DISCLAIMER: This is a lengthy post . . .
Once I officially graduated with my Master's Degree in May, Jimmy suggested we plan a big trip to celebrate. How could I say "NO" to that? Right away, I knew I wanted to head to the Grand Canyon. Once I started looking for campgrounds, I realized that we were a little late to book anything with just a month out from leaving home. I couldn't find one single campground that had openings.
Enter Plan B...Maine and
Acadia National Park.
We mapped out the perfect trip over the course of 14 days! We didn't want to be rushed and wanted to stop at a few places along the way. I have over 500 photos from our trip that has taken me well over a month to go through and get organized.
- FIRST STOP: Letchworth State Park in Castile, New York —My friend and co-worker, Amy Decker told me a few years ago to put this park on my list. She highly recommended it and I'm so glad we took her suggestion! We spent three days exploring this park which is also know as the "Grand Canyon of the East." It was spectacular!
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| Letchworth State Park Site 413 |
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| Middle Falls at Letchworth State Park in Castile, New York |
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| Had to take a selfie at the Middle Falls... |
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| Trying to capture the beauty of this park |
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Lowe Falls at Letchworth State Park in Castile, New York
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- SECOND STOP: MountainView Campground, Morristown, Vermont — Since Vermont was "sort of" on the way to Maine, it made sense to stop here for a quick visit. This was a bucket lister for me as I've always wanted to visit the VonTrapp Family Lodge that was inspired from "The Sound of Music." I might not ever make it to Austria, so I figured this was the next best thing. We checked out the lodge and the gardens, which were beautiful and then learned that they just opened a brewery. We had a great lunch there and sampled some of their Austrian beers. We also stopped at Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory and took the tour. It was a power-packed days of being tourists, and we enjoyed every minute.
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MountainView Campground Site 219.
We practically had the park to ourselves. |
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| This beautiful river was right behind our campsite. |
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| VonTrapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont |
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Jimmy and his flight of beer at the VonTrapp Family
Brewery in Stowe, Vermont |
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| Ben and Jerry's Factory Tour in Stowe, Vermont |
- THIRD STOP: Seawall Campground, Acadia National Park, Maine - Did you know that there isn't an "r" in Acadia? I didn't know that until we visited the visitor center at the national park and watched a movie. We've been pronouncing it wrong all along. Maine was absolutely beautiful! We arrived on a Friday and my first stop was to find a fresh lobster dinner and I wasn't disappointed. I needed a refresher on how to tackle this guy and our waitress at the Upper Deck was very helpful. On Saturday, we spent the day exploring the national park. We drove the park road and pulled off at every stop that we could. The scenery was stunning and we wanted to take it all in. Sunday we set out for Bar Harbor and discovered it was cruise ship day. The town was packed and people were everywhere! We decided to take a whale watching cruise. We didn't see any whales but did run across a lot of seals. We both got extremely sea sick as it was really rough and choppy once we got out on the ocean. I usually don't have a problem, but that's an indication on how bad the water was. I was glad to get back to land and to our campsite. We packed up on Monday and moved to another campground in Maine.
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| My first fresh lobster dinner in Maine. It was SO GOOD! |
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| Sand Beach in Acadia National Park |
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| No swimming for us! Brrrrrr.... |
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| Acadia National Park |
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| Acadia National Park |
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| Acadia National Park |
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| Jordon Pond at Acadia National Park |
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The top of Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park.
This is the highest point along the North Atlantic
seaboard and the first place to view the sunrise in United States.
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| Seawall Campground Site 13 |
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| Whale Watching Cruise |
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| The sites from our whale watching cruise |
- Fourth Stop: Camden Hills State Park, Camden, Maine - This state park was about an hour and half south of Acadia National Park and it was a nice, relaxing stop before we started to make our long journey back home. Within the park was the Mount Battie Auto Road which was definitely worth the trek. Once at the summit we took in the full panoramic view of Camden Harbor and Penobscot Bay. We also enjoyed a day in the town of Camden with some shopping and our last seafood meal at Sea Dog Brewing Company. My mouth is watering just thinking about all the fresh seafood we enjoyed and good beer too!
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| Camden Hills State Park Site 51X |
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| Jimmy doing a little exploring at the park. |
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The view from the Mount Battie Auto Road.
Simply beautiful! |
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| Camden Harbor |
- FIFTH STOP: Delta Lake State Park in Rome, New York. I wasn't even sure this stop was worthy of any mention. In all of our years of travel, we have been pretty lucky to run across nice campground, state parks, etc. This was our least favorite state park on our trip. It rained the entire time, the people were rude and the mosquitos could carry us away. The only good thing is that the park ranger made an awesome suggestion for dinner! She suggested LaRoma Pizzeria and we had to try their signature dishes, "Vodka Riggies." I knew that I already liked the name of it since it was pretty much our last name...LOL. It was out of this world. It was sautéed onions, peppers, prosciutto in a creamy vodka sauce tossed rigatoni. We also ran across Fort Stanwix National Monument. Jim is a history buff and since he endured the VonTrapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont with me, I figured I could do the same for him. I'm not much of a history buff, but I always seem to enjoy our visits to places like this. Jim and I decided that we would have rather stayed a day longer in Maine and skipped this stop. Oh well, its another experience to add to our list.
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| Delta Lake State Park • Rome, New York • Site A27 |
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| Fort Stanwix National Monument • Rome, New York |
- SIXTH STOP: Pymatuning State Park, Jamestown, Pennsylvania. This was our last stop before home. Jamestown, Pennsylvania is located right on the Ohio/Pennsylvania state line. The park was really nice but flooded. This region had experienced a lot of rain and it had rained every day since we had left Maine. Our campsite had a river running through it and our firepit was flooded. It was the weekend before the 4th of July so we were looking forward to watching some fireworks, but it started downpouring just as we were heading out.
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| Pymatunning State Park, Jamestown, PA • Site 400 |
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| The downpour right before the fireworks |
Overall, this was an outstanding trip. We didn't have any mechanical issues and the truck and Pod performed very well with this long haul. We did everything that we set out to do and enjoyed our time together. We were really surprised that we didn't meet any fellow Podders on our trip. We pass 3 pods on the road and 1 was parked in a driveway in Vermont. We did have our picture taken a few times as we were driving down the freeways, so our rock star status continues! As most Podders know, we love to give tours and talk about our camper with others. People are always amazed to learn that everything you need is packed into this incredibly small space and that's why we love it!
Now that I have my blog updated, its time to take off once again. We have 4 more trips on the books with family and friends and who knows what this fall will bring. There's nothing like fall camping in Michigan!
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