Our Maine Adventure

2 weeks ago Ryan, Owen and I had quite an adventure as we vacationed in Maine! Neither one of us had ever been to New England and I have always wanted to see the leaves in the fall. People like are us affectionately called "Leaf Peepers" by the locals. The weather was spectacular, the leaves were vibrant, and the sounds of nature were alive and well as we hiked, biked and lounged all over the great state. We stopped in many small coastal towns as we drove from Boston to the north eastern tip of the state, westward to central Maine and back to Boston. We suspect we will take our family back to Maine every couple of years as we had such a great time. Maine is HIGHLY underrated!!!

Kennebunkport

 Boats in the harbor. We had lunch just to the left of this dock.

Ryan's lobster dinner. 

Owen was fascinated with the claw. 

Crabbing is a huge industry in this part of the country. Here are empty crab pots. This pier smelled SOOO foul, like fish guts. But it was neat to see all the fishing and crabbing boats in the water. 

Cape Elizabeth (just north of Portland)

Portland Head Light is the most recognizable lighthouse of the several in Maine. It is fully automatic now and the last "lighthouse keeper" to live in the house moved out in 1986. It is still a fully functioning lighthouse.

Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park 

Bubble Pond

Strapped in and ready to go. Props to the Ergo Carrier.

I felt so "hard core" in this picture. Look around, we were in the middle of the woods climbing over rocks uphill with my kid on my back. It was awesome.

At the top of our first afternoon hike. 

Bubble Pond at dusk. We started down the mountain a little late, once the sun was going down, and in the trees it got really dark very quickly. Luckily we could always see this lake at through the trees, we just couldn't see the trail markers anymore. So with our eyes on the lake and really cautious steps we made our way down the mountain. We ended up about 200 yards away from the trail head when we made it down to the starting path. Phew! I'm sure there is a great analogy in this experience.

Champlain Mountain all day hike.

At the top of Champlain Mountain. We hiked down to and had lunch at the lake just behind us. On this hike we could see the Ocean the whole time in the distance.  

Owen and I sharing oranges and PB&J by the lake.

Ahhh....I LOVE this tree!

Amazing! We often just stopped in our tracks to look around. We were in the middle of these gorgeous trees and all by our selves for most of the day. It was so wonderful to appreciate nature and all the God has blessed us with.

After lunch by the lake we hiked down to the small sand beach and I took a 20 minute nap in the sand. It was fabulous! There's not much better after hiking hard all day.

Family pic!!!

The Ocean playing peek-a-boo with us as we hiked through the trees.

Cadillac Mountain sunrise--6:30am

Took this picture as we were running to the lookout spot. Amazing! We almost missed it. Should have been up there at 6:00am to see the whole show.

A surprisingly happy boy for being up early and in the cold. He later threw up all over this cute outfit and car seat! YUCK!!! I ended up washing all the padding of his car seat and this outfit in the hotel tub using Ryan's Old Spice body wash, then sweet talked the hotel into drying it for me in their industrial dryer so we could check out and leave. No one wants to drive 3 hours with puke smell on the car seat. (Still gives me the willies to think about.)

Where we were standing is the first place in the Western Hemisphere to see the sun during the 2 weeks surround the time we were there. It's pretty cool to say we saw the sun that day before the rest of this side of the world.

On our way to Moosehead Lake

We originally planned to detour our trip to Vermont to see the covered bridges and leaves but it was just too much driving for such a short vacation. So when we saw this covered bridge in a tiny little town I was TRILLED and almost drove off the road to make the turn to drive on it. Mission accomplished!

Moosehead Lake

Our cabin at The Birches.

The view from our front porch.

Inside our log cabin. I made a fire one night as we hung out as a family. It was so great.

Biking in the freezing cold, but it was beautiful. I LOVED this road. The leaves were much brighter yellow than they appear here. And the road was much steeper than it appears too.

The swampland near our place. 

We veered off the main dirt road on our bike ride to investigate the advertised available plots for sale (no we are not thinking about moving to rural Maine, just interested in who would). And lo and behold we found this cute little neighborhood of roughly 10-12 house on this dirt path along the lake. It was beautiful and those we ran into were very friendly. 

The trees around our cabin. 

This is how you get major work done on lake front property. That is a Mac truck on the barge. It operates from the barge just up the lake from the Birches. 

The hunter predicted he was about 900 lbs. The next morning we had to leave about 5:30am to drive to Boston and we saw 7 on the side of the road on our own! We shouldn't have wasted our money with the hunter....but the first was saw was huge and very majestic! 

Moose on the side of the road. The fog at the bottom of the picture is the exhaust from the car. 

Boston

We flew in and out of Boston and I had never been so we ate lunch "where everyone knows your name" and spent the afternoon doing the "Freedom Trail". We saw a good portion of the city and I'm in LOVE with Boston. If we ever consider moving to another condo (which I hope we don't) I'd want to move to Boston. 

Owen has a thing for ducks, and he got a huge kick out of riding the golden ducks in the Public Garden, just next to Boston Common.

We ended our trip in D.C. for a wedding of two of our dear friends from St. Louis, Jenn and Brian Wessman. He works at the hospital with Ryan and we've become very close to them as they have dated long distance over the last few years. 

After the wedding we spent the rest of our weekend with my brother Jordan and his wife Kristy in Georgetown. My parents drove up to see us and it was a great and relaxing time with all of them. 

Phew.....THE END!