October 11, 2024 - October 23, 2024 -- Thousand Trails Moody Beach to Lamoine back to Thousand Trails Moody Beach
Written By: Wendy
Our next big stop was Acadia National Park in Maine to meet up with my whole family. My parents, brothers, and their girlfriends were all flying in to meet us for week. Before we met up with them, though, we had a short two night stay in southern Maine to break up the long drive. For the past month and a half, I had been scouring the internet for local fall festivals. Surely we would time one right, but somehow we happened to just miss all of them and hadn’t been to a fall fest yet. Luckily, though, this campground just happened to be doing their Hallo-weekend festival this weekend! It started at 5:00 on Friday, and we arrived at about 3:00 on Friday. Perfect timing at last! We enjoyed all the classic Halloween activities that weekend, including pumpkin painting, mask making, a Halloween parade, and a costume contest. There was even trick or treating throughout the campground, which the kids were thrilled about. We decided to take part in handing out goodies, but instead of handing out the traditional candy, we gave out hot pizza and fresh cranberry pie. Everyone was extremely surprised, and to say we were a hit is an understatement. We enjoyed giving people an excuse to linger a little longer and chat a bit with new friends while they munched on pizza and pie before heading to their next stop.
After we wrapped up all our Halloween festivities, we headed north to pick up my brother, Keith, his girlfriend, Kaye, and their new puppy, Jojo, and then head all the way up to Acadia. We were all staying in an Airbnb that week, and we were looking forward to the opportunity to spread out a little and take long hot showers with high water pressure. The house was tucked into the back woods of northern Maine, about 30 minutes from Bar Harbor and Acadia. It was at the end of a dirt road surrounded by thick forest with trees turned to brilliant shades of red, yellow, and orange. My parents and younger brother and his girlfriend arrived later in the evening. We greeted them with big hugs as the smell of a fall squash soup wafted in the air. It felt like the set of a Hallmark movie with all of us arriving to this picturesque cabin in the woods and bursting out of the cold and into a warm and cozy house with delicious smells in the air.
We lucked out and were in Acadia during peak leaf week, so we spent the week enjoying the fall foliage to the fullest and went on a hike every day where the fall leaves were the star of the show every time. Scott and I were particularly excited about going to Acadia because, although we went to Acadia during our fall east coast travels 11 years ago, it was during the government shut down of 2013, and Acadia was closed. We were able to walk into the park and still were able to see a lot of it, but since we could not drive into the park, we weren't able to really get into the heart of the park.
One of the more uniques hike we did was on the first day there. We all went into downtown to explore it a bit and see some of the shops on a gray and drizzly day. My family headed into an old mansion that was now turned into a museum that we decided to skip on account of our kids already showing signs that they needed to let some energy out. Scott frantically searched for other nearby options on his phone and stumbled upon the Bar Island Land Bridge that lead to Bar Island. This is a natural sandy bridge that comes out for a couple hours everyday at low tide. You can only reach the island by foot during low tide, so you must time it perfectly or else risk being stuck on the island for 9 hours until the tide goes out again. Scott glanced at his watch and low tide was in about half an hour. Perfect! The sand should be just starting to peek out, and it was a very short walk from where we were. The kids leisurely took their time exploring the sand and hidden creatures and gems on the land bridge while we waited for the rest of my family to catch up and join us on the short hike to the "summit" (it's a very small molehill) on Bar Island.
Another afternoon, we embarked on the classic Acadia hike around Jordan Pond. We arrived in mid-afternoon, hoping that it would be less crowded, but no such luck. The park was packed this week due to the fall foliage. We lucked out with a close by parking spot, but my parents and brothers had to walk about a mile from where they parked to the trailhead. Nevertheless, it was a stunning hike around the picturesque Jordan Pond, made all the more beautiful with the bright shades of red, orange, and yellow surrounding the pond and reflecting into its calm waters.
