We’ve been back from our biggest trip ever for over a week. I had been attempting to put together a video recap, and I got into the project a bit, but a) my computer ran out of hard drive space, b) the script I recorded was 47 minutes long, and c) I began to realize that was a giant waste of time and no one would ever sit through something like that. In lieu of that video post (at least for now, until I can come up with a 10-minute version), here is a very lengthy written recap!
We cashed in a bunch of Delta miles and Hilton points and set out on our biggest vacation ever—nearly two weeks on the road, leaving the sweltering heat of central Texas in late July to visit a comparatively cooler area of the continent. It was summer break for both kids, so we decided to hit the road before school started back up. We had already taken summer trips to Minneapolis and Carpenter to visit both sides of the family, but for each of those, Lauren and I worked remotely through the trip, so this would be our true summer vacation where we actually unplugged.
Our travels would take us from Boston to New Hampshire, where we’d stay with friends at their summer cabin, to the edge of Vermont, then over to Bar Harbor, Maine, up into Saint John, NB, across the Bay of Fundy to Halifax, Nova Scotia, up the province to the Cape Breton Highlands, back east to Prince Edward Island, all the way back south to Portland, Maine, and finally back to Boston, over the course of 13 days. Well, let’s get into the details!
We decided to take an Uber from our house to the airport instead of leaving one of our cars to bake in the hot Austin sun for 13 days, and honestly, save some money on parking. Two Uber rides offset the cost of long-term parking handily. Edie is still in a full front-facing carseat, and that would have to be installed in the Uber, and then dragged along onto the plane and rental car, a pretty sizable inconvenience. Our driver was put to the test, sweating profusely as he and Lauren attempted in vain to install the carseat over the course of 15 agonizing minutes. I stood by and supervised. I can’t understand why carseat straps are so short.
We finally buckled it in and arrived at the airport. We were early enough to where we felt we could get our money’s worth at the Delta SkyClub, which, although discounted through our Platinum Delta AMEX card, still cost a pretty penny for entry. In order to get our money’s worth of food and drink between the four of us, I would have to hit the bar pretty hard. Challenge accepted! After a few trips to the bar and several passes through a very tasty buffet line, we suffered our first setback of the trip. John got a migraine, not particularly unusual for him, sadly. At least we were in the lounge with nice places to spread out and lie down. We even moved to the outdoor patio area in the 105º weather because John found it more tolerable. After about an hour of rest, thankfully, John felt better and it was time to board our flight! We got a little pod of four seats in the main cabin. Edie insisted on sitting by me, which left John and Lauren together a row up.
We arrived in Boston around midnight. As much as we wanted to get the kids in bed, we had to wait almost an hour for our luggage to arrive. We were staying that night in the Hilton attached to the airport, so we walked the fifteen minutes with luggage in tow to our room. I was carrying the carseat on my back, and we each had a suitcase and backpack. I was soaked from sweat when we arrived to our room around 1:30am. We all got to sleep relatively easily and had a good night’s sleep. In the morning Lauren and John set out to obtain the rental car from Avis while Edie and I packed up. Upon exiting the room around 9:15, Edie was singing or something, and an angry hotel guest stuck his head out the door and muttered to us “I guess if you’re up, we all have to be up, you f*cking piece of shit.” Welcome to Boston, I guess!
Lauren started off driving in Boston as we attempted to find a breakfast spot. We quickly realized how difficult of a city Boston can be to drive in, taking wrong turns one after the other. After breakfast at a fairly random spot, Style Cafe, we drove across the New Hampshire border and stopped off at a gas station to load up on alcohol as a sort of welcoming gift to our friends. For all four of us, it was our first time in the state. For me, NH was state #42 visited.
We stopped off again in Concord at the state capitol to take a few pictures and say we were there. We were well into the mountains shortly after, passing through some breathtaking sights as we got off the interstate and onto some windy backroads up towards the town of Bartlett. We soon arrived at our friends’ cabin and got the grand tour. It was very impressive! Our kids and their two boys all got reacquainted and headed upstairs to start playing video games. That night we were treated a great grilled meal and a beautiful cool night under the stars. The idea that we needed blankets was enough to put a smile on my face, such a far departure from the record-breaking summer we had been experiencing.
