This was possibly the most bizarre destination I have ever ended up at. It’d been suggested by several people, and of course the Internet, but no one had much to say about it, just that I needed to go. On this particular occasion I ended up with quite a carload, my mother, a cousin, and my great-aunt. We had five hours to waste so I suggested we go to Nervous Nellie’s. All of them looked at me blankly, “Suuuuure, we can go buy some jam…?” So off we went!
First off let me tell you the area it’s in is picturesque Maine seaside, absolutely beautiful, and there’s so many things to get happily distracted by including a series of high end galleries. Then there’s Nellie’s which… is so far from that scene it might as well be its own planet. When I drove in my mother didn’t want to get out of the car, “This looks scary!” She yelled, pointing at a heap of rusted metal lying haplessly in the woods. I made her get out. I always do. Besides everyone else was already bounding out.
Here, instead of the cute little jam shop I expected there was an entire Wild West village, run by an army of fronteirsfolk who happened to be made of scrap metal, recycled miscellany, and clay. They were both fascinating and terrifying, somewhere between sweet whimsy and an apocalyptic hellscape. And there was everything… a general store, a saloon, living quarters, a jail. Oh, we had fun in the jail, burbling to a couple who’d apparently made this a destination whenever they got bored. Very sweet people. I thought it was just a little mock village but this thing kept going and going and going. By the end I found myself out in the woods staring at a dead knight being loomed over by a dragon, a plywood castle half completed in the background. The Wild West town was more Whimsical but by the time I got to the knights and the dead Viking, being sent off in a half decayed boat, everyone was getting lightly unnerved. In fact the creatures drawing the wagons and carts had gone from quirky to “Soooo…. that last tab of acid is what did it, huh?” Clearly this artist had as many voices in his head as I do (which I can truly appreciate!)
I love places that encourage the desire to play in everyone from small children to the elderly. It just really brightens my day, but this isn’t even mentioning the jams! They really do have jams! And jellies! Preserves! And chutneys! All of which are free to sample at the little shop on crackers, or if you’d like to pay for a scone there’s a sweet little cafe sitting area to enjoy. Of course I sampled everything and SWEET AMBROSIA! It was like the food of the gods! it was DELICIOUS, easily the best jam I have ever had. Seriously, this jam didn’t need a tetanus-friendly amusement park to sell it, but I wasn’t complaining! Ended up with a jar of Blue Razz and Strawberry Rhubarb. It took all of my power not to eat it straight out of the jar on the way home. My mother didn’t resist temptation and ate it on a biscuit she got a gas station for dinner… SIGH.
Anyway, this is going to be a highly suggested destination from here on out for anyone who loves the quirky, bizarre, and downright delicious.
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
About a week ago I was asked to do a group trip, which I am not adverse to, that would be somewhat local and appropriate to bring a four year old. So I thought the sculpture garden in Brookline might be the ticket. I had heard there were all sorts of large sculptures nestled in the woods on a series of hiking trails that ranged in severity, with most being “easy.” I had envisioned a college campus with a few winding trails around it.
Part of this group was my mother, whose alarm did not go off, and who spent $2 buying a muffin for breakfast that she first stepped on and then lost entirely. From here the GPS kept freezing and would not accept the address and we got lost from there. I was still pretty chill, just hanging in the back seat with the kiddo, which is something I very rarely do. Sadly the bickering had already started.
When we found the entrance to the sculpture garden it was a dirt road attached to the highway with the saddest little sign directing the way. The parking lot had a few gorgeous metal sculptures, some cars parked from other visitors, and a big old map. It said online I should print my own map so I did… not that it helped… because between the three of us no one could make sense of it. In fact the map I’d printed and the big one in the parking lot didn’t agree on much!
We started walking, ended up on what I think may have been a RV trail, climbing up, up, up and not seeing a damn thing. Everyone’s huffing and puffing and cranky. I’m at a complete loss as to what is going on. When we finally got to the top of the hill we found ourselves in a rat’s nest of insanely ill-marked trails that went off in all directions with colorful arrows pointing in every one of them. Most trails these days are color coded. These tried to be… but both the maps had different colors for the same trail and the trails themselves? Well! You’re walking on the purple, red, blue, green, yellow trail…. or is it white? No, I think it’s all of them. We’re on every trail at once. Absolute chaos. I felt like we might end up in Wonderland, or somewhere worse. Were Muppets changing the arrows every time we passed? Felt like it.
But then we started to see the sculptures. They were in fact littered everywhere and were for the most part marked on the map by color and number – not chronologically, or in any other order we could identify, and the colors seemed to mean absolutely nothing besides, but they were there! Look! Most of them were pretty abstract and not really my thing but a few were really cool like a big steam punk bank vault door just sitting in the woods all mysterious. I also adored two granite hugging couples, some Australian’s concept of a seed, a weird figure in a serpentine pose around a pole, and my favorite of all three beautifully whimsical werewolves made of scrap metal. And we did enjoy ourselves after the bickering settled down but seriously… this isn’t for everyone. If things like insanely poorly marked trails and unreadable maps bug you then perhaps you should make a pass on this. Even the “loop” trails were just big U’s that attached to other big U’s. Not a single complete loop. And the hiking was moderate – there were rocks and hills and slippery leaves. The four year old did great though so I still wouldn’t discount it completely as family fun…Â And hey, I did have a good time. Honestly. I think there’s something really cool about art in the woods, even more cool when you can go up to them and touch them, getting a real sense of the artist who made them.
