With Memorial Day last weekend having signalled the unofficial start of summer, it's had me thinking about how much I want to go to the beach. Growing up in Andover, MA I could drive to the beach from my house in twenty minutes if I wanted to. Typically, though, I would drive a little farther (about an hour) to my favorite beach at Drakes Island in Maine. This was always one of my favorite places to visit during the summer.

My family often rented a cottage right on the beach, where we could wake up hearing the waves and smelling the salt air. I'd get up in the morning for breakfast and read a book on the porch for a bit before heading down to the beach for the day. I usually avoided swimming in the 50-some degree water, although my younger brother would run straight in, despite his skin turning blue and his limbs going numb.

My family would usually play football, soccer, or wiffle ball on the beach, and there would ALWAYS be an annual sprinting competition. We would count out a distance for the race (usually about 50 yards) and my mom would be the official race judge. The races usually included my dad, sister, and myself when we were young (and my brother was too short to keep up). But as we got older, my brother started to catch up to the rest of us. Now that he's almost 16 and the tallest one in the family, I'm sad to admit that he beats us all pretty easily. My competitive nature just hates to admit defeat, even when I'm competing against someone obviously more athletic than myself.

Another thing that I love about Maine is the delicious, fresh seafood. Crab, lobster, shrimp, and clam chowder are all favorites of mine, and I grew to know all the best places to eat near Drakes Island. The Maine Diner, The Lobster Pound, and Barnacle Billy's are some of my all-time favorite restaurants. (I have often been accused of being a "seafood snob" by my mid-western friends.) And seafood isn't the only yummy food to be found in Maine. Wild Maine blueberries (especially when baked into blueberry pie) at a small farm near the beach is another favorite treat of mine.

Unfortunately it's been a couple years since I've been to Maine - the last beach I was at was in Puerto Rico on spring break during my senior year of college. Living in Indiana now, it's just not quite as easy to zip off to the beach on a whim. I was somewhat tempted last weekend to just pick up and drive the 900 miles to the ocean; alas the $3.98/gallon gas prices put a damper on that idea.

I guess for now, I'll just enjoy some of my other favorite summer activities - grilling out, eating ice cream, driving with the windows down, and enjoying spending time outside. Not a bad set of alternatives!