Girls’ getaway to Maine

Recently, my friend Abigail had two questions for me: “What are you doing this weekend?” And “Do you want to go to Maine with me?”

Abi’s co-worker and friend, Lisa, was getting married in Maine, and Abi and her husband had planned to go, but then he couldn’t get that Saturday off work. She really wanted to go, she said, but she wasn’t eager to make the four-hour drive alone. Would I be up for a one-night getaway to a tiny Maine town, complete with an outdoor wedding?

I was.

Abi and I have been friends since our college days in Texas, when we sang in our school choir and on our church’s praise team together, along with the men who would become our husbands. (Together, the four of us make a perfect vocal quartet. She’s a soprano married to a bass; I am an alto married to a tenor.) They moved up to Boston about a month before we did, and I am constantly, deeply grateful for the presence of a longtime friend in a city that still feels new and overwhelming at times.

Bonus: she’s available for fun adventures like this one.

We left on Saturday morning, whiling away the miles with conversation. (We can talk for hours, and do, when given the chance.) We reached our hotel just after 2 p.m., and after a flurry of check-in and clothing changes and primping, we hopped back in the car and headed down a few country roads to the farm where the wedding was being held.

We arrived at 2:55, a little nervous because the wedding was supposed to start at 3. But we needn’t have worried: we had ample time to hang around, drinking lemonade from mason jars, before the ceremony finally started around 3:30. (It was, shall we say, a laid-back affair.)

We hung around in the wedding tent (above), enjoying cold hors d’oeuvres, then dinner, and some serious dancing. The party was still revving up when we left – but we were ready for a girls’ night in. We changed into pajamas and flipped through InStyle magazines and talked until midnight. And in the morning, we headed out to explore Camden.

We enjoyed breakfast at Boynton-McKay, which included buttermilk biscuits, a delicious omelet (for me) and steaming cups of Earl Grey (for both of us). Fortified, we spent several happy hours strolling downtown, poking into adorable shops.

We visited three bookstores, including Stone Soup, a tiny rabbit warren of used books:

Abi (who teaches preschool) was ecstatic to find the children’s section:

She bought a couple of picture books. I scored a vintage E.M. Forster hardback and a Trixie Belden mystery – I used to love reading about Trixie’s adventures with Honey, Jim and the rest of the Bob-Whites.

After visiting Once a Tree (where I bought a gorgeous, Maine-made wooden cutting board), we headed down a side street for some harbor views:

We couldn’t pass up the Owl & Turtle Bookshop, with its hilarious sign out front:

And its animals keeping watch over the door:

The interior is also charming:

We grabbed some sandwiches (and a blueberry crumble bar) at Fresh Bakery, and then, regrettably, it was time to hit the road.

We hit some heavy traffic on our way back – it took us an hour more than the trip up – but we chatted and snacked and laughed our way back to Boston. We felt the way you feel after the best road trips: tired and hungry but content, sated with sunshine, good talk and the glow of a weekend adventure together.

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