walked to the Spirit of ’76. J employed his usual bookstore technique, which is to pick out a book, curl up in a chair and read while I browse to my heart’s content:

I love simple adventures like this one – exploring a town, getting a feel for its streets and its vibe, and then hopping back in the car and heading home. I love weekends away and long vacations too, but it’s fun to make new discoveries by traveling literally over the next hill. (As Woody Allen famously noted, the trick with this kind of voyage is “to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o’clock.”)

What little adventures have you had lately?