The next day was a Monday, and for our friends, it was a normal work day. After some back-and-forth, we decided to take the short drive west over to St. Johnsbury, Vermont to the Fairbanks Museum. With our friends’ two boys in tow, we borrowed our their larger SUV for a morning of fun and exploration. Vermont was another new state for all of us, and #43 on my list. The museum was well worth the price of admission, and the kids also had fun in the neighboring butterfly garden. We found a quaint little spot called Anthony’s Diner for lunch, where I made friends with a local meteorologist, and an ice cream parlor for dessert before heading back. In the afternoon, several of us went on a hike at Davis Hiking Path, one of seemingly hundreds of paths to choose from in the immediate vicinity of their cabin. In the evening, the group went out to dinner at a great restaurant called the Red Fox. Another night on the patio was spent chatting with our friends and sipping wine til late in the night.
On Tuesday morning we packed up, said goodbye, and ventured east to Maine, where our next destination was Bar Harbor. You guessed it—it was another new state for all of us, and for me, state #44. (If you’re curious, I have only Alaska, Hawaii, West Virginia, Montana, Idaho and Oregon remaining.) We again chose a state capitol—Augusta—as a stop-off point for stretching and photo ops. The kids got some wiggles out at a playground near the capitol building, and soon we were back on the road to Bar Harbor. I had very little knowledge of Bar Harbor previously and wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but soon realized it was a very popular tourist town with souvenir shops lining the roads. We checked into the Acadia Inn, then quickly scampered off into town. A popular attraction is Bar Island, which is usually a true island, surrounded on all sides by water, but during low tide it’s possible to walk to it. Just don’t stay out there too long or you’ll get trapped on the island as the high tide rolls in. Water taxis are said to be available to rescue abandoned hikers from the island. However, finding street parking to get to this attraction was next to impossible. So much so that I just dropped off the family and decided to drive all the way back to the hotel and walk back. Luckily, on my way, a spot opened up. We spent lots of time scoping out shells on the beach and then hiking Bar Island with many other tourists. The town itself was very charming with lots of great looking places to eat and drink. We settled on a spot for dinner called Side Street Cafe which was one of the best meals of the entire trip. During dinner we were greeted by a thunderstorm, another relative rarity for us Texans. It was a night well spent at the Acadia Inn.
On Wednesday morning it was more Maine, with Acadia National Forest on the agenda. Despite being up very early, we were far from early entrants into the park. We drove up into the forest and stopped at a popular hiking trail named after a bubble shaped rock that teeters on the edge of a cliff. It was about a mile each way, and proved to be more than we bargained for. You guessed it—I was drenched from sweat despite it being in the low 60s! The kids were fairly annoyed at the hike’s length, but we all agreed the sights at the end were a nice payoff. Lauren had the foresight to book a time slot for a drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in the park. It was a steep, scenic drive, but the rental Nissan Rogue handled it well. At the top, we all got out and spent at least an hour exploring on foot before blowing a few bucks in the gift shop. All told, it was well worth it and a must-do item, just remember to book in advance and expect big crowds in the summer.
