My Maine Lesson

Lately I’ve been trying to learn a little bit about letting go.  Not the full on Disney version, but the real life, adult version, the kind where you say ‘yes’ to things without knowing exactly how they’ll turn out.  So, when some friends invited me on an extended weekend trip to the New England States, I thought this would be a good way to practice.  In the most current of my posts to date, I returned from this trip a week ago.  It went something like this:

The Planning:

A spontaneous hiking break, with a view.

The idea was planted a month before we left.  The first hotel was booked two days before we left.  The second was booked the night before we needed it, and each subsequent lodging was booked closer and closer to our check in time, with the last airbnb booked around noon, the day of.  What surprised me about this is that we could actually find short-notice accommodations without compromising our budget!  The reason for our increasingly delayed bookings was because of our continually changing itinerary.  I know, I know.  You are probably thinking that I must have been flipping my lid by now.  My friends can testify that I was not.  Remember, I’m learning to let go.  Also, we had nightly ‘family meetings’ to plan the following day, and since we are all adults with good problem solving skills, we got it all figured out.

The Trip:

The trip was to run from Friday to Monday.  It was proposed originally as a ‘backpacking trip’ in Maine with stops on the way up and back.  Because it was calling for rain every night, it turned into a New England trip.

On the way up we stopped in Boston for the first night.  We hit the public library, got a guided tour for the Freedom Trail, and had dinner in Little Italy.  Boston is a city that merits more than 7 hours, but when 7 hours is all you have, you make the most of it.

Old collides with new.

Every library should have a courtyard I think.

 

 

Old city hall.

Buildings growing out of the Waterfront Park.

We got cannolis at Mike’s.  I insisted.

There were no objections, as far as I can tell.

 

We found the ducks for Kaitlyn.

 

We ended our day at the park.

Saturday, we drove to Acadia National Park in Maine.  It was a little drizzly for parts of our time there, but we drove the loop road, getting out to climb rocks and enjoy views, before grabbing dinner.  I had lobster.  It’s not cheap and I can’t say that I really liked it, but I was in Maine, so it was a must!

First stop, Sand Beach.

Views from Otter Point.

That’s us!  Educators, know-it-alls, and rock climbers.

The tide change in this area is very extreme and fun to observe.

View from Cadillac Mountain.  I imagine there are legends about those little islands.

We really like rocks.

Of course, me with my lobster dinner, bib and all.

Sunday was to be our hiking day.  We decided that since the weather prohibited camping, we would do the hike all in one day.  It ended up being 12ish miles on a trail labeled ‘strenuous,’ but we survived it.

Quintessential Maine.

Pre-hike smiles.  Ignorance is bliss, they say.

 

First break of the hike.

The trail was a little crowded

and rocky at times.

Six miles in, we made it to our destination, the ocean.  We had a lunch of snack foods and talked about distant buoys while we recovered.

I’m always a sucker for mountain lakes.

We hiked the next 3 miles with intermittent ocean views.

9 miles in, faces a bit redder, smiles still present!

What I learned from this hike: I like hiking for about 3 hours.  I can hike for about 5.  We hiked for 8 (including breaks), which means that the last 3 hours weren’t as fun as the first 3.  I’m glad I did it.  And I probably won’t ever do it again!

Needless to say, Monday, we slept in and began our return trip home.  We stopped for the afternoon in Portland, Maine.  Portland is a tiny, coastal city that probably deserved more time than we had to give it.

Boat taxis.  That’s interesting.

Portland Harbor.

We took a trolley tour and got to see the drive by version of Portland.  Our tour guide was a retired middle school teacher and we laughed at all his jokes.  Leanna observed that maybe we have ‘teacher humor.’

Are we in America?  Here’s a statue for the lobster people.

 

We had dinner at Duck Fat.

Their fries are fried in duck fat. THE BEST.

We ended our day at the Portland Head Lighthouse.

Sunset is a good time to go.

Just me and the moon and a lighthouse.

And that was my trip.  In summary I would say that this is not a trip I would have planned (I’m usually a city person and the New England states were not that high on my list) but I had a lot of fun because of who I traveled with and how we worked together.  So, it turns out, saying yes to new adventures is worth it sometimes. 

Why you should go to the New England states:

1. It has lots and lots of natural beauty and cute little towns.
2. It helps you wrap your mind around how diverse the U.S. really is.  It’s easy to think, growing up in the mid-west, that I knew what small-town America was like.  But, visiting different regions helps me understand how vast our experiences as Americans really are.
3. If you like road trips, the adventure requires a lot of car-riding time.

 

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