That evening, we gave our truck keys and kids to my younger brother, his girlfriend, and my mom after the hike, and we took the opportunity of babysitters to have a night out on the town with my dad and older brother. (Just so you all know that we have an equal opportunity family, my mom, younger brother, his girlfriend, and older brother's girlfriend went out the previous night while we all watched the puppy and two little kids!) We went out to a traditional fancy seafood restaurant, Testa's, in downtown Bar Harbor. Scott loves seafood. No, that's an understatement, he adores seafood. He's obsessed with it. He cannot get enough of it. The whole time we've been near a coast, if we go more than 2 or 3 days without getting local seafood, he gets a little anxious and frantically searches for our next seafood meal. We'd been on and off the coast since mid-August, and I love seafood as well, but it doesn't make me crazy. With Maine being our last coastal stop before we moved inland for several months, he was downright frantic about seafood this week. So he went all out at this meal and got the Maine special - clam chowder, steamed clams and mussels, and a whole lobster. Oh, AND he got oysters for an appetizer. Satisfied yet, Scott? After we stuffed ourselves silly with seafood, we headed to go on a, can you guess it...ghost tour! And what is my New England obsession? Yep, ghost tours! So I guess this was the perfect Northeast night for us. This was my third ghost tour this fall, and I loved it just as much as the others. I once again relished the stories and immersed myself in the history of the area while feeling the spookiness of the time of the year.
Being the family that we are, we had to have a pizza party one night. One thing that we had wanted to do when we set off on our pizza goal was to try a bunch of local ingredients on our pizzas and make all sorts of unique combinations of pizzas. After buying local and/or unique pizza toppings for a bunch of our pizza parties and no one ever wanting them, we were slightly disappointed. We resorted to making mostly just pepperoni or cheese or occasionally veggie pizzas. When we did come across adventurous eaters, though, we took full advantage of it. Everyone in my family could be considered major foodies and no one is picky, so Scott did not let this opportunity pass. He made a pumpkin ancho chili sauce topped with chicken and red onions. It was delicious, and the perfect pizza to have in the backwoods of Maine with bright red and golden softly falling behind him in the background.
On our last full day in Maine, it was the one day that none of us had any obligations with our remote jobs, so we took the opportunity to all go on an epic hike together and have the perfect epic Main day. We started the day early with crisp air with blue skies as far as the eye could see. We set out for the Gorham Mountain trail. It was the perfect trail to accommodate everyone's needs in such a big group - short enough for the puppy and kids but with a bit of vert to make it seem like somewhat of a challenge for the adults and epic views for everyone to savor. It did not disappoint. The views at the top were absolutely spectacular. Turn one direction and you can see rolling forested hills of red and yellow trees with the sparkling blue ocean just on the other side. Turn the other direction, and you can see valley after valley of brightly colored fall forest. At the top, we all debated which view was better - the ocean or the valley. I took a poll, and it was surprisingly interesting to see who said which view they preferred and why. In fact, we were pretty evenly split. While on the hike, Scott discovered that we could turn the trail into a loop and head off the summit in the other direction to then stop at Sandy Beach and Thunderhole on the way back. It only added a bit of distance, so we did just that and enjoyed relaxing on the beach and listening to the boom of the waves at Thunderhole before making it back to our starting point for a picnic lunch on the rocks overlooking the ocean. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain and taking in more gorgeous views of the mountains, fall foliage, and ocean below. Parker even felt particularly awe inspired and sat down to mediate and take in the view at one point. We ended the day with dinner at a classic Maine lobster pound. It was delicious, and the perfect ending to a perfect Maine day and week before we all said good bye the next day.
After we said our good byes in Lamoine, and Parker had a good cry (he hates to say good bye, especially to family), we headed back to Thousand Trails Moody Beach to once again break up our long drive. We were now just days away from our Halloween Event, Family Fright Feast, that would take place in Scio, New York. The rest of the week was spent grocery shopping and prepping for our big event. We were so excited and nervous and there was so much to do! Not mention, the 500 miles that we had to drive within the next couple of days to get there.