In the afternoon we embarked north into, well, pretty much nowhere. I was surprised how little civilization we encountered after Bar Harbor. We were forced to stop at a very rural mom & pop convenience store to use an outhouse! By mid-afternoon we had reached Calais, Maine, the last town in the US, and had lunch at Riverview Restaurant. It was then time to cross into Canada! The kids had never left the US before. We had tried to get them passports in Austin for months with no luck, but on 2022’s visit to South Dakota we were able to easily get passports in Huron at the post office! Consider that route if you’re having trouble finding passport appointment availability in your city. So, we finally put our passports to use and crossed without delay into New Brunswick, the third Canadian province I had visited after Manitoba and Ontario years earlier. It also came as a surprise when we crossed the border that we were now in a new time zone: Atlantic Time! In all of my research, I completely forgot about the time zone to the east of the US. So, we lost an hour there. We soon arrived in the city of Saint John, which appeared to typically spell out the “Saint” in its name rather than abbreviate. We checked into our Hilton and began exploring. We think we went the wrong way, because all we saw that evening was a city shut down and drug deals going down in the city parks. We found a pub for dinner and ate on the patio in front of mass waterfront construction. Our first impressions of Saint John weren’t exactly stellar. Thursday morning, however, that all changed. I woke up early and got in a long jog along the boardwalk and determined there was in fact a nicer area of town. That morning after checking out of the hotel, we explored the famous Reversing Falls, a natural phenomena that basically sees water flow at different directions at the same time, creating a dangerous whirlpool effect. It was interesting, but not something you could spend more than five minutes looking at. We visited Walastoq Park with its dozens of giant wooden carvings of famous residents, and a couple other areas of interest including the steep inclines of downtown and some famous architecture. For lunch, we came upon the Container shopping district, a fun and modern center filled with food, drinks, music, and plenty of shops. We enjoyed a beer and lobster roll while the kids played bean bags. We never did make it out to Hopewell Rocks, however, said to be the biggest Saint John-area attraction, despite Edie buying a souvenir cap bearing its name. But we left with a favorable impression of the city for having spent only about 19 hours there.
Perhaps the highlight of the trip for me was what came next—the ferry ride from Saint John across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia. The ferry held probably 200 or so vehicles including campers and semis, and an estimated 750 passengers. We arrived at what we thought was a very early time, but proved to be one of the last cars in line. We drove our car onto the ferry into the lower level parking garage, then proceeded upstairs on the escalator. I was surprised to see restaurants, huge seating areas, a movie room, and a kids area. There was an upper level outside, too, which is where we wanted to be. We got a good seat and watched for whales. Yup, they served beer on board, so of course I had to imbibe. Sitting out there in the sun on a very mild, breezy day for 2.5 hours was really fun! About halfway across the bay we were technically in Nova Scotia, my fourth province visited. We arrived in Digby, a tiny town that as far as I could tell had nothing more than the ferry harbor as its claim to fame. It was then on the path across the province to Halifax, a fairly boring drive, with some occasional road construction to slow us down. I have always envisioned Halifax being like way north of the US, but it’s really pretty much on par with Minneapolis north-and-south.
In Halifax we stayed at another downtown Hilton property, the Hollis. Guess what the first thing we did in Halifax was upon our evening arrival?? Laundry! We had two full loads, and they had coin-operated washers and dryers, so I stayed up late tending to the machines just like the old Minneapolis apartment days. In the morning, we ate at the hotel restaurant, The Cannery, and then the kids and I were excited to explore. Lauren went back to the room to get ready while we walked the harbor, Halifax’s big tourist draw. Right outside our hotel was a playground with a big submarine play structure and a huge whale tail sculpture for climbing, though a much-ignored sign politely suggested it was NOT for climbing. Edie played for an hour on the submarine playground, then wound up walking barefoot on the boardwalk and got a giant sliver in her foot, causing her to require “uppie” everywhere that day. We spent all morning walking the harbor, stopping at every sculpture and shop, and climbed to the top of a big hill where the Citadel sits. John was beginning to break down by this point, stopping on the sidewalk and crumpling to the ground in despair at the thought of walking to the top of the hill. It really hadn’t been all that much walking on the trip to that point, and a whole lot more to come, so this was a very bad sign. He managed to pull through with the promise of lunch right after, so we ate at a beer garden called The BG. Not starving, Lauren and I shared some lobster poutine—doesn’t get more eastern seaboard Canadian than that! After a little breather, we hopped aboard the Harbor Hopper, one of those amphibious vehicles, which went out into the water as well as the city, with a friendly guide and captain pointing out places of interest. Yep, we did get wet. Lauren and the kids all wound up calling that one of the highlights of their trip. That night was the biggest dinner of the trip. We ate at a spot called SeaSmoke and ordered the Seafood Tower, which included an entire lobster, about thirty mussels, a dozen oysters, shrimp, sushi, edamame, and more. It was indeed a spectacle, and even mores considering we were seated at the sushi bar where there was barely room to put the tower. We declared it would need to be justified by calling it my birthday dinner (my birthday about four weeks away at the time). We did some swimming at the hotel and called it a night. The Hollis proved to be a great place to stay.
