Maine has always been one of those states that I've dreamed about going to, and everyone that I know that has ever been there loved it, so imagine my excitement as we finally pulled into the beautiful state. I am not sure what exactly it was I was imagining Maine would be, but I’ll just say this…. I was absolutely stunning there.. So many trees, mountains and water everywhere.
The first town that we stayed in was Bethel, Maine. It was just across the New Hampshire/Maine border on the west side of the state. Bethel is a cute little mountain town thats claim to fame is the ski mountain just outside the city limit. We stayed at the first RV park that we found as we pulled into town, and ended up being really happy that we did. Apparently our timing for visiting the state was perfect for there not being as many people there, we hit the off season that is after labor day but before the crowds all come for the fall colors. With it being the off season the campground was pretty much deserted, and we also got to stay there at a discounted price! DOUBLE BONUS!! The sites were big, and open, even though they were surrounded by tall pine trees. Plus there were roads that were back in the woods behind the campground that we could walk the pups around off leash, and they all led back to the same place, so there was no risk of getting lost.
The guy that owned the place was also very helpful about telling us about cool places to go check out. One of the places that he told us about was called Frenchman’s Hole. He said that it was a cool swimming hole that is usually so busy in the summertime that its hard to find parking, but it was totally worth checking out. So we put the location in our little google phone, and headed out toward the swimming hole. It took so long to drive out to the place that we started thinking that we had taken a wrong turn some where, and at one point we had actually driven past the parking area and had to stop someone to ask them where we were supposed to go. Once we finally got to the parking area, it was really just a short little walk down to the creek and the swimming hole. The creek was cool, there were little pockets of deep water scattered about but you couldn't tell where they were really, so it was funny to watch the pups as they ran around and then suddenly found a hole, and ended up getting a little further into the water than they originally planned to. Buddy was especially funny about it, he's not one to really want to go swimming unless there is a bird or a stick he needs to go retrieve. He got so frustrated with falling in the pockets that he eventually just stopped running around and stood by Kyle. As we approached the actual swimming hole, we made sure to reign in the pups and keep them away from the ledge. We both had visions of Frank just swimming around and then going over the edge with the current and not landing it well. Kyle was a little bummed that he didn’t at least bring a change of clothing, because he said that he probably would have jumped off. Not me though, as much fun as I am sure that it is to jump into a swimming hole like that, I am such a chicken. If I can not see the bottom, I am not even getting in, let alone jumping off of a 15-20 foot ledge.
One of the main things that I wanted to do while we were in Maine was to go apple picking. For some reason I have romanticized the idea in my head, and it was something that I just had to do. Luckily, there was this really cute little family farm just a few minutes away from our campground in Bangor. It was called Treworgy Farms. It was an absolutely adorable little farm setting. Apparently it is an incredibly popular place to go, because it was packed on the evening that we went. They had everything from apple picking, homemade cider, goats, chickens, and this cute little country store with all sorts of homemade goodies inside. One of the highlights of the place was the corn maze. I love corn mazes! This one was designed to look like a Knight fighting a Dragon, and it had questions that you had to answer through out the maze, and you kept track of your answers on a little score card. It also had a hall of fame wall that you could sign in the middle of the maze. The best part was that when you took your completed score card into the store, you got a free ice cream cone, which is instant happiness in my book. After we completed the maze and enjoyed our cones, we set off to go pick some apples. There were several flavors that you could chose from to pick, but after a little bit of research of the different types, we decided to pick some Mahon’s and MacIntosh’s. While we were picking we noticed that all of the apples at the tops of the trees seemed to be much nicer, so we made sure to put in as much effort to get the best as possible. At times we acted like monkeys, and tried to climb as far in the tree as possible to reach the ones at the top. After picking our bushel, we settled up with the cashier and also got some apple cider to take home, and to date is the best apple cider I have ever had. It was amazing. I wish I had some right now as I am typing this! We finished our evening at Treworgy Farms, with a pizza made by the grandma of the farm in their little country kitchen. She was the cutest thing ever as she was talking to us about our pizza. It was so fun to see how much pride she took in making us that pizza. Needless to say, it was delicious. Although I am not sure if it was the actual pizza, or the fact that you knew it was made with so much love that made it so delightful. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed it. If we ever end up back in Bangor, we will make sure to give this little farm another visit.
