Some of my most vivid memories from Maine vacations growing up involve the mere process of getting from here to there. Imagine a Windstar mini-van with 3 kids in the back. Now imagine oodles of duffel bags, a canoe strapped to the roof, some groceries, and occasionally a chainsaw. If you can imagine that for 14 hours straight while playing soundtracks from musicals in the background that pretty accurately approximates our trips to Maine. Ah, the memories...
Things have changed in recent years and, for better or worse, there are fewer showtunes and more baby related stops along the way. For Aiden's sake, and for our own sanity, we broke the trip into 2 semi-manageable chunks of driving with a night's stop over in Portland Maine. Aiden, thankfully, turned out to be as tough as a seasoned road-tripper, and probably could have gone straight through to Canada and beyond.
Our less rigorous schedule allowed for some luxuries previously unknown in the mini-van days. For example, we got to visit our cousin Meg, her husband Gabe, and their daughter Chloe at their home in Newberryport Massachusetts. It was kind of a spontaneous visit, but it turned out to be a highlight of the trip. It was great to see Meg and Gabe, their home, the neat town that they live in, and of course the beautiful baby Chloe.
After a night in a Portland hotel, our journey continued on to the fabled town of Freeport Maine. For the uninitiated, Freeport is home of the L.L.Bean mothership store, and is also so chocked full of other outlet stores that it makes the Lancaster outlets look like they're not even trying. We made the obligatory stop in Freeport. We cruised the outlets. We took a picture with the giant Bean boot. But we did not dally long- we knew the cabin awaited!
The final leg of the trip found us winding through pine trees, and blueberry barrens until we finally pulled up to the boathouse at Grand Lake Stream. The trip across the lake provided the necessary transition from car-life to cabin-life, and soon we were tucked neatly into the picnic table at Spring Cove- ready to enjoy our first Maine dinner.
The journey was over, we had arrived.
2 comments:
i love the picture of rob kissing aiden's cheek and aiden is grabbing rob's cheeks. SO CUTE!
Remember the trip when it was Mom and the kids and we picked up the futon at LLBean and stuffed it into and on top of the mini van?? And, of course, the classic trip when we burned out the transmission in the Aerostar van pulling the boat...
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