Kennebunk with the Kerrs

 

New England

Prior to this week, I had never been to New England. In fact, I would say that my geographic knowledge of the area was less than A+. I could maybe name all the states on the map (but likely not without), but I have no idea whether New Jersey in fact counts as part of New England.

But I know that my geographic ignorance of the rest of the states is not localized to myself. If it did, I do not know what could have compelled a grown man to see us driving our RV down the tiny streets of a picturesque town in Vermont, hauling our 11-foot, 6-inch rig trailer behind us, and declare, “Texas plates. Yee-ha.”

That he said it in the driest, most unimpressed voice I had ever heard, only added the perfect waspishness of the comment. But perhaps there was something mad about driving a travel trailer through this tiny valley town. It felt like we filled the entire space between the mountains awash with the first tinges of autumn color that rose up and hemmed us in on either side.

Though perhaps he was only commenting on the fact that there was a bridge coming up with a clearance of 11 feet 8 inches on the edges, and it was in fact a rodeo move to take this thing across it.

That was how I came into New England, on roads that did not seem made for us, and would proceed to test this theory. I would avoid streets in Salem, Massachusetts because the weight allotment was 2.5 tons, and we exceed that by double. I would eventually drive through the very center of Boston, during rush hour, but more on the horrors of driving after our next stop.

We made it through New Hampshire and Vermont with only the most cursory attempts at birding, and a neither over nor underwhelming visit to a co-op. It was just whelming. It whelmed. Surprised spellcheck’s not catching those. Then we were on to Maine for a luxurious five-day stay in a house that overlooked the beach in Kennebunkport. We only had such fantastic accommodations because a dear friend of mine, Alex Kerr, and his newlywed bride Katie were staying at their parents’ place.

We could too, just as long as we could get the RV through the rather narrow streets of Kennebunkport, and then through a narrow entrance to a driveway, around the back of a house with beautiful stonework all around the corner facing the driveway, and onto a wider parking lot in the back of the house (a structure such as this would never pass code today, or be allowed to be built, Kerr assured me).

Somehow, without too much fuss, I managed to do exactly that. I didn’t make it on my first go, and had to take a lap through the streets of downtown Kennebunkport since they don’t live on a regular city block, but such is life. I came at it from the opposite way the second time, and managed to get it down and around the driveway without too much trouble.

Kerr missed my heroics, but hopefully, his wife was suitably impressed. It would be easier to get the RV out of the driveway than in, right? I assured myself of this falsehood as I unwrapped my white knuckles from the most difficult place to park the camper I had ever attempted.

We were then invited into the temporary home of one of my very best friends, given our own room, separate from the boys! And a room that overlooked the beach of Kennebunkport. Just that room would have made staying outside of the RV worth it (and I promptly set up a scope to get a proper look at birds across the bay) but what was far better and was getting to spend every evening drinking and gossiping with some dear old friends.

Throughout the week, we really got in touch with the sea life of Kennebunkport, in more ways than one. It was especially wonderful to tell Kerr what we were hoping to do and have him deliver. For example, we asked about going to Tidepools, only for him to recommend we travel to mother’s beach, for it was the very place that he used to look through tidepools when he was a kid. 

And indeed, one of the coolest and most interesting things we did was go tidepooling. I tried this three times with Leo, and I think we got better and better at it each time.

The first time we went with Xander, and was a spectacularly unsuccessful venture. Xander was miserable and completely ill-suited to the task. He can hardly climb onto the couch, let alone traverse boulders wet with seafoam and slick with seaweed and knotted wrack (ascophyllum nodosum)  to reach the deepest tidepools. In moments he fell, slipped, got soaked, began to cry, slipped again, fell another time, and needed to be rescued. Leo was oblivious to all this, and meanwhile demanded I upturn every stone in the place to find and capture the creatures of the pool.

The second time we went without Xander and were much more successful. We made it to the pools without difficulty and were able to locate two species of crab and a rockpool prawn, all fascinating and beautiful creatures, despite one of the crabs being invasive. This time would have been great, but the smell of low tide became quite putrid to me, and thus soured the experience a bit. This coming from a man who willingly spends time at human sludge treatment plants. 

The third time there was a naturalist out there who really knew her stuff. She seemed to be showing around some tourists, and was quite adept at picking out organisms. We asked her if she had seen a sea urchin (recommended by Kerr) and she told us that oh yes, she had seen some. I sort of lingered there, and Leo proclaimed is undying desire to see one right now, but she did not drop her search for hermit crabs for her acquaintances/clients that she was doing to tend to a four-year-old kid and his daddy’s needs.