Next on our agenda in Maine was a visit to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. National Parks, while absolutely beautiful, have always been a bit of a bummer for us on this trip. They don't allow dogs in the parks, so it always limits our time spent in them. Much to our delight, Acadia is very different than all of the other NP’s that we’ve been to, in the sense that dogs are actually allowed on almost all trails! Which is a fantastic treat for us. The only unfortunate part of the day is it happened to be incredibly rainy and cold the day that we were at the park. I feel like part of the fun of hiking, is to get to the top of the hill so that you can see forever, but when its super cloudy thats not necessarily an option. Instead of hiking to the top of a mountain, we decided to take a stroll around Jordon Pond. The loop around the pond was 3.6 miles and took us along the base of the Bubble Mountains. The path was really pretty, it went along the shore of the pond the entire time. Parts of the path were very wide, nice gravel paths, then about the last mile of the path was on planks above the vegetation. The planks are always challenging with dogs, but the fact that it had been raining, added an additional element for both us and the dogs. Needless to say it was entertaining for us, and as always the dogs were a hit with most that walked passed us, most people commenting on how good they were, and at times how nimble they were.
After our trek around the Pond we decided to stop into the Jordon Pond house for a little lunch. The Pond House is famous for its popovers, apparently most just come in for Popovers and Tea. Apparently I was so hungry that I did not get a picture of these popovers, but trust me…. They were delicious!!
After lunch we mulled it over and decided to just head into Bar Harbor and wait out the storm a little bit, it was just getting more rainy and really made being outside not that much fun. Bar Harbor was a really cute little town, normally I have a hard time with the Tourist Trap towns such as this one, but I found that this one actually had a really fun vibe to it, plus it had a lot of really cute little shops to pop in and out of. Shopping isn't usually our thing, mainly because we have no job and really can not justify spending money that frivolously, but window shopping is a totally acceptable adventure. One of our other goals while in Maine was to have a lobster roll. After much consideration from all of the suggestions we got from friends, we decided to head into the Thirsty Whale to try one of their lobster rolls. Apparently this is the place that the locals go when they want a Lobstah Roll. Since we had already had lunch, we decided to just split one, which ended up being plenty for us. It was served on a grilled hot dog bun with a little cup of clam chowder. I have to admit, I liked the lobster roll, the lobster meat was shredded and mix with mayo, then served on the bun, but there was just something missing for me. Apparently one of the main reasons I like crab and lobster in the first place, is because I like melted butter. Quite frankly it just wasn't the same with out the butter, but it was still good none the less, and the clam chowder was amazing! I have always enjoyed a good bowl of clam chowder and this was one of the best that I’ve had.
After our little snack we noticed that the storm was clearing a little and decided to finish checking out Acadia. We knew that we still couldn't go on some of the hikes we wanted to, but we also knew we would regret if we just called it a day and didn’t go see anything else. The first stop was the Sandy Beach. I was just a small little beach, maybe .25 mile long, but it is the only beach in Acadia, and it is dog friendly, and we all know how much our dogs seem to love the ocean. We hung out there long enough to be able to wait out most of the crowd so it almost felt like we had the place to ourselves. I was a beautiful little cove area, so it was nice to be able to just sit there and take it all in.
After the beach we wanted to head over to Thunder Hole, but we missed the turn off to it, and we were now on a one way road, and we really didn’t feel like driving the extra hour around the park just to be able to come back to it. Fortunately for us, missing that turn provided excellent timing for driving to the top of Cadillac mountain and watching the sunset. I feel like there have been many areas along this journey that have been stunning, but this view absolutely took my breath away. I felt like you could see forever! We sat there and watch the storm move around us with our 360 degree views. It was seriously one of my favorite moments of this trip, and to think we contemplated not even going up there!! A decision we absolutely knew we would have regretted, and were happy we didn’t make as we sat there at the top of the mountain and watched the sun set in the far west.
