Acadia to Boston

Today we packed up, had coffee with the neighbors as the kids played cards with their daughters, crammed the tent in the bag like a ten pound cat in a size five shoebox, and took off down beautiful route 1. The neatest thing about this highway is that in between the towns everyone has shops or markets set up in their front yards or garages or barns. It seems you can’t live on route 1 without being an entrepreneur. We have seen so many farmers’ market tables selling wild blueberries, strawberries, fresh baked pies as well as flea markets, doll house supplies, any kitschy thing you can think of set up just in the yard.

We drove to Rockland, where Jamey showed us around where he used to live – a
huge house! Then we walked down to the Breakwater Lighthouse. It was a 7/8
mile walk there and another (obviously) 7/8 mile walk back on huge stones laid out back to back with cracks from 1-12” in between them. Avery did acidentally misstep into a crack in between the stones and scratched himself up a bit.

Just add that walk to the list. Between the food we have been eating and all the walking we have been doing we should end up about even.
We took off for Boston, about a 4 hour drive. Remarkably, the traffic was okay. We are staying at the Four Points Sheraton Logan Int’l Airport. I did the Priceline thing and it picked our hotel out for us. It’s a nice hotel and the rooms are clean and comfortable, but boy will we miss the hot tub – and no continental breakfast. All in all, I think I won’t do the Priceline Name Your Own Price again.

We are having quite a time in Boston so far. We didn’t arrive until about 8:00 pm Eastern Time and were hungry, so after looking at delivery options, we decided that good cheap Domino’s Pizza would do, we would just have to drive around and find one. We did find one, but not in the best part of town – we walked across the street to a convenience store and the clerk was yelling into his cell phone in some sort of English/ another language cross. He just kept yelling as he checked us out. Something about taxes, and don’t deal with that person, you need to deal with this person, I can’t sell that. Yikes! What an introduction to the city.

Back to the hotel, for some much needed relaxation. Tomorrow we will try out the public transportation, take the self-guided Boston walking tour, check out the mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy library and see a free Shakespeare production in the Boston commons in the evening. A full day that we are all excited for.

Acadia Day Two and the Dover 6K walk/whine

What a relaxing, refreshing day. Not a refreshing night, by any means – on the gravel ground with no sleeping pad in the pouring rain – it gets low 50’s high 40’s at night, pretty chilly - but at least the tent stayed dry -- on the inside and brought a great day!

First we ran down to the nearest local gas station for some ice and coffee – then to grocery store quickly for some smore supplies for dinner. We hopped on the Island Bus (they have free bussing all through Acadia National Park) to Bar Harbor to exchange to another bus to Sand Beach. The bus was crazy – like the bus in Harry Potter – we held on to our seat rails! Speeding around small mountain roads and nearly running people over – quite an experience!

We didn’t realize what we were getting into at Sand Beach so we didn’t pack swimsuits, but we rolled up our pants and went to wade in the waves anyway. It was so much fun we soon ended up in all the way to the waist – in denim! We played and played in the waves – Brianna kept screaming AHHH! AHHH! Then we hiked up the mountain in wet denim pants and flip flops (on a nice cut gravel trail) about one mile to look at Thunder Hole and catch the next bus down the mountain. This was a better bus.

After Thunder Hole it was onto Bar Harbor, a tourist trap town

if we ever saw one, but a pleasant one. We went into one shop

with about 30 different flavors of homemade fudge. We bought little pieces of snickers fudge, chocolate wild blueberry fudge and chocolate mint fudge. Yum! Then, in the foodie tradition we hit the nearest ice cream parlor and were amazed by the flavor line up. Jamey and I both had Black Raspberry Disaster with raspberry ice cream, chocolate fudge, raspberries, and chocolate raspberry candy. Wow! Brianna had Maine Survivor. Pretty much if you can put it in ice cream it was in this ice cream. Chocolate, chocolate chips, chocolate chip cookie bits, fudge swirls, peanuts and peanut butter cups. Avery had Dinosaur tracks – Neon blue ice cream, chocolate chunks and marshmallows! What a dining experience!

Then we moved on to the Bass Harbor lighthouse and the Dover 7K charity walk/whine. We rode the bus all the way past our campground to the lighthouse stop. We didn’t realize that the lighthouse was away from the road almost a half mile. The bus driver said he came back to that stop in 30 minutes soooo…we power walked all the way down to the lighthouse which was honestly a little disappointing, took a very quick look then power walked all the way back to the bus stop. As we crossed the final bend we saw the bus LEAVE. Ahhhh! So, we had an hour and a half to wait for the next bus (because it loops around) or we could just start walking back to camp and hope we caught a bus on the way. So we walked…and walked…and walked. Brianna’s feet hurt, my left calf hurt, Jamey’s side and his toe hurt, Avery’s tummy hurt. We whined and whined and whined, and enjoyed the scenery. We stopped for some of our fudge on the side of the road for awhile then walked some more. They had kilometers marked for cyclers on the whole path, so we know we walked just over 7 km back to camp. That bus never did catch up to us. Whew! We decided on the way that we would walk for charity, so we decided to walk for the Dover Returning Adult Student Charity—donations accepted (haha).

