I was asleep by the time Bob posted last night, so I didn’t get to make any editorial comments.  That being said, I need to officially object to the term “little bit” as used to describe the extra amount we ended up walking yesterday.  Checking our route on google maps, I see that we walked an extra 4.2 miles, not counting some of the extra back and forth to the beach, the restaurant, etc.

And we did it without a lot of breaks, either.  There was a restaurant immediately after Fort McClary State Park, about 3.5 miles into our journey, but we weren’t really hungry yet and we’d just taken a little break at the park, so we passed it by.  (We considered getting lunch to go at the general store next door, which advertised the “world’s best sandwiches” — but then we saw the “Trump 4 President” sign in the window and Just Couldn’t Do It.)

Restaurants — or anything else of interest, really — proved to be pretty thin on the ground after that.  The first part of our walk, through Portsmouth and downtown Kittery, was really lovely, with an active waterfront full of quaint businesses.   (We definitely fail to properly appreciate them since they’re so close to home.)  Kittery Point was lovely, too, with its perfectly maintained New England houses, gorgeous gardens in the front and glimpses of lobster boats and floating buoys in the background.  But once we got past the fort, it was just road and vegetation and the occasional house.

As a result, we didn’t end up stopping to eat until about 3:00 in the afternoon, when we fortified ourselves with beer, crab cakes, and sweet potato fries at the Lobster Cove.  Luckily, this set us up well for our dinner, since the earliest reservation available at Mimmo’s was 8pm.  (It was crucial that we get into Mimmo’s, not because of its great reputation but because everything else would have meant a longer walk.)

Long Sands Beach

And so, despite the fact that the day didn’t turn out quite as planned, it all ended happily.  Our huge and delicious Italian dinner (followed by a brownie sundae at a nearby ice cream stand) was just what we needed.  Afterwards we watched a group of people releasing some kind of candle-powered floating lanterns out over the ocean, with a huge almost-full moon in the background.

Total mileage for the day (not including side trips): 14 miles.