The Places Between 10
Pine Point Beach
There are few things as enjoyable as visiting a beach during the off season. Kids are back in school, so families have packed up their picnic baskets and left the sands for lone rovers like me. Pine Point Beach in Scarborough was a nice walk. On an unseasonably nice autumn day, I parked my car on a residential street, trying to find Snowberry Ocean View Park. When I found it, I also discovered a short, sandy trail that led out to a wide beach. I took off my socks and sneakers and walked most of the beach before finally seeing the sign that advertised its name. On my trek back, I spotted two people riding horses next to the water.
Unlike Pine Point Beach, some beaches were not great for visiting. Wells Beach and Clearwater Beach, both in Wells, were completely flooded when I visited. Waves crashed over the fences and sidewalks. The water splattered across both me and my car’s hood as I parked it nearby the stairs that descended down to Wells Beach. I wasn’t the only person drawn to watch the intense waves; I stood against the fence with a few other people who were more local to the area. I asked them why the waves were that high, and they mentioned that they had been getting higher since the harsh storms last winter, but never quite as high as they were when we were visiting on high tide during a full moon.
Larrabee’s Landing in Yarmouth is not a beach, but instead, as the name suggests, a small piece of land next to a river. It;s pathway extends from the side of an unassuming road all the way down a lawn that’s lined with a pumpkin-decorated fence. The sound of construction happening two houses over sent all the wildlife sprinting away, which may have been the reason the pumpkins looked so nice, balanced on their fence posts.
I took a detour into Portland to visit the Amethyst Lot, a small park near the harbor. Most of my visits to Portland have been to the theater, the mall, or a coffee shop—all of which have had views of streets lined with cars and tall business buildings. This was one of the first times I had spent any significant amount of time down by Portland's waterfront. My view of the water was greeted by an enormous cruise ship. Vendors lined up outside it to greet any tourists who were coming off. Across the park were railroad tracks for anyone who preferred to travel by train.
