In end of June, after our commitments at school ended Jill and I took a 10 day road trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. On the way up we drove through the sub base where my dad was stationed at when my sister was born. Interesting place. (Love you dad, but I'm glad I joined the Army.) Once on Bar Harbor Island (which houses a good portion of Acadia National Park) we camped for two nights and stayed in a motel for three. We explored the island, by foot, car, free shuttle (courtesy of L.L. Bean), kayak, and boat and enjoyed it thoroughly. Since it was just before the fourth of July, we were still exploring during what they considered the non-peak season. And we now know why. The water is so much cooler up there that for the first several weeks of summer the warm air just makes it very foggy. Very foggy. We have some pictures of us hiking up Cadillac Mountain, and they have to put these rock piles every 20 feet so that you don't walk off an edge. Towards the end of our trip when we went on an evening Kayaking tour and a whale watching trip, we finally got some clear weather. We have quite a few photos of our kayak trip at sun down. What we couldn't capture was the phosphorescent algae in the water what would light up every time we pulled our paddles through the water. The next day we went out on a whale watching cruise and saw some puffins on one of the lighthouse islands, then headed out to a "whale park" where we tagged along with this humpback for 30 minutes, watching him blow and swim and dive about 4 times. He would take about 13 breaths, then dive for a few minutes, then come up for 13 more and dive again. Each time he dove, his tail would leave this perfect impression of smooth water on the surface. Finally, on the last dive his enormous tail fin came out of the water and splashed back in. Of course, by that time, we had used up all of the memory in our digital camera, so you'll have to trust us that it was an amazing site. The boat ("Friendship V") was pretty quick and while we were standing on the bow it got pretty cool several miles from shore, even with unhindered sunshine for the first time in weeks. See the photos below:
On the way back we decided to stop in the town that LL Bean calls home, Freeport, MA. It turns out this town, in addition to having an enormous LL Bean complex which is open 24/7- 365 days a year, is also the birthplace of outlet shops, Banana Republic, North Face, J Crew, Gap, etc, etc. Because it was a holiday weekend, and there is apparently a throng of people who make this yearly pilgrimage to Freeport for school shopping, the only reasonable room we could find was in bed and breakfast a couple of blocks from the strip. It turned out to be a lovely evening, comfortable bed and great company. To help all of you avoid some confusion that I initially had, I might add that while a lovely place, the "free" in Freeport is actually a misnomer. Nothing in Freeport is actually free. Once you get past that, it's a wonderful town.
As we were driving through Massachusetts we saw the sign for Boston and Cape Cod, and decided to go. After spending the night just outside of the Cape and the morning in a visitor's center we called some friends who we suspected would be staying with their parents (who have a place on the North side). As it happened they were just down the street from us, heading out to go sailing for the afternoon, and invited us along. Steph's parents watched their two girls while six of us (Jill, myself, Doug, Stephanie, Stephanie's sister Susan-and Susan's fiancee Dave) took out a little 19 footer. The wind was making for a lazy cruise until I caved to my habit of jumping into the water and launched off the back of the boat, apparently nudging it into a gust of wind so that when I began to swim back towards her, the boat was moving at a good clip. After several failed attempts to catch her (much to the amusement of all onboard), Doug and Dave brought her about and helped me over the gunnels. I bought him an ice cream cone later for saving my life and we still have a good chuckle when we tell the story to our classmates. That evening we ended up staying with Stephanie's mom and dad, who is also a big fan of America's Test Kitchen. Being so close to Boston (Americas test Kitchen home) he promised to give me a call if he hears that they're giving tours again. (When we were headed on our road trip, I had actually called my parents and asked them to look online for a phone number that I could call and try getting a tour while we were around.) We thoroughly enjoyed our time with Doug and Stephanie and their family, and it turned out to be a perfect end to our road trip. We had considered staying in Boston for their 4th of July fireworks display (they reserve an entire section for military members), but the next morning we decided to head home and made it in plenty of time to catch them on the tube.
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