A wedding on Peak’s Island, off the coast of Portland, Maine, brought us up to New England for a nice weekend in June (a reprieve from the combination heat wave + thunderstorms roiling New Orleans). We flew in and out of Boston, bee-lining it to Portland the night of the 13th, but taking our time along Route 1 and the coast on the way back.

We stayed at a charming, quirky VRBO that felt like some kind of secret library alcove in what we learned was the Holt House, and spent Saturday morning meandering to the waterfront and ultimately finding ourselves at various stages of the local No Kings protest happening nationally. (At Lincoln Park it was almost incongruously cheerful with a brass band and skewed older/whiter; crowds along Congress Street were younger and a bit more diverse and the atmosphere seemed a bit more charged.)

A water taxi brought us with other wedding attendees to Peak’s Island that afternoon and the sun came out right as the ceremony started. It was a lovely affair (and perhaps most importantly, their hors d’oeuvres included lobster rolls).

The perfect weather continued through Sunday and our drive down the coast to the Hampton Motor Lodge in Hampton, New Hampshire. We stopped at places like Old Orchard Beach and the Nubble Lighthouse at Camp Neddick, and had some ice cream and clam chowder at the Goldenrod in York Beach. After getting settled in our endearingly tiny room at the motor lodge we thought about backtracking to Portsmouth, but decided to stay local and find some dinner on foot instead.