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.

Dover, NH and Randolph, ME

Is it even possible that in our travels we will continue to find such charming and unexpected delights? Today, on the way to Randolph, Maine we detoured to Dover, New Hampshire, because how could we not? We expected to stop by and take a photo with the street sign that said Dover, and perhaps find a little diner somewhere for lunch – we had no idea what was in store for us. We had again fortuitously stumbled across a New England treasure. Dover, a quaint little fishing village town turned to beautiful brick and stone buildings along winding brick paths as you ventured further into town. After inquiring further as to the amazing architecture of Dover we found that it was the 7th colony settled in the New World, and was founded in 1633. Some of the original architecture still survived! A town of festivals, niche shops and real living mixed with a touristy feel, Dover was romantic and trendy all at the same time and was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon. We toured the local police station – yes that is odd – and were informed that the town is NOT called Dover, it is called Dovah! We got lots of fun stickers from the police dpet that said “Dover Police” and “Buckle up Dover” as well as a T-shirt of funny, but questionable content. We found an independent pizzeria called La Festa for lunch and had an amazing prosciutto and mushroom pizza named proscuitto fungi and local blueberry beer – it was great!



After Dover we hit another interstate and another toll road – this is definitely something I failed to include in our budget – I had no idea, but we have spent around $30 just on toll roads between PA and ME! It was another couple of hours to Randolph, ME but we finally made it after crossing the bridge from Gardiner! When we pulled up to a gas station to freshen up before meeting Jamey’s grandparents the attendant took a look at our Texas license plates (rented car) shook his head, laughed and said “you drove from where?” Meeting the grandparents was great – the kids took to them immediately. The neatest thing is looking straight out the back window of the house to a forest on either side.

Not sure what the wi-fi situation will look like the next few days, but I will try to post when I can. Thanks everyone for keeping up and for the comments!

One Day...ONE State

Whew! What a day!
From the hotel we started off for Niagara Falls on I-90, but turned off the beaten path after filling up with gas (only the third time! – we are getting 31 mpg in our Toyota Camry!). After a few miles of driving we noticed grapes – everywhere. There was a sign for a winery so we stopped and asked (and picked up a bottle of Sweet Cranberry wine) – we had inadvertently stumbled across New York’s wine country in our off road travels! The clerk said there were 25,000 acres of grapes in the region we driving through and another 60,000 in the Finger Lakes Area. Who knew New York even had a wine country? After touring a little more, taking these beautiful photos (thank you Jamey!) and a little sampling -- after all it WAS after noon in the Eastern Time Zone, we purchased one more bottle of sweet wine called Bella Rosa from the very helpful and friendly owner of Merrit Wineries . He explained that sweet wines are popular in this region because the concord grape – the grape used to make sweet wines – grows better there than does any other grape. WHAT A FIND!

So…after reluctantly driving out of beautiful NY wine country we traveled a few more hours past quaint country villages and interstate towns and more of Lake Erie to Niagara Falls. Niagara was amazing! The magnificence and majestic splendor of nature at Niagara is something nearly past description. Upon arriving (in a very commercial area), we packed up our picnic basket complete with bread, cheese, grapes (from California), pastries and salami – and set out in search of a spot. We walked past massive swirling churning rapids so loud you had to nearly shout to hear yourself over – past the viewing deck for the American falls – where you see the smaller falls in all of their glory and finally found a great spot for a picnic right in between both. Here is Avery chasing what Jamey calls the Niagara Pigeons – seagulls (they were everywhere!). He would chase them away then we would throw more food and they come right back.

We decided last minute to spring for tickets on the Maid of the Mist and we are glad we did. It was amazing! After donning the signature ponchos we boarded the boat, and took our choice of spots (we were first in line) and soon we were off, rocking in the water as we moved closer to the falls. We were soon within a few hundred feet of the amazing Horseshoe Falls with a view you can’t get from the US -- getting drenched by the water around us—producing 12 million horsepower of energy smashing around us -- it was an experience that we will not soon forget!