Finally at the camp we flopped down and made some campfire pizza and three different kinds of smores, nutella smores, mint patty smores and regular smores and turned in. We burned our marshmellows to the perfect taste, but I was the only one who liked burned marshmellows. Brianna espescially didn't like them .

We are looking forward to Boston and showers and soft beds tomorrow, but we’ve had a great time camping here in Acadia, seeing the beauty of nature and enjoying the ocean.

Acadia Nat'l Park -- Day One

This morning we woke up in Randolph and went to church to hear Grampy sing. He is part of a barbershop quartet called the Belltones, and they travel around to different churches in the summer providing special music. It was a really neat time!
We headed back to Grammy and Grampy’s after a 2 hour church service – ate a quick lunch packed up and hit the road for the coast. We had to cross this bridge to get there.

We met Jamey’s family on his mom’s side today on the way to the coast in a beautiful little tourist town named Camden – Maine is full of them. It was so great to meet everyone and finally put faces with the names I’ve been hearing for so many years. From Camden it was on to Belfast, ME to see the Atlantic ocean! Brianna and I were so excited to see the little glimpses of ocean behind the trees but when asked why he wasn’t excited Avery said “what’s there to be excited about it’s just a lot of water and sand.” Yeah, can’t wait for him to be a teenager.

We ate at a seaside restaurant, right on the Harbor, where the

big beautiful boats of the rich and maybe famous were docked. I had my first ever lobster dinner. The lobster had eyes. I didn’t expect that. Still, after I ripped it limb for limb, it was really very good. Hard to eat but good. Jamey kissed the eyeballs of his lobster it was gross (but we have a good picture of it). We have lots of great pictures, but they were taken by Aunt Val so as soon as I have those on email I will post them.

Then we hit the road again for Acadia National Park. Soon road signs were posted everywhere for Acadia, but we couldn’t find any type of entrance for the park. We were passing tourist towns, gas stations, even a Wal-mart, but we couldn’t find the park. We stopped for directions and were told we were IN Acadia! We were floored. Who knew that national parks had Wal-marts?!? There were actually towns in a national park. Below, is a (terrible) picture I shot of a small town main street inside of the park. Isn't that interesting? After about 15 more minutes of driving, about 7:30 pm however, we found the Seawall Entrance – the entrance to our campground and to another section of the park. This is what we expected a national park to look like. The ocean is beautiful you can see the waves crashing in, but we couldn’t stop and look for long because we had yet to set up our giant tent (Thanks again mom and dad).

We found our campsite just before dark and unrolled the tent -- what a beast! And the campsite was too small – so we had to move then tent around for about 30 minutes and move tables and such to fit it – it was now after dark and we were struggling to set up by lantern light. Finally, after we were terribly frustrated and having a hard time figuring it out, a neighboring tent family (and seemingly camping veterans) from Illinois and their two teenage daughters came over and asked if we “need some light and a little help” . We were SO grateful. The six of us had the tent up in no time!

So, a night in the tent tonight, then we will walk about ¼ mile to the ocean, then back and take the park bus to some of the sights. We are in for a beautiful day tomorrow!

One Week Later - Leaving Camp

Today the road dust is starting to settle in and wear a little. It is day 7 of 14, and we are all starting to wear a little from the travel, the close quarters and generally being away from home. Still waking up on the lake is beautiful! Kitadin finally showed through the clouds and I took some pictures.

We packed up and took a few boat trips over to the landing (i'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but you have to boat back and forth from the car to the cabin), and were on the road by 9 am. We stopped in Newport, Maine off highway 95 for a lunch at Sawyers Dairy Bar. We ordered hot dogs and hamburgers, sodas and fries and finished off with huge soft serve ice cream cones rolled in chocolate sprinkles (which they call chocolate jimmies up North). Back to Randolph where we unpacked the camp supplies and loaded up the dirty laundry. We took the kids and gave Grammy and Grampy a much needed break (they have been so hospitable) to head to the local laundry and clean up the clothes. We all desperately needed a shower, and somewhere to wash up (after 3 days with no running water – and a lean to outhouse) so after laundry and a quick dinner at Subway (ah, home) we all hogged up the shower at Grammy and Grampy’s. Heaven.
After our camp experience I can say though I haven’t yet seen a moose in Maine, I have certainly smelled one!

Speaking of moose, there are moose crossing signs all over the highway. One other funny thing from today, after leaving camp we stopped at a rest area on the highway to use the restroom. Brianna walked inside – and what do you know – a port a potty. She said “Mom…I’m about done with these toilets with no flushers!” I said “Me too!”

Tommorow off to Camden and Bath for our first bonified lobster dinner on the coast and our first view of the Atlantic Ocean in all of its glory (on this trip -- Jamey has seen the Atlantic before). We can't wait!