Still, not far away from them, we found a happy party of hermits crabs (a double oxymoron brought to you by three generations of Mitchells). That would have been awesome enough, but when I told her we had found some and could point them out to her, she softened. She found a sea urchin not long after that, and brought it over for Leo to see. I got to hold the thing, and it felt like communing with a creature from another space and time.

Another way we got in touch with the sealife was with our mouths, which is to say, we ate a lot of it. Everything was good, some of it was great, but truly the most spectacular meal was lobster dinner at the Kerr house.

Kerr had promised us a lobster dinner, and he did not disappoint. On Thursday, with excitement in the air at the prospect of everyone taking work off for Friday (spoiler, not everyone took work off), Kerr informed he had placed an order for some steamers and a couple lobsters. Feigning knowing what a steamer was but not my eagerness, I nodded and asked where good beer could be procured in this town.

He returned from the shop with not four, not five, but six lobsters, one for everyone at the table, including an almost five-year-old who is a rather picky eater, and a toddler. There was also pasta for the children, which was appreciated by all.

Kerr took out the lobsters and we stared at these otherworldly ocean bugs, caught just off the coast on the seafloor in one of dozens if not hundreds of lobster pots we saw floating in the bay. They were dark, like the underbelly of a coral reef, and had far more limbs than seemed strictly necessary. We observed their elaborate mouthparts and admired their claws. Leo even dared to pick one up. Then we put them back in their temporary home of a paper bag and put them in the fridge.

Soon the smells of white wine, garlic and water filled the beachhouse, and then it was time. One by one, Alex apologized to each lobster before placing it in the bottom of the pot. Katie also said farewells to these underwater crustaceans, and then the lid of the pot was closed, and that was the last time we saw them alive.

Twentyish minutes later the lids came off the pots, and the lobsters were transformed. Now, instead of the dark of the ocean floor, they were the aggressively happy red or roadside stops gas prices. One by one, they removed the lobsters from their pot and stacked them in a platter before us. Steam whirled and we were in awe that the sacrifice of these creatures could be turned into something so different. We are lucky to live in a world where such creatures can be taken from the sea, cooked simply, and shared with loved ones. We are lucky to be able to pull such bounty from the sea, look it in the eye, thank it or not, and literally become one with it. Lobsters are strange, delicious beasts, and like the tuna fish, I hope humans act responsibly so we can continue to enjoy the flesh of these creatures for many generations.

They are delicious, but wow are they hard to eat. But we had pros at the table. Kerr showed us how to twist of the tail, crack it together, peel off the back legs and eat the tail. Then we cracked open the claws and knuckles and ate that. The claw was tender and flavorful, easily my favorite part of the lobster.

 Katie told me that last year the man had eaten thirty of the things. Thirty! Nearly all of them, they cooked themselves. Why go out for lobster, Kerr asked, when you can make it yourself? Why indeed...

Kerr then took his time sucking the meat out of the legs, a process that I could not quite stomach. Nor did I like the roe in one of the lobsters, nor did I like the look of the green goo coming out of its buddy.

But Kerr accepted all these things and ate through them comfortably. I admired such courage in the face of eating an organism so different than us.

We went in search of something far more similar next: humpback whales.  Whales can reliably be seen off the shore of Maine up until October. Learning this from the booking website of a whale watch company, I bought us all tickets and tried not to hype myself up too much about seeing a whale.

I, for one, ultimately enjoyed the experience. Being on a boat is a novelty to me, and going out into the open ocean was a first. It was cold, colder as soon as we reached the middle of the river, but we were well layered and thus fine.

Except for Raquel. Not long out, she started to ask how long until we were back on shore. Three hours, I told her, though that was a lie. It was more like three and a half. Leo though, was in high spirits, and Xander was… well… having some trouble.

But spirits were lifted when a pod of white-sided dolphins were spotted off the port side! The captain slowed the vessel and we did slow loops around the dolphins while they did the same around us. Leo was ecstatic to see them, and Xander pointed and said what I’m pretty sure was dolphin, but sometimes he’s hard to translate. I think Raquel was impressed too… though just barely.

Farther out we went, until we were on the edge of a vast, underwater mountain that caused an upwelling that often attracted vast shoals of baitfish. You could tell where the shoals were primarily by watching the seabirds… something I was doing obsessively. There were gannets about, but not in huge numbers. I saw a great sheerwater, and even a Wilson’s Storm Petrel daintily riding the wind wake of our boat, but there were none of the vast flocks of diving birds that I associate with whales after watching Deep Sea Underwater Nation too many times (That’s what Leo calls his favorite DVD, Blue Planet).

