Climbing Journal: Acadia Trip

We took a week this year (the last week of June), packed up the tent, provisions and diapers and headed down East to Acadia National Park. For those of you living in New England, I am sure you all can recall the three weeks of rain that we experienced...the first of it beginning on the day we left for the coast. Basically, it rained the entire time we were there, the bugs were nasty and the temps dipped at night keeping the trip at a "close to intolerable" level.

The night before we were supposed to leave, we discovered that Lizzie's toys in her pack&play were floating...upon a more careful inspection of the corners of the tent...we discovered those too had been compromised and our shelter had been reduced to little more than a seive!!!

Fortunately this happened at 10:30PM while everyone was trying to get to sleep with the pouring rain, high winds and cold temperatures!!! We grabbed both girls and ran through the woods, up some low angled slabs, and jumped the low lying bushes and got them strapped into the truck. Kerin and I grabbed the headlamps and back through the woods we went. We broke down the tarps, rolled up sleeping bags, packed food, rain fly, tents and stoves and were back at the truck...fully packed, entirely drenched and laughing about our good fortune!!

Despite the rains however there were some bright spots to our trip...one was the popovers with freshly churned butter and homemade strawberry Jam at the Jordan House. We clocked in about 15 miles on a bikeride around Eagle Lake and points beyond, caught crabs at the dock, swam in the tidal pools at sand beach, and discovered just how hardy our two little girls are. They are truly amazing!!

The night we got back to North Conway, I was tucking Emma into bed and she rolled over to face me as I was rubbing her back...she leaned over, put her arms around my neck and gave me a huge bear hug and said "Papa...that was the BEST vacation I have ever had". I am still smiling..