Summer

Change of routine is always a bit rough, and after a fun but tiring weekend up in Acadia, Sam wasn't feeling all that excited to go to camp on Monday morning. There were a few tears and it was tough to drop her off and not know if she was having a good day until I picked her in the afternoon. Thankfully, she did end up having a great day and really enjoyed it, and has been loving it all week now that she's settled in. Aren't we all like that in a way? A bit fearful, perhaps, of change, but excited, and ultimately, hopefully, happy to be where we're going once we get there?

Looks like fun to me!! :)

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Tuesday, I was up and out early on a nice, cool morning for 6 miles on the cart paths.

Wednesday, I hit the Cathance trails in the early morning. It was a two deer, slippery root and bog bridge, really wet grass from dew and overnight rain, cool air, 50 degree, beautiful along the river on a bright and sunny morning type of run. A good 7 miles to start the day.

This morning after dropping Sam off at camp, I headed over to Bradbury. It had rained on and off through the morning, and although the rain stopped just prior to my arrival, there was an insane amount of humidity and the air was like soup. In fact, wunderground said 100% humidity. Doesn't that mean rain?!? Needless to say, I was saturated almost as soon as I started, and the rocks and roots were insanely slippery along the trails. I decided I would run the mountain side and get in some hills, so I meandered up and around the summit, up and down Lunchbreak and back around again. A good, if incredibly soggy, 8 hilly miles for the day.

Hoping things will dry out at least a little bit for tomorrow morning's long run, but if not, I'll just suck it up and deal :) Ah, summer!

Acadia Weekend

In celebration of the end of school and the start of summer, we headed up to Acadia, as we've done the past few years. A wedding party had booked the Claremont for the weekend (what a spot!), so we decided we'd camp instead. It was a great weekend and a whole lot of fun!

I'll let the photos do the talking on this post, because, as always, Acadia never disappoints in the beauty department, even on a foggy morning!

I picked Sam up at dismissal on Friday and we headed into town for lunch and a celebratory gelato :)

After Ryan got home, we headed north, set up our tent and campsite, and then went into Southwest Harbor to meet up with my cousin's wife Kristine and son, Ash, who were in town for Ash to do a oceanography camp for the week. It was a great coincidence that we were both up on MDI at the same time and such fun to catch up and have dinner!! And Sam and Ash didn't have any fun together at all ;)

There was a bit of rain overnight and we woke up to fog, but it really wasn't all that bad. Ryan was up and out early to meet up with Jamie, Chad, Mike and Jen for a long carriage road run, so after Sam woke up, we dawdled around camp a bit, went into town to get some coffee for me and then headed over to Jordan Pond where we were planning to meet Ryan after his run. When we arrived at 9:30, the parking lot was almost empty and we got a spot right near the Jordan Pond House. I guess it pays to get out on a foggy morning!

Due to the fog and potential for rain, we chose to stay down low instead of head up into the mountains, so we donned our packs and headed out around Jordan Pond. Although there weren't any long views, it was still pretty and we enjoyed the amazing amount of bog bridges along the left side of the pond!

We originally intended to walk all the way around the pond but Sam's stomach wasn't feeling great so we headed back. I did convince her to walk a little ways along the bottom/right side of the pond, where we explored the shoreline of the lake a bit more before we returned to the car, and we ended up with a nice 2 mile walk nonetheless.

Sam felt better after a visit to the bathroom, having a snack and taking a tour of the gift shop, and since we still had a while to wait until Ryan returned, we put on our packs again and wandered down the Jordan Stream Trail. I had never been on this trail before and it was gorgeous, following the stream down to a beautiful cobblestone bridge along one of the carriage roads. It was a lovely 2nd walk of the morning!

We walked back along the carriage roads for a nice 1.5 mile loop, and met up with Ryan who had finished and changed and was ready for lunch!

The rest of the day was spent swimming in the pool (for Sam), enjoying lobster and seafood down at Beal's for dinner and getting a fire going back at the campsite. The skies really cleared out after lunchtime and it turned into a really nice afternoon!

I was admittedly a bit jealous of Ryan's long Acadia run on Saturday, even though I had a great time hiking around with Sam for the morning, so I was really happy to be able to get out on my own little mini adventure on Sunday morning. I was up early and out before 5:30 am, the campground still quiet, and headed out on the roads to run a loop up over St. Sauveur, Valley Peak and Acadia. It was an incredibly gorgeous morning and I really enjoyed my 7+ miles of mountain peak goodness before the rest of the world woke up. Always good for the soul!

After I got back, we had a bit of a breakfast/snack and packed up the campsite. Sam was a bit help and we were out of there before 9:30 on our way to a delicious brunch at Two Cats in Bar Harbor. Yum!

It was such a nice day that we knew we wanted to get in a family hike before we left the island, and I had so enjoyed my time up out on Acadia/St. Sauveur in the morning, that we headed back that way and hiked up St. Sauveur so Sam and Ryan could enjoy the views. By the time we started around 11:30, it was pretty hot but there was a breeze up high along the ridges and we got in a nice 3+ mile loop over St. Sauveur. A great way to wrap up a fun weekend!