Monday, June 28, 2010

2010 Maine Vacation (Part 1 of 2)

Jennifer and I finally did it. We have talked about traveling to the state of Maine for years, and this year we decided it was time to just do it. We saved up our money over the course of about 8 months and took our girls on a 2 week camping adventure through the Appalachian mountains over to the Atlantic coast. We spent a week in Cape Cod, then another week in Bar Harbor, Maine. It was the vacation of a lifetime and one that we know our 3 girls will remember for the rest of their lives.

Starting our journey

Mountain Driving

We left bright and early on Saturday morning and drove all the way over to eastern PA. We ended up making it all the way to the east side of PA and stayed in a Comfort Inn. The girls got to swim for a little bit, and that's all they cared about. :) The camper pulled really nice behind our SUV and we were pretty amazed at how the mountains didn't put too much strain on it. Gas mileage was atrocious the entire trip, but at least we budgeted for it and it was not an issue at all. We had to fill up every 260 miles or so, which worked out nice anyway. Oh, and Daizi (our 3 yr old) get's credit for the "quote of the vacation" after only 2 hours into our 2 week vacation when she said:
"Mommy, I waaa go home."
We all got a good laugh out of that one. :)

A tornado forming just ahead on the highway in PA!

Woodstock, NY
The next morning we headed to Woodstock, NY and went through all the shops. The girls thought it was cool to see all the tie dye and we explained to them exactly what the Woodstock Music Festival was all about and all about what happened back in 1969 that brought all the musicians together. We tried to explain that the event drew a crowd of +500,000 people from all over the world. They did the "...woooooow" response, but I don't think they really understood what it meant. Once I was able to show them a picture of the crowd consuming a whole New York hillside, then we got the real "WOOOOW" that I was looking for. At that point they understood how many people "+500,000 people" actually looked like. :) We had a lot of fun here and got some cool souvenirs. About 1 day is all that was needed to see everything here in Woodstock. We spent about 4-5 hours going through the various shops, and that was enough for me.

That night we stayed in another Comfort Inn and and the girls got to swim again. Before calling it a night, we ended up eating at a place called Ninety Nine's. It's like a bar and grill style restaurant with an amazing menu. We all loved it!! It was cheap and delicious. The kids meals were amazing and beat the "sox" off of every other kids menu that we've seen on the entire trip. Best yet, when the Boston RedSox win a game the night before, the kids eat free anyway. We ate at Ninety Nine's two times and both visits were after the Redsox won a game. :) Bonus!!

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

The next morning, we woke up and finally made our way to our camp site in Cape Cod. We ended up getting a REALLY good site named Cape Cod Campresort and Cabins. Our site was huge and we have no real complaints with anything. The only downfall to this campsite was the prices inside the camp resort. A small bundle of firewood cost $7! A small bag of ice cost $3.50!! The washing machine cost $3, and the dryer cost another $3! Needless to say, we learned the hard way with each purchase. To offset the cost of the firewood, we all went foraging for wood around the campgrounds after dark. ;)

Free Firewood

Aside from the costs of the items, the place was a 5 star camp resort! They had a very friendly staff that took great pride in the campground. There were all kinds of sites for all types of camping: primitive tent, pop-up, RV's, and cabins. The bath house was immaculate as far as camping bathhouses are concerned. We've seen some doozies in our days, and this one is by far the best that we've seen. No creepy crawly's anywhere, and they were always clean. This resort also offers 3 different pools: a family pool with a slide, a kiddie pool for toddlers, and an adult pool separate from the other two for prime relaxation. There was a huge game room, free wifi, laundry, large pond with paddle boats and kayaks, a huge playground, horse shoes, basketball, volleyball, and more... I would definitely recommend this camp resort to anybody that wants to camp in Cape Cod. Again, be ready to spend some money if you plan to use any of the resources inside the campground though.

Bike Party

Napping at the campground

Writing postcards to family and friends.

Sparkler Party!!

Girls building a log cabin with twigs :)

Jazzy is in her element

Some crazy "Daizi Dance"!? :)

We did venture out in the truck around Cape Cod quite a bit. We got ourselves lost each time we did, and got turned around quite often. We would drive and drive only to be looped back around to where we started a few times. A few times we came into little harbor towns and it was need to see all the little shops and restaurants on the bay. Both of us were very surprised as to how big the peninsula actually was. On paper it looks like a 10-15 mile stretch of land, but it is actually like 75 - 80 miles long. We never did venture out to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket Island; the boat ride was too pricey for our family of 5 and the islands were nothing more than money-traps anyway. We did go to a couple of beaches and of course we all ate some great seafood.

Beach Babes

Not too much happened outside of our little trips in the truck to various land marks. I did get to see where SteveRunner runs his Falmouth Road Race and it was neat to actually drive on the course that he has always talked about in his podcast. :) Other than that, Cape Cod was pretty much a nautical get-a-way along the Atlantic coast. This was quite a nice little pit-stop town on our way to Maine.

My Happy Campers

Boston, Massachusetts
On Thursday morning, we woke up and got checked out of the campground around 9am. We were going to drive through the gut of Boston, just to say we did it. Boston was pretty cool! We drove under a huge tunnel that spanned +3 miles under the city only to open up to a suspended bridge over other highways in the middle of the Boston skyline. The girls thought it was pretty cool, as did Me and Jennifer of course.

Once we got outside of the Boston city limits, we kept heading north and did quick jaunt through the state of New Hampshire for a few minutes. Our next stop was going to be in the great state of MAINE!!

Living our dream

(to be continued...)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG ... to be continued,,,, ahhh... I want more of the story... lol J/K I will have to wait just like everyone else...

Anonymous said...

you MUST post the picture of the girls in the chairs to FB. that is awesome.

Anonymous said...

Yours 3 girls are sexy as hell. Would love to see their sweet little pussies