Summer 2010 - Five days camping in Acadia

Right after I finished my boards in June (and two weeks before we moved out of our apartment to go live with family for a few months) we took a family vacation to Acadia National Park.

The first day we got up a 4am, pulled the kids out of bed and put them in the loaded car, and drove to Stonington, Maine to make the "ferry" (aka mail boat) to Isle Au Haut.

Owen and Liz on a boat.

Jonah on a boat

Isle Au Haut is half private land with homes, and the other half is part of Acadia. Visitors to the park are generally dropped off at Duck Harbor, about a 4 mile walk (via the island's dirt road) to the tiny town. The only camping allowed is in one of five lean-tos on the side of Duck Harbor Mountain.

The boys kept themselved entertained throwing things in the fire pit.

... and then later in the stream.

One of the frequent pit-stops on 1/4 mile walk from the campsite to the water pump was this rusty old abandoned stove. The boys were fascinated by it, and had all sorts of questions about why it was there and why it was in such bad shape.

Here's the water pump. They filled up their canteens, and I filled up the 5-gallon jug. It was a long walk back!

The terrain on much of the island was too rocky for them to safely navigate, and they don't do distance too well yet anyway, so our day mostly consisted of hiking with them on our backs for a while, and then stopping at places that looked reasonably safe so they could play for a long while.

Back at the campsite that night, Liz cooked pea soup. As grateful as we all were for her hard work and creative menu, it was not a camping meal we would attempt again. Even from a pre-packaged "quick" mix it still took way too long.

Day 2

The next day was overcast and cooler. We started with a morning climb up Duck Harbor Mountain to check out the views.

After a long hike around the south half of the island, but not many pictures of the kids (some of these plus some other landscape shots at my flickr site) we ended up back at Duck Harbor to play at the beach.

While Jonah and I played with seaweed, Liz and Owen collected mussels for dinner!

Liz included the mussels in our one-pot meal: a delicious pasta with mushrooms and tomatoes. Leave it to Liz to bring impressive cooking to lean-to camping!

During the day the sun kept the mosquitoes away (though the green-head flies were arguably worse), but at night there were swarms of mosquitoes. Luckily, we had prepared for this! Liz had crafted make-shift netting out of some ballerina dress material.

Day 3

The next morning we were done at Isle Au Haut, and were planning to board the mail boat and head back to the mainland for some car-based tent camping in the main part of Acadia on Deer Isle. It rained most of the morning, so after eating breakfast and getting packed, we mostly sat in the lean-to, except for one trip down to the dock, during which a squirrel decided to raid Liz's backpack and help itself to a large bag of our trail mix. We dumped the rest, and entertained ourselves watching him scamper back and forth between his tree, the bushes, and the pile of mix.

After a ferry ride and a fairly long drive (a much-needed nap opportunity for the boys) we got to Blackwoods campground. While I set up the tent and a tarp, Liz took the boys to town for supplies.

I was proud of my work!

... and then I took no photos for the rest of the day. We did make trip to the laundromat, though, especially because Owen's turtle had been thrown up on the first morning, wiped off with wet-naps, and then dragged through the dirt and given sweaty hugs for two more days. He needed a bath. Bad.

Day 4

It was cool this day, Liz wasn't feeling well, and we were all getting tired, so we kept the hike small, and did some car touring instead.

More of the favorite pastime of the trip: throwing rocks in water!

Even though it was cold and cloudy, the beach was covered in rocks and seaweed, and the sand was very course, Owen insisted that he had to take his sandals off. Proper beach protocol!

Next stop: a drive up Cadillac Mountain. We were too busy chasing the kids and keeping them on the roped-off paths for me to take photos, as you can see.

Day 5

Time to go home. We made one last stop on the way off Deer Isle at the Wild Gardens of Acadia, for an easy walking tour of some local flora.

Since the drive was so long, we stopped for lunch at a little state park near a lake. There was more throwing of things into water — this time acorns and sticks.