Looking Back, Part I

Ok, so we went through what we were looking forward to the most upon returning to Colorado.  Looking back, there are things that we just won't miss.  Take a look...

Stephanie

• Stinky toes/shoes/air (I know it won't go away, but dispersed is much better, trust me)
• Tiny kitchen space
• Unsecured stuff in cabinets jumping out and trying to take me out
• Turning my bed into a table every day
• Turning my table into a bed every night
• Finding a place to live frequently
• Teeny tiny bathroom
• Fajitas/tacos/burritos
• Long travel days

Bill

• Cycling water tanks
• Humidity

G

• Bugs
• Shared space
• Moving so frequently
• Limited electricity and water

NS

• Sitting in the car for such a long time
• Small space
• Biting bugs

K

• Biting bugs
• Heat
• Cycling water tanks
• No alone time/space

NB

• Heat
• Cycling water
• Bugs
• Pollen in the air
• Cooped up little space

J

• Bugs
• Mud
• Cereal for breakfast

There seems to be a theme.  Can you tell that today we're busy cycling water?  We don't like to move the trailer mid-stay in order to hit the dump station, and not every dump station has a clean water fill up, so we do a lot of moving water by hand.  We've learned a lot about resource management this year.  Both with water and electricity.  We know that our life in a house is a much more privileged existence and that we need to be (and are capable of being) more flexible in terms of wants and needs.  And while we all love each other, we'd like to see less of each other.  At least for a while.

Visit

Our friends have come at last!  They actually joined us for dinner the night before, but this is our first outing all together.  We traipsed around the Schoodic Peninsula checking out tide pools.  Our goal was to get out to Little Moose Island near low tide.  About an hour or so before low tide through an hour or so after low tide is when the island is accessible, other than that the water is over the route to the island.  We were warned by another family about seemingly innocent mud.  Apparently their daughter sunk to the edge of her shorts in the stuff.  We were fortunate and avoided that fate!            

The kids had a lot of fun checking out the pools.  The biggest find of the day was small crabs.  Those thrilled the kids so much--they loved to catch them.  I think the rocky environment led to their enjoyment, too.  Scrambling around is way cooler than just walking through some boring old sand or something.                  

Bill and I headed out to the island while the others were checking out the tide pools.  As soon as they noticed we were headed out, though, those guys kinda trickled over.  G and Z stayed back, but everyone else made it all the way out.  There was a bit of maneuvering to get out to the island, but it wasn't really a bad hike.  We didn't spend a lot of time on the island because of the tide schedule and the fact that we had spent a lot of time investigating the tide pools.  I'm so glad we did it, though, it was a cool little adventure.              

We took a picnic dinner over to Tidal Falls to show Ruwan and Cici and the kids the amazing tide change that goes on over there.  While we were there, another family came along and their girls helped our gaggle of kiddos find and hold crabs.  Those girls were fantastically fast at catching the crabs, too.  I was really impressed.  I was also really impressed with how kind and generous these girls were with strangers.  They did an awesome job.                

We weren't the only ones who had dinner at Tidal Falls, or even the only ones enjoying the tide pools, or even the only ones enjoying the fact that crabs are easier to find and catch.  This little dude put all those activities into one!  So clever.  I want you to remember the look of the water at Tidal Falls.  We also visited at low tide, and that made quite the difference.

Looking Forward

With the trip drawing to a close, we've been discussing a lot of things that we're looking forward to.  Amazingly, a lot of it is food.  There are other things, too, though.  I thought I'd share a bit of what we're thinking.

Stephanie

• A real bed
• Alone time
• Schedules
• Library
• Our church
• Batch cooking
• Homemade ice cream
• People
• Bath

Bill

• Long shower
• Baked bread
• Bigger bed

G

• Long shower
• New video games
• Baked bread
• Regular bed
• Library
• Bigger fridge
• Bigger pantry

NS

• More room
• Wii U
• Computer
• Variety of meals
• Library
• Relatives
• Longer showers
• Temperature control

K

• Long shower
• Getting a dog
• Bath
• Chinese food on a girls' day out
• Asiago bread
• Own room
• Garden

NB

• Hot bath
• Relatives
• Garden
• A space to do gymnastics
• Variety of food
• Bigger bed/more room
• Friends
• Staying in one place

J

• Books
• Toast with jam
• Homemade cornbread
• Spice China
• Famout Dave's
• Chicken wings and cheese fries
• Legos

There you have it.  Not comprehensive by any means, but what's on the top of our minds right now.