Camp Day Two

Another beautiful day at camp today. I woke up this morning to this view; literally the first thing I saw as I opened my eyes. I elected to sleep on the bed that is on the open-air screened in porch again. It is about 20 feet from the lake – in the morning fog, you can hear the loons, and the water – it is beautiful and peaceful. The peace ended soon after however as we all took a customary dive in the cold Maine water first thing in the morning. Jamey had to cut the legs off of my pajama pants, and the kids swam in their underpants (it’s a very secluded area) because guess who left the swimsuits in Randolph at Grammy and Grampy’s house (yes it was me, I’m sure no one is surprised). The water was freezing, but we had a great time, the lake floor is a shallow sandy beach for quite a ways, though it gets up to around 20 feet deep in the middle of the cove. I’m told that when they let out the dam, the water level drops dramatically and the island that the cabin is on becomes surrounded with sandy beaches. Now, though it is a drop off of the dock a few feet. Onto breakfast—you can pick fresh blueberries right off of their bushes on the way in the door – what a treat – there are also boysenberries, Avery thought they were called “raisinberries”.

Brianna and Avery put on a dancing show. They danced around the inside of the cabin for awhile until Brianna knocked her front teeth straight onto the edge of a chair. They’ve been wiggly for almost a month now, and the chair helped the cause greatly. She bled for a little while but is fine. I think we’ll lose those teeth before vacation ends.

We fished for awhile but didn’t catch much and Grampy took the kids to pick blueberries on a nearby island – they didn’t come back with much. We think they ate them.
Jamey went fishing in a beautiful sunset, and I captured a few pictures of that.
After fishing, we lit a fire and watched the sun go down over the lake.
It rained last night, and we’ve had cloudy skies today, so Mt. Kitadin hasn’t shown in the distance tomorrow, but sunny skies are forecasted, so hopefully I’ll have some pictures of the mountain to share.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of the beautiful solitude that camp offers – I don’t think that it can really be captured, but I hope this will give you an idea of where we have been.

Camp Day One

Camp is amazing. It seems almost too sacred a place to bring a laptop to pop up in the evening and click away on my keyboard. The experience though is so wonderful, and I want to share it – so here I am feet away from this beautiful lake on the screened in porch on my horsehair mattress with the sound of nature all around me –and I am on my laptop. Haha. There is no electricity here, and no running water – we boil lake water for dishes and to cook with, though there is some drinking water stored. Everything seems slower and simpler here.

We ate on the screened in porch surrounded by 11 miles of beautiful lakes in the North Woods of Maine. Mt. Kitadin is in the distance, though not visible because of the fog today. We hope to see it tomorrow. The cabin is on an island with only one other cabin, though the other cabin is not visible from ours and belongs to Jamey’s Uncle David, so the entire Island belongs to family. The island allows an almost 360 view of the beautiful lake and woods. The time spent here has been wonderful. The kids, of course are a little bored – and not quite sure how to entertain themselves – this has been really the only interruption in the peace and solitude here, but still, for them to have this experience is something we hope they never forget. They did enjoy the fire tonight after dinner, and are having a good time in their bunk beds with their sleeping bags (though they are not actually bunked for fear that one would roll out in the middle of the night). Overall, we are having a wonderful time – I probably won’t disturb the silence of the lake again tomorrow with my electronic gadget -- so look for another post tommorow.

Golf and the Museum of Maine

Anothah great day in Maine! No, that’s not a typo. Today Jamey went golfing with Grampy and scored a pretty good 108! Grammy, Avery, Brianna and I explored what Augusta had to offer and had a wonderful time! About 10:00 we took off for Augusta, the capital of Maine (sans camera – so no pix today L), first we looked at the Kennebec river, which connects directly to the Atlantic – we saw sturgeon jumping up in the air, pretty cool!

Then we went to see an old military fort, opened in the 1860’s then over to the museum of Maine next to the capital building. The museum was amazing, and is rated in the top 10 state museums in the country. I really enjoyed the prehistoric 12,000 years to present displays, but the kids enjoyed the lifelike animal biospheres displays best! Avery said “Mom, are those animals real?” I said “yes, they are real, but they are not alive, they are dead and they are stuffed to look real.” Brianna said, “Mom, how did they die?” I replied “I think they probably died of old age.” We moved on to the displays of work in old factories. Avery said “Mom, are those people really working?” Brianna said “No, they died, and they are stuffed!”

We met Jamey’s Uncle Dave and Aunt Sher today, the kids really took to Uncle Dave and called him Unc. We had a great BBQ meal at their house and really enjoyed the adult conversation as we finally set the kids down with a movie for the first time during the trip. The kids have been doing great, and behaving so well! We are so proud of them!

Tomorrow morning we take off for camp, so expect a lot of pictures posted if I can get cell phone service out there – it’s how I get the internet to post my blogs.