Return to Marblehead

On Fridays in the summer, we like to take day trips.

Since my husband is usually done early on Fridays (he’s a therapist and his schedule ebbs and flows with the school year and vacations), and I’m freelancing/job hunting, we are continuing our summer tradition of exploring the Boston area. A few weeks ago, we decided to revisit Marblehead, a little town on the North Shore that we’d visited a long while back.

It was a hot, humid afternoon, but it was – in a word – glorious.

We drove up after a busy morning: sessions for him, yoga and errands and some writing work at the library for me. After a freak thunderstorm, the skies had (mostly) cleared, and we nosed our way into the pretty downtown area, and spent a couple of hours wandering.

I found a sweet blue dress at a boutique called She, and we poked in and out of several other shops. I was disappointed to find that Authors and Artists, a great old used bookstore, had closed (or at least moved?). But the Spirit of ’76 Bookstore, several streets over, is thriving. Of course we had to go for a browse.

We also found a garden shop overflowing with flowers, and Bella, one of the resident spaniels, sprawled out in the doorway.

We headed, with our books, over to Devereux Beach, where J settled down on my yoga mat (necessity being the mother of invention) and I waded into the waves, then walked up and down the beach for a while. I love the feel of sand under my feet, of wind and waves and sky. Eventually I stretched out next to J and read a bit of Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places, which felt fitting even though we were only a mile from town.

When we got hungry, we headed back in and decided to try the local taqueria, Howling Wolf, which – glory be – was delicious. We took the leftover salsa home and snacked on it for days.

All in all, a delightful return to Marblehead. I’m sure we’ll be back (again).

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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?

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