Ranger Talks

When we were in Shenandoah, our buddies came to visit us.  After that visit, they told us to let them know if we were going anywhere interesting for the summer.  We mentioned Acadia, and boom, they decided to come out.  So exciting!  Their visit doesn't completely cover our stay in Acadia, we had a couple days before their arrival.  The first day we went international because they don't have their passports and couldn't do that with us.  The second day, we took in a couple ranger talks.  I stayed back with the older kiddos for the first one.  Bill and the younger guys went and heard a talk about birds.  The ranger was impressed with their knowledge and identification skills, and since they were the only ones who showed up, got to have some personalized attention.        

The second talk we all headed out to hear.  It was the touch tank at the Schoodic Education and Research Center.  This one was truly cool.  She spoke on a variety of ocean critters, and then passed them around to hold.  Very popular talk.  She started with periwinkles, which are fairly small.  She kicked it up a bit with a sea urchin, grossed us all out with a moon snail, let the kiddos touch (while she held) a sea star, and then brought out the star--a Maine lobster (banded, of course).  Some of the things were only for touching, but most things got passed around for holding.  The moon snail released a LOT of water while the last kiddo was holding it, and the ranger assured us it was only water.  I love being in national parks.  There's just a vibe in the parks that I enjoy.  We've been away from national parks for so long, it's truly exciting to be back in one.  And from here on out, we're only visiting NPS sites when we stop.  It's been a long year+, we're almost done, but we still have many NPS sites on our list.  

New Brunswick

Ah, another trip to our northern neighbors.  When looking at our atlas, I had decided upon Aroostook State Park, up near Caribou.  I mean, Caribou, right?  Only there are no caribou in Caribou.  But it is fairly northern, and the atlas had tons of roads in and through the area, so there must be a grocery store nearby, right?  So with all those reasons, that's why we went north (plus, I had never been that north in Maine before).  But Bill found a cheaper campground (Maine's state parks are EXPENSIVE) with full hookups in New Brunswick.  We are much happier when we're able to use many lights, can run A/C when needed, and can watch a movie now and again.  So we took advantage of Canada's hospitality.  

We stayed at Mulherin's Campground near Grand Falls, New Brunswick.  Bill found this by accident, as it doesn't show up in any of his apps, but it was recommended to him by another campground that was filled up for the weekend.  Mulherin's is so nice, we decided to stay the week until we had reservations at Acadia.  The first night we took a walk to the pond, Bill showed off his duck calling skills.  They seriously booked it over to us.  By the time we left, they were wise to us.  Some would always come over, but it was just perfunctory--someone was paying them good money to appease the crazy customers!            

We could hear a ton of frogs, but only found them now and again.  Amazing camouflage those guys were sporting.  NB took this picture--the frog looks just like the slime he's living near.  There are tall grasses on the edge of the pond, and I scared a frog that was in those grasses one day.  He moved so fast, he freaked me out.  Clearly I need to work on my zen meditation.                

The evening before we left, I spotted this dude.  Bill checked with the owners of the campground, and he's a muskrat.  Apparently there's a whole family there, but this one is the only one I ever saw.  Never saw it again, in fact.  Not for lack of trying, trust me.                  

We also crossed back into the US a couple times.  One evening we went to Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, which was in maintenance mode, so we didn't do much.  The auto tour was shut down for spraying and such.  We also wanted to find the moose that everyone assured us we'd find aplenty, but we missed those, too.  We did drive Rt. 1 all the way up to Ft. Kent.  It was a pretty cool drive, very scenic, and much more populous than people led us to believe.  Still rural, but towns interspersed throughout, unlike the west, where you can go for hundreds of miles with NOTHING.            

We did NOT eat at McDonald's for dinner, despite the promise of surf and turf.  Yeah, we passed.                                        

Back in Canada, we hit the Gorge and Falls.  So beautiful. We even walked out on a scenic overlook.  If you looked down, you could see all the way to your death.  I only made that mistake once.                                      

On our way back, we saw Saturn.  It was at that point that I remembered that the University of Maine has a HUGE model of the solar system up and down Rt 1.  We missed the sun through Jupiter, but we managed to see all the rest.  It was really cool to see as we drove down the highway.  My pictures did NOT turn out well, but the website shows them off very nicely.

Mt. Katahdin

Bill found us a campground right off the Penobscot River about 40 or so minutes away from Baxter State Park, which is where Mt. Katahdin resides.  Maine state parks are EXPENSIVE for out of staters--they tack on a $10/night charge for non-residents, and if you reserve in advance, you can tack on another $5/night for that.  Oh, and then you pay the 9% resort tax.  Yowza.  All that for non-electric (and vault toilets).  Man, I miss the Southwest for affordability in so many campgrounds.  The Northeast has been bad for us financially.  So beautiful, though.  This shot was taken on the river as Bill and I were canoeing.  We also got use of the kayak, which was new to all of us except Bill.  The kids got a huge kick out of it.                          

