The boys and I started our week in the Rockport/Rockland/Camden area with a hike up Mount Battie in the Camden State Park. The climb was short, rock, steep and technical – just how the boys like it. At the top we were rewarded with a great view of the ocean and an opportunity to climb the WW1 monument tower which sits on top of the mountain.
We started our second week of vacation time in Maine with a short walk over to the Golf of Maine Mini Golf course just 600ft from the campground. After Meg got out of work, we ran over to Northeast Harbor for some blueberry donuts from Colonel’s Bakery and Restaurant and to walk along the marina. Northeast Harbor is a picture perfect ocean side town.
This leg of the journey was supposed to be our “vacation time.” No homeschool for the kids, just a chance to enjoy everything Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island have to offer.
It started great. We spent lots of time exploring tide pools, found several new hikes, and after even more repairs (this time replacing the bike’s shifter cable), we were finally able to get some bike rides in as well.
For those of you who have been following along with our journey across the United States to find a location where my MCAS symptoms are better, you might notice that this post looks a bit different than the previous ones. This was on purpose, because we didn’t plan on making this stop. Our truck decided to.
We were planning to spend the morning driving through New Hampshire’s White Mountains before continuing east into Maine—a drive of about five and a half hours to Sebasticook Lake Campground. We were going to stay there for a couple of days while Meg had important meetings and then continue on to Southwest Harbor, Maine. Once again…our truck had other plans.
We didn’t do as much while camping in Goshen due a lot to the three days of storms and because we had already been here for almost three weeks. We spent a lot of time enjoying the beautiful campground beach and Rand’s Pond. We got the boys each a tube, which they had a blast using in the pond and to get out to the floating dive platform.
We did sneak a few hikes in between the rain and homeschool time. We hiked the Sawyer Trail (which a name like Sawyer how could we not!!) which was an easy 1 mile hike through a mature forest. One morning we also to the short drive to the Ruth LeClair Memorial Trail, which is a 3 mile hike around a beautiful man-made lake.
We didn’t struggle to find things to do in the Sunapee Lake area. We managed to find everything from full day trips to the Quechee Gorge area to nice evenings out picking blueberries at a U-pick farm down the road.
Probably our most eventual day was a trip to the Quechee Gorge hike, the amazing Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences (VIMS) Raptor Center and the King Arthur Bakery, Café, Store & School. It was incredible how well the Raptor Center at VIMS held the boys attention.
Woodbury, VT turned out to be a challenge for us, both in terms of my symptoms and for finding things to do with the kids.
We were able to pack a ton of exploring into our time in the Smugglers Notch area. No doubt about it the boys favorite part of this area was the diverse and numerous opportunities to go swimming. My favorite part was getting to explore with them and to finally start feeling better!!
The Niagara area was an awesome pit-stop for us! It proved to have plenty to do for a few days, but it was not the best for MCAS. My symptoms spiked here.
We really enjoyed our second trip ever to the Cleveland area. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park area is set up so nicely for biking with the tow path going along the river throughout the park. We had a great time hiking with the kids who loved all the rocks they could scramble over and spending time in the river.