Onward the captain pressed until we reached the foot of a lighthouse with dozens of gray seals bobbing in the surf. This turned out to be the highlight of the voyage. Seeing this lighthouse that we had been able to just barely make out through a scope from across the bay up close was super cool, and the gray seals were massive!

We watched as they bobbed and swam, and then the captain headed back for shore. We kept our eyes peeled for more shoals of fish and the associated birds, but we were not lucky enough to see any. So no whales.

But that’s not to say I didn’t get my fill of marine wildlife.

 We stayed in this beautiful beach house on the shore (Kerr mentioned it was 100 years old all casual, when nothing in Austin is that old except for buildings built by the state).  We had a balcony in our bedroom, where I promptly set up a spotting scope. I cannot tell you how pleasurable it was to see something bobbing off the beach, then head upstairs and peep it from afar.

Using this method I saw a white-winged scoter, common loons, eiders, gannets, and more great black-backed gulls than I knew what to do with. The scope was so perfect for the beach that I couldn’t help but give it to Kerr (a belated wedding gift, I claimed). It was just so perfect for the house, and so completely useless for most birding situations, that it had to stay. Kerr seemed grateful, though it wasn’t the moment I wanted it to be because Leo did NOT want to give up the scope.

The Kerrs departed for their morning run and we loaded up the RV and pulled out of the driveway… or we tried to.

I thought I had it all figured out. Pull as far to the left as I could, so I could turn right without pinching the turn and snagging the RV on the telephone pole on the way out.

Only I still turned too soon. Despite my well-laid intentions (and the miraculous job of actually parking in the driveway) I still snagged the side of the RV on the telephone pull on the way out.

“STOP! STOP! STOP!” Raquel shouted over the cellphone and then proceeded to take her own advice.

“Ok, babe, but which way do I go?”

“I… I don’t know…” she said, panic in her voice.

I tried to stay calm. I was, after all, in control of this rig that was slowly backing up traffic on either side of the road, and yet, I didn’t know what to do either.

Fortunately, a Mainer couldn’t help but get involved.

“You need a hand there?” he asked.

A glance at my wide-eyed wife and I answered yes.

He patiently and carefully told me which way to turn and get the RV off the pole on which it had snagged. We got it all the way back in the driveway without too much damage to the RV. No windows broken, nothing mechanical damaged, but the lock to our outdoor kitchen is a little stickier than it was before.

“Alright, so you need it behind the house then?” the Mainer asked me.

“No sir, we’re trying to leave. I just need to pull out and turn right or left.”

“Oh yeah, that can be tricky,” he said kindly. “You want some help?”

“Sure,” I agreed.

“Alright then, so what you do is… uh…” I saw the look in his eyes that I’m sure I would have had. I have parked this RV in every single stop we’ve made. I have done pull-throughs, back-ins, gone up slopes and down. I have turned around houses and avoided branches, picnic tables, and--most importantly--my kids.

But I have no idea how to put any of that into words. This guy had the same problem. He realized that his ability to explain how to pull out was not as refined as his ability to actually do the thing.

“You know what? Maybe I can just do it for ya?”

And that is how I entrusted a complete stranger to the wheel of my 2019 truck, RV filled with all of my possessions, and my two kids sitting in the back seat.

I climbed out, told myself this was not the craziest thing I’d ever done (and that in fact, it was sane to let this guy do it since he didn’t seem to think he could explain how to get out) and let him take the wheel. He pulled out until he was practically on the sidewalk, then cut it to the left (this was my mistake, I had tried to go right, and thus lost direct visual contact with what I was doing. A tip that my uncle had given me, and I had forgotten in the moment) and then he was free, and driving away with everything I owned… and my kids…

Just kidding. He stopped, hopped out, and laughed when I gave him a business card and told him to call me if he was ever in Austin, and that I owed him a beer.

What a guy.

What a way to leave Maine behind.

From there, we drove through four states, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

In the middle of that, we drove through downtown Boston and some of the twisting streets of Salem, eventually leaving our RV at a parking lot so we could go to a witchy craft fair in this witchy mecca. 

I don’t want to go into it because of the PTSD, but by the time we got to our campsite that night, I declared that any credit Raquel had earned for suffering through the whaling adventure, she had burned by demanding us go to Salem, and then by extension through downtown Boston.

But we made it through, with nothing but the scratch from pulling out of the driveway. The next two days would be rainy, and we mostly stayed inside, missing the life of Maine.