  Pine Grove Campground has electric sites, flush toilets, hot showers, and use of the canoes and kayaks for $30/night plus the 9% tax.  Camping fees are hard to swallow sometimes, but the amenities are good, so we're at least using what we've paid for.  The kids were simply dying to use the kayak.  Something new, I guess.  They were all pretty good at it, too.  We stayed out a lot of the morning, but then the heat got to us.  It's been close to 90 F lately, and about 90% humidity.  BLECH.  We've really been spoiled in CO with such low humidity there.  And the bugs here are atrocious.  We're not having as many difficulties with black flies like we were warned, but the mosquitos are a nightmare.  And I've started seeing deer flies.  I react very strongly to deer flies.  K got bitten by one and then informed me that she can understand why I dislike them so much.  We're using a ton of bug spray, I've got punk sticks we light.  Still being eaten alive.  The top of my foot has some enormous bites on it. Someone needs to explain to me the beneficial aspects of these biting insects.                    

J loved being independent in the water.  I was impressed with how easily he took to it, too.  So much fun to be out on the water like that.  We decided to visit the new national monument up here--Katahdin Woods and Water.  Except that it's so new, there's nothing really established. Oh, and the locals have some malcontent over a national park there, so we didn't see much.  We did get to see a view of Mt. Katahdin, though.  We kept driving to a place out near Baxter State Park.  They have height restrictions that we don't meet inside the park, so we didn't get over there.  I'm going to touch the AT out this way, though, just to say I did.  Even if I don't get to climb Mt. Katahdin.

Bradbury Mountain

Way back in the early spring, I made reservations for Acadia National Park.  They allow reservations up to six months in advance, so that's what I did.  We lived in ME when I was but a wee lass (wee-ish), so my parents said we should go in August based on their black fly experiences.  Because of activities we want for the late summer/early fall, we just didn't want to wait that long, so we have reservations for the end of July/beginning of August.  Man, oh man, do we have a long time to kill before our reservations.  We've been killing time since Vermont.  We loved Vermont, so we stayed there something close to two weeks, we stayed almost a week in New Hampshire, and we still have almost two weeks to kill in Maine before our week in Acadia.  Could we have spent more time in the Mid-Atlantic?  Yes, yes we could have.  Would it have killed us to check out Delaware?  I really don't know.  But we should have done it, cuz I'm not hitting it on our way home.  At any rate, I planned out three campgrounds I wanted to hit in our 11 nights.  First on the list?  Bradbury Mountain State Park.  

Bradbury Mountain State Park is only about five minutes outside of Freeport, so we dropped the trailer and made it level, then headed out to see L.L. Bean.  Having been there as a kid, it was built up in memory (I was a SMALL child).  While it's not as large as I remember in any one of their stores, they have a complex of four or five stores.  It was so amazing, we had to visit it twice.  I love L.L. Bean.          

Being that close to Freeport also put us pretty darn close to Brunswick.  This is our old church, St. John the Baptist.  I love this church.  My plan had been to go to Sunday evening mass (changing campgrounds on a Sunday usually means no church for us that day, which is hard for us), but they only have one mass on Sundays, and that's in the morning.  So I contented myself with seeing the outside.  Trust me, the inside is gorgeous, too.                

Right next to the church is the school.  I went there for 5th, 6th, and half of 7th grades.  Pretty much looks the same.  They had a playground that I don't remember, but being in the older grades, we played on the asphalt parking lot behind the school.  Perhaps the playground was always there.  It was neat seeing Brunswick again.  I've not had much chance to ever see a place I used to live, except my adult locations.  We even drove by the old house.              

Bradbury Mountain State Park was nifty to see.  We only stayed two nights, so our exploration of it was limited, but it's a small park, so I feel we saw pretty much everything.  The kids noticed this tree at our campsite.  The acorn is still somewhat attached, which was pretty cool to see.                                      

We took the trail map, and G marked us out a route to hike a couple miles.  I think we did a total of seven trails, but only about two miles.  We started with Summit, which is their steepest trail.  I felt it, too.  I wasn't the only one in our group that was short of breath, though.  Need to get hiking on a regular basis again!  The view from the top, though, was gorgeous.  It was a hot day, so we were a bit tired, but everything else was pretty much downhill for us.                                

Another group of hikers stopped and helped us out with a family photograph.  Bill's not here because he got some work that had to be done.  Only a few hours, but that supplements our savings, so yeah!  We had a great time in Pownal, ME.  Next on the list, Mt. Katahdin.