When you live in Vacationland, you learn how to work around the insanity of tourist season, which has just come to an end (until leaf peeper season). You go to the beach after 5 p.m., detour to grocery stores that aren’t near a highway exit or hotel, and shop at the mall on Tuesdays between 2 and 4 in the afternoon.

Or you time it so that you’re smack in the middle of the madness, like we did over Labor Day weekend.

The Maine Mall is not your friend when it’s raining on Sunday of a holiday weekend sale. And yet, there I was with dripping hair (no hat) and a bad attitude (it was the mall), swept up in the rush of teenagers, parents with strollers the width of an SUV, and sale mongers with coupons. Oh wait, that was me.

Second Born and I were clothes shopping because that’s what you do when looking at your closet wardrobe makes you weep uncontrollably. She needed a few things for work and I needed a few things for acceptable public viewing. Going to the mall armed with coupons on a rainy Sunday sounded like a good idea at the time. Then we tried to find a decent parking space. Let’s just say the Portland International Jetport does not offer shuttles to the mall.

I steered Second Born toward finding everything she wanted in an anchor store, hoping she would then be willing to leave without ever entering the mouth of the mall. I was so wrong. We darted and dodged between bags and mall seating filled with yawning significant others staring at their cell phones.

The check-out line at our next destination snaked through the whole store. I was sending silent vibes to Second Born’s brain that she would be attracted to absolutely nothing in this store. My vibes were apparently blocked by the display sign that read $9.99 for tops. She found one thing, tried it on and liked it. I cried quietly into my purse. With all that body heat, the store became a giant sauna. By the time we got to a cash register I was drenched with perspiration instead of raindrops.

That should have been the end of venturing out during summer’s last hurrah – but no. On Labor Day, a day when every vacationer in Maine was trying to slip one last memory in before cursing holiday traffic on the trip back home, we locals decided to drive to Kennebunkport for lunch. Well, it was really closer to dinner. All right, we’ll call it linner… or dunch.

Fortunately for us, several wanna-be patrons didn’t have the patience to wait the estimated 40 minutes to sit outside at a restaurant overlooking the waterfront. Some were handing in their beepers and grabbing a bite to eat at the bar, or hitting the road to search for the highway and a drive-thru, which shortened the wait for us.

We scoped out an area on the deck and waited with our drinks. Spouse spent several minutes causing a scene until we agreed to let him take a selfie. Before we had even picked out which boat we’d each like to inherit from some stranger, our beeper started doing its thing. The three of us enjoyed an excellent meal as we sat outside and soaked in the weather-perfect day. The only rough moment came when Spouse was told that summer ales had already been replaced by pumpkin ales. It was almost as disheartening as seeing Halloween decorations on sale in August.

We capped the afternoon off with a stroll to an ice cream shop for that last bit of savory summer sweetness. The best part of ending the long holiday weekend this way was knowing that, while my e-mail was flooded with traffic alerts, we only had a 20-minute drive home.

Whenever we talk about where we would want to live if we ever left Vacationland, the conversation – and the destination – never gets very far. We grumble when we’re digging out in January, but being stuck in the middle of everyone else’s vacation is a good reminder that we’ll always dig Maine.