Only west from here

July 17-21

Although it was a state I had written off years ago as just too far away to visit, I made it to Maine last weekend. Now I have at least driven in all 48 continental states. (I can't remember if I got out of the car in Mississippi or Alabama.)

We drove to Acadia National Park all on the first day and camped that night at Seawall Campground. Unfortunately I had a raging sinus infection headache and crawled right into the tent, but the campground was humming with life. Chad and the kids walked over to the neighbor's campfire to roast marshmallows. They were playing guitar and singing songs, so we figured they wouldn't mind sharing their fire with us.

The singing campers also owned a DeLorean, so we had to take some pictures.

Saturday morning we drove into Bar Harbor to attend the Dive-In Theater with Diver Ed. It may be the coolest thing that we have done...it is at least in the top five. We went out on a boat where Diver Ed dove down into the bay with an underwater camera and showed us the sealife he could find. While he was down there he picked up lots of creatures and brought them back up to the boat. They made touch tanks right there on the boat and we all got to hold the animals before sending them back down. We held sea cucumbers, urchins, seastars, blood stars, crabs and lobsters. 

 

After lunch (lobster-based, of course) we went on a ranger-led walk around the ruins of George Dorr's mansion. He was responsible for Acadia becoming a National Park, and when he died his house was demolished and became park land. 

We wandered around Bar Harbor for a while until the tide went out. Then we walked across the bar to the island in search of tide pools. We didn't find any good tide pools before it started to rain too hard to be out. 

Sunday morning we went and found some better tide pools. We really noticed a difference between the Pacific Ocean tide pools that we've seen and these colder Atlantic pools. There was lots and lots of seaweed here and no anemones or seastars. We found crabs, and lots of mussels and snails.

We ate lunch near the Bass Harbor light house and then drove around the park loop road. We stopped at the top of Cadillac Mountain and the other notable stops along the loop. The walked a little on the carriage roads before making dinner back at camp. After dinner, we looked at some more tide pools and then attended a ranger program on animal sounds before returning to camp for a fire and s'mores before bed.

Monday morning was foggy and cool. We headed out of Maine and headed to New Hampshire for a beach afternoon. It was 70 degrees in Acadia, and 90 degrees in Hampton Beach by the time we got there. We did some ocean swimming and beach sand play. It is a very different place than Acadia, but the kids enjoyed getting to have a "beach day". After cleaning up, we ate dinner at Smutty Nose brewery and returned to watch the LEGO Movie on the beach.

Tuesday was a big driving day back to Ithaca. From now on our eastern travels are done and we will only be going west from here. We'll enjoy the next few days at local concerts and events and then head back to Lincoln.

The Adirondacks

July 9

Now that "black fly season" is past, we made our way to the Adirondacks for a weekend of canoeing and camping. The first night we spent at Rollins Pond Campground, which is the extension of the more famous Fish Pond Campground. It's very tight car camping with well over 300 sites. A truck comes by selling ice and firewood. That is shortly followed by an ice cream truck. We didn't quite get through our foil dinners before the ice cream truck came through, so we had our dessert first.

Isla entertained us by doing magic tricks with tissues in her many pockets.

The next day we rented canoes and gear to go canoeing for two days. It was the first time the kids had been camping away from the car. They all held up really well, even when paddling across some fairly big and windy lakes.

Lunch and map break

Chad and Oliver tried to avoid a portage by going through this culvert. The drop-off at the other side dumped Chad, but not Oliver or the contents of the canoe. Benjamin, Isla and I took the portage instead!

Isla was particularly tasty for the black flies. Luckily she did not welt up around the bites like I did.

Chad and I were pretty exhausted from portaging two canoes and five people for two days. After getting off the lakes, we camped at another car campground and ate at a brewery that night. The next morning we hiked up and down Giant Peak. The online reviews had said that it could be done with small children in about four hours. It took us 7 1/2 hours, so we are guessing that the "small children" must be referring more to 12-year-olds than 5-year-olds. Isla was pretty pooped by the time we got done hiking. We ended up eating dinner in Lake George and making a much later drive home on Sunday that we had planned.

We've spent some time at the Dryden library this week. We thought it was funny to snap a picture at Dryden Time Square!

With all the rain, our house is forever surrounded by a moat. Isla spent quite a bit of time splashing in the mud one afternoon.

Waterfall Weekend

July 1-7

We started July with another visit to Sapsucker Woods. With all the rain around here, it felt like a jungle of ferns and duckweed. The trails there are amazingly not muddy, despite all the water everywhere we looked.

July 1 was also the night of the fireworks and Independence Day festivities in Stewart Park in Ithaca. 

Looking our over Cayuga Lake

Magic card tricks before the fireworks

On July 3, we stayed home in the morning and then headed out to 6-mile creek gorge. It wasn't the prettiest hike that we've done as it follows the city water source pipe and end in a waterfall that is really just the city reservoir dam. It's an unapproved swimming spot, so it was littered with stale old beer cans and bottles when we got there. The sheriff had just chased out a big crowd so there were no people, but lots and lots of evidence of them!

After that hike we went to Hopshire Brewery for their Independence Day celebration. There was supposed to be a food truck, but we got there too late and the food was gone. The owner ordered pizza for those of us who had missed the food truck.

Our kids have gotten to know the toy collection at Hopshire Brewery quite well. They spent some of their time playing tag and football with the other kids that were there. 

On July 4 we ate lunch at Americana Winery. They had bands playing and a variety of food vendors there. We followed that with a hike to Taughannock Falls State Park. After a trip to the grocery store, we ended the day at a small park near our house, grilling hamburgers and roasting marshmallows on the banks of Fall Creek.

Americana Winery

Skipping stones on Lake Cayuga

This is how Benjamin and Oliver often walk together, usually discussing the finer points of their Munchkin card game.

On the way to the falls

Taughannock Falls

Our picnic site

Sunday, we went to the remaining falls that we know of around here. We started at Treman State Park. There is a swimming area at the Lower Falls that had been closed because of all the flooding around here, but it had just opened on Sunday. The day was warm, about 80, but the water was 60. We didn't last too long in the cool water, but the kids had fun and wanted to go back in the swimming area, when we got to Buttermilk Falls.

Lucifer Falls at Treman State Park

Swimming at the Lower Falls, Treman State Park

Hiking along Buttermilk Falls

After hiking at Buttermilk Falls State Park, we played a game of Bananagrams in the park before heading to Ithaca Beer Co, The atmosphere there was really nice and we stayed to play some games outdoors before heading home. It was a water packed weekend. Oliver wrote in his journal the next day, "We saw a million waterfalls this weekend!"

Root beer float at Ithaca Beer Co.

Outdoor games at Ithaca Beer Co.