At the beginning of September, my husband and I took our dogs and backpacks and headed north to Maine on a road trip. It was a 7 hour driving from Brooklyn, NY to Boothbay Harbor, ME on a rainy morning on Labor Day. As much as I love making art, I needed to take a break from the studio and change environments.

And, I’ll be honest with you. It wasn’t easy for me to disconnect and feel all the inspiration nature could provide once we got there. It’s interesting to notice how adaptable we are, even though I had left NYC for a couple of days, I was still operating in NYC’s mode during my vacation.

The idea of this trip was to relax and do almost nothing. In fact, we hadn’t planned anything until the following day when we woke up there. Do you relate to it? Or you’re the type of person who loves planning every aspect of the trip?

PEMAQUID POINT LIGHTHOUSE

Although I love planning, for this trip specifically, I didn’t have any but some vague intention to sketch in my sketchbook once I was there. Because we didn’t have plans, and the first two days were raining, I looked up online places where Edward Hopper used to paint in Maine and checked if we could visit any of them. I found that one of the lighthouses he painted was one hour away from us, and we drove there. We went to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, and even though it wasn’t a sunny day, it was quite special.

WHALE WATCHING & SAILING

In the following days, we stayed in Boothbay Harbor and did whale watching on one day and sailing on the other. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t done it before. It was my first time seeing a whale, and I must say, it is an astonishing experience. Lastly, we couldn’t leave Maine in September without eating a lobster roll, right? So we made sure to grab one at Shannon’s Unshelled, and I highly recommend it.

That was pretty much our summer trip. No big plans, and no big deal. It was necessary to recharge for the rest of the year. Now tell me, where did go this past summer? Any recommendations? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments below.