Maine!

So, we can now say that we've been to Maine! The truth is, the border is less than two hours away-- really, it's not bad! We drove a bit further north, though (3.5 hours total) to get to beautiful Boothbay Harbor! My parents took their trailer, and we followed them with our camping gear. We had two campsites near each other, but used ours pretty much only for sleeping. I mean, the trailer is an awfully handy thing to have around! Gus commented (and I agreed) that the ability to take a shower every day sort of ruined tent camping for us. haha! It felt good to get clean, especially since it was so hot and humid! Anyway... I took a lot of pictures, and am trying to narrow it down. On Friday, we drove up to Boothbay and got our campsites set up:

The next morning, once we were all showered and fed, we ventured into the harbor and to a public beach I had read about. I really wanted to get a picture of the kiddos on the Atlantic, to go with the one I took of them on the Pacific before we moved. Except, this really wasn't a "beach." It was more of an oceanfront park, on an inlet. It was very pretty and very peaceful! Just not a beach! We had brought our swimsuits, but they stayed in the car, haha!

Next up, we drove over to the other side of the bay to the Maine State Aquarium. It sounds impressive, doesn't it? Well, it was exactly one room. The kids had fun, and it was cheap, but yeah... very small! Maya held both a starfish and a scallop, but decided she was done when the scallop started to open and close its shell while she was holding it. She freaked out and chucked the thing back into the tide pool... something that is sort of frowned upon by the staff! Oops! Niko touched the sea star, but wouldn't hold it. And while I took pictures there, they were pretty dark and not so great. Whatever! It was fun!

At that point, it was getting close to lunchtime, and we were hungry. We drove to downtown Boothbay Harbor, managed to find two FREE parking spots right next to each other, and walked around a bit. We ate on the water in a lovely air-conditioned restaurant (it was SO HOT outside!), and then walked out on the footbridge that goes over the bay. It was much more pleasant out there, with a nice little breeze coming off the water!

Between the beach that wasn't a beach, and the super tiny aquarium, we found ourselves with some free time... We decided that it would be cool to see a lighthouse. So my dad looked at the map, and announced that we should go to Pemaquid. Quickly glancing at the map, it looked nearby. The plan was for them to follow us. So we started out of the town, soon to realize that we were at the very tip of one point of land, and the lighthouse was at the tip of another point-- very close by, if only we had a BOAT! Instead, we had to drive about ten miles inland to the nearest bridge, then another ten miles out the point. But we had nothing else planned, and the lighthouse ended up being really cool! We actually got to go inside, where it was incredibly claustrophobic! The kids weren't tall enough to go up, but they got to ring the bell inside the museum. They were happy with that!

I also got my Atlantic picture at that point, but I am going to write a separate post about that as soon as I'm done with this one! :)

Once we'd had our fill of Pemaquid, we headed back to the campground and called it a day. The plan was to maybe go play some mini golf after dinner, since there was a cute little course just a short hop from the campground. Meanwhile, a mommy friend of mine (who lives in Maine) saw that we had been to the lighthouse, and asked me if we had gotten ice cream at a place called Round Top. Sadly, we hadn't (she swore it was the best ice cream she has ever had). Well... she then told me about a mini golf place in Boothbay that also had awesome ice cream-- before remembering that this particular place sold Round Top ice cream! And of course, it was the place we were headed! So we let the kids play 18 holes, and then enjoyed what honestly might have been the best ice cream ever. She wasn't lying. It was AWESOME!

After that, we did campfire and hung out until the mosquitoes became unbearable (again). We have a lot of mosquitoes where we live, but this was even worse! I am COVERED! And they are SO ITCHY!! But I digress... that was pretty much the end of our little Maine adventure! We packed up this morning and came home. Now that we know how close it really is, I'm excited to go back and explore some more!