Through out much of this journey, Kyle and I have tried to keep ourselves healthy by running when we can, I mean if I’m honest, we could run every day, we just decide to be lazy at times. We were doing really good about running while we were in Wisconsin, just running a couple of miles, but it was enough to keep us feeling good. There were times that we didn’t necessarily run together because of my work schedule at the golf course, but we would always make sure to tell each other how we did. There was one instance that Kyle ran two miles while I was at work on evening, and was able to do it in 16 minutes. It may not sound fast to some of you, but we both had been struggling with breaking the 9 minute mile mark, so he was very happy with how he did. So the next morning, he jokingly said that I should try to beat his time. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!! So I set out on my two mile run, and was super excited when my time for my first mile was 7.29. This was going to be awesome!! So I turned around to run my second mile back, running as fast as my little legs would go, even out running the two black dogs that were running with me. Well, about 1/10 of a mile from being finished, something happened in my hip. It was an awful pain, but I just could not let Kyle win, so I pushed on basically hobbling to the end of my run. I felt like my leg had been ripped off, but was incredibly proud of my accomplishment. I have finished my two miles in 15 min 48 sec. “I win!” is pretty much what I told Kyle as I hobbled my way past him back to the trailer. The best part is, I haven't been able to run since. :( Now that we are in Bangor, we noticed that there was a 5k race the weekend that we were there. Running a 5k in every state we went to was something that we had talked a lot about at the beginning, but obviously we never made that happen. But now that Kyle is in “running” mode he wanted to run the 5k here. I was really bummed that I wouldn't be able to run it with him but was really proud of him for doing so. He ended up running with Trigger and they did awesome. His time was within his goal range, so he was happy about that.
After leaving Bangor, we stayed at a Harvest Host location just outside of Belfast and Camden, which were two towns we really wanted to check out. Belfast was a really cool little harbor town that had such a relaxed vibe to it, even though it is a tourist town too, it didn’t have the super busy feel that a lot of them have. Upon a recommendation from a lady at the pet food store, we took the pups for a walk along the path that went around the harbor. They also had a pedestrian bridge that went over the bay and provided some really cool views of the bay to the east of us. Belfast is also major ship building town in Maine, so we got to see some incredible ships that were being worked on out of the water. They were huge!!! It makes me wonder how they ever get them into the water, and what a task that big would cost someone, its just insane.
After leaving Belfast we headed down to the Forrest Gump Light house, also known as the Marshall Point Lighthouse. I think that Kyle and I might have a problem with watching too many movies, considering that most of our entertainment comes from visiting filming locations of some of our favorite movies. At some of these we like to try to re-enact some of our favorites scenes, like running to the end of the lighthouse. Apparently we are not the only ones who are movie buffs though, as Kyle was running down to the light house, and older gentleman behind me asked if that was Forrest running…
Our last stop in the beautiful state of Maine was in Portland. Portland is a really cool area with a neat downtown area that still has cobblestone streets. One of the “things to see” in Portland are the locks of Love, which is a section of chainlink fence over looking the water that people put padlocks on professing their love to someone. I normally wouldn't be too interested in something like this, but we did happen to stumble upon it as we were walking along, and it really was pretty neat. One of the things that we really wanted to check out, was sending lobster to a friend in Wisconsin. He had asked us several times about it before we left, so we decided Portland would be a good place to check it out. The lobster itself was SUPER cheap, I couldn't believe it, so we seriously considered sending Mike some. Then we realized how much it was going to cost to just ship the little bastards to Wisconsin! It was $92 alone to just ship them. We realized once again that we have no job and that would be just a silly utilization of money, so we sent him a postcard of a lobster instead.
Our time in Maine wasn’t nearly as long as we would have liked it to be, but we were ok with it.. It gives us a really good excuse to come back and do some more exploring.
