Half a day of Salem was enough, so we went to find a proper thrift store, and looked up the nearest Goodwill store. We had a nice chat with a very talkative old man at the checkout. Apparently, they call people of Massachusetts ‘Massholes’!!
After a wonderful time in Goodwill, I decided we should go to the coast to find an infamous lobster roll. Good old Google maps, I type in lobster roll, and an array of options pop up. I spy one called the ‘Shuck Shack’ (I later discover that shucking, is what you do to an oyster or clam to take it out! Who knew!), a 40 minute drive, and this becomes our destination in Hampton, New Hampshire. We arrive at Hampton, a coastal beach holiday for locals kind of vibe, static caravans, country rock music blaring from windows with enthusiastic chatter of inebriated friends perhaps. We try to find parking for a few hours, and the first one wanted $20, the second $30! We wonder what’s going on to make it this expensive. We drive a little further out, and find one for $15 and walk towards the beach. Orange plastic barriers with officials, and a sign stating $10 per person. We wonder what for, and what’s going on? Determined not to pay that, we set up a different road further up the beach, thinking they can’t block the whole beach. Eventually finding our way in, we walk along the beach, and find another way up to the promenade, where the public toilets are. I asked a couple of older women faffing with their hair in the mirrors, what is going on to make it all expensive to park and why you have to pay to get to a certain section of the promenade? They look at me very confused and said it’s the seafood festival. I said, is it worth going to, any good? Again, baffled, they explain there’s music, and you buy different fresh food at stalls. I thank them and apologise for disturbing them. Leon and I walk further up the stretch, and realise we are IN the seafood festival already. No wonder the women looked perplexed! Still aiming for the shuck shack, with its 4.9 star rating, we walk past a lobster roll stall, $15 small, $20 large. We contemplate getting it from here, but no, eyes on the prize! We walked back out past the officials, to the shuck shack. Guess what? It’s closed due to the seafood festival, haha!! Now, we have to walk all the way back along the parallel road path, to find our sneaky little cut in to go to the stall we saw! In hindsight, we probably should have just gone and found a different town that was not in the middle of a huge annual festival, but we’d paid for our parking, and wanted to complete what we had set out to do. Eat that bloomin lobster roll!
We FINALLY get our lobster roll. It’s ok. Not worth that amount to me, though tasty (like chunky chickeny-prawn in butter, placed in a standard hot dog bun), we were both still hungry after. I think what I’d seen on a YouTube channel, was a grilled cheese lobster sandwich.
We take a look around the stalls and the seafront usual shops with touristy stuff in, and find a fine selection of Trump t shirts and jumpers with the state motto ‘Live free or die’ on. New Hampshire is a real character! And that character has a huge jacked up truck with a confederate flag on it.