We checked out a bit more of Niagara Falls National Park, climbed some rocks, took a few more photos and hit the road for Fillmore Glen National Park in NY for some camping and smores (really? the spelling for smores is not in the Microsoft dictionary?). Thunderstorms all night and forecast for morning as well however, turned Fillmore Glen into a few more miles on the interstate (the GOLDEN New York interstate that is – or if it is not it should be because it cost us $7.25 to drive on it!) and hot dogs and smores into pizza from Pizza Hut and a handful of Spree in the quarter machine on the way out– so I’m blogging on the road tonight until we decide to stop... or not.

POST NOTE: 5:59 am - Olay! We finally stopped in E. Greenbush, New York about 1:00,am the price on hotels here is CRAZY! They want $77 for a closet with a mattress, a pillow and a roach to keep you company. We finally haggled the night staff at America's Best Value Inn to give us a room for $50 after we told him that is what he would spend - then left...he literally chased us out to the car to give us the room. Immediately upon entering the room, we were overpowered by a Mexican food smell (Jamey says jambalaya, but I'm pretty sure it's Mexican rice of some sort), and we couldn't find it anywhere -- so we slept in little Mexico in NY. The one king bed was OK, we packed in like sardines on top of our own pillows and blankets, and the air conditioner worked, as well as the bathroom - so we were happy! Urban Camping!

19 hours and 6 states later!

Whew! What a LEG! We left Hesston, Ks at 11:30 pm July 19, and passed into Missouri at 2:53 am. We hit St. Loius just before drive time...Meet me in St. Loius, Loius, meet me at the fair... this is the kids just before we woke them up to look at the arch. St. Loius held two interesting things that our Kansas bumpkin family were in awe of: 1) the St. Loius autobahn. Some sort of freeway-highway in the middle of the East and West bound highways, flanked by cement dividers. with security arms every once and a while...people were driving 90+ miles an hour! CRAZY! 2) A flashing highway sign that indicated that today in St. Loius was a YELLOW OZONE DAY, and you must reduce your travel...we found that fascinating as the only air pollution we deal with in Kansas comes in the form of methane gas from farm animals.



So...State Line #2 was Illinois at 6:43 am -- then breafkast on the road at a beautiful rest stop just across the state line. After a wonderful breakfast of blueberry muffins, grapes, oj and nutella bananas the kids *and okay the grownups too* had some fun climbing Illinois trees -- but those pics aren't going up here!





State Line #3 Ohio was at 1:51. Nothing much to say about Ohio,

because I slept through most of it as Jamey drove again, but

somewhere in Ohio Brianna and Avery (remarkably well behaved on the trip thus far) decided to pour out thier drink bottles into the built in cup holders in the RENTAL car to make a pond for an imaginary duck...not sure how that logic works -- but I'm sure it made sense in thier 5 and 6 year old minds. After cleaning that mess up we hit the road again to see the Ohio sites -- beautiful picturesque farmsteads, silos, colonial style homes and barns reminiscent of Warren Kimble paintings. Because we crossed Ohio from SW to NE it was the state we remained in the longest -- what a very LONG drive!

We passed through into PA with great relief at 6:57 pm on Sunday, 7/20! WOOO HOOO! We sprung for a hotel tonight in Erie, PA-- we knew we would need a comfy bed after a fitful night of sleeping turns in the car -- we swam in the pool, then took the kids down to Lake Erie to stick thier fingers in the water. It was beautiful and peaceful in the dark. Then we drove around until we found a local cafe called Dominicks that served breakfast 24 hours a day. It was very down home -- and great food -- it was defintely the real deal -- not the tourist experience.

So far so good! We are having a great time --- tommorow onto Niagara falls then to a campground not far from there -- easy sailing for a few days!

T minus 2 hours to Operation Maine and everyone is excited and tired (already)! We finally crammed everything into the trunk of the car (we hope), dropped off the biting dog with Mom and Dad. We are almost on the road. The kids are STARVING TO DEATH again-- it's been almost an hour since the last feeding. We may just hook them up to liquid food tubes for the car trip. Our first leg is 18 hours, from Hesston, KS to Erie, PA -- WOW!
Look for posts and pics as often as we can find Wi-Fi along the way.
:)