The next morning, we were back on the road, but this time we’d be staying in Nova Scotia and NOT leaving to another new state, province, country or territory. The northeastern part of the province is technically an island called Cape Breton Island, and the majority of it is a national park, thought to be the best in all of North America! It was very difficult to find anywhere with lodging available for our dates, but Lauren managed to secure two nights at the Keltic Lodge on a third-party travel site. The drive to the lodge was another very scenic one, with breathtaking overlooks out into the ocean every few kilometers. Anyway… the Keltic Lodge is a very famous area that was once the summer home of Alexander Graham Bell. It’s more than just a hotel—it’s a fairly decent-sized region that all Nova Scotians seemed to be intricately familiar with, and is home to one of the top ten golf courses in North America. The weather there is said to be pretty unpredictable in the summer, so it was no surprise when we were greeted with frequent and often torrential rainfall. We didn’t let it dampen the fun too much, though. We ate dinner that night at what was said to be the more casual of the two on-site restaurants. We splurged a little and split a bottle of wine. While waiting for our food, Edie joined some other kids in the bar, dancing to an Irish folk singer. After Lauren and the kids called it an early night, I wanted to check out the Sitting Room, which I envisioned to be a bar. I walked through pitch darkness and pouring rain up to the building only to discover it was an actual sitting room! Yes, drinks were served, but you couldn’t just sidle up to the bar. The room was divided into areas with couches and seats, and each group or individual kept to themselves. There were no openings, so I went back to the normal folk’s bar and had a couple beers while watching baseball on my phone. Yes, by the way, internet worked great almost all of the time in Canada.
On Sunday morning, we got up early and enjoyed a large breakfast at the lodge, and then headed out to the Cape Smokey Gondolas, which we drove past on the way in and thought looked fun. For about $120, the family was able to ride in a gondola high up a mountain and explore. The family agreed the ride was pretty fun, but also worried that the gondola would somehow snap off the cable and we’d all die a terrible death. Fortunately, it held our weight. I still can’t really figure out how those things balance the way they do. Once at the top of the mountain, we posed with some statues, walked about 0.1 miles onto a trail, and took some pictures. But the real thrill was, of course, the ride itself. The kids insisted on hopping right back in the gondola for the ride down, and then it was over! Upon return to the Keltic Lodge, we forced the children into a hike on the Middle Head Trail, said to be one of the greatest hikes around. A peninsula of sorts, surrounded on three sides by ocean, the wooded hike offered the occasional glimpse off a jagged cliff with waves crashing onto the shore. But it was the end of the hike that made it all worth it, with unbelievable views and many amazing photo opportunities. Photos nor videos could really do any justice to the sights we saw there. If you ever do this hike, do not turn back until the very end. The drops into the ocean were much greater than they appear in any photos. Just when we thought we were done and ready to head back, another little twist in the trail led to another equally amazing area. And then another, and another. One missed step trying to take a selfie could send a hiker to a painful fall into the cold ocean, so we were very careful. The long hike plus on-and-off rain left the children feeling annoyed, and they certainly didn’t appreciate the views like we did. By the time we returned to the lodge, the rains were really falling. Our plans to swim were put on hold, and we decided to park it in the bar area for the day. The kids were allowed to bring their devices, so everyone was happy. We sat and sipped drinks for a couple hours before the rain let up, then had a good meal at the Main Street Restaurant in nearby Ingonish Beach. I enjoyed the lobster tacos, a very sizable portion. At night we switched off—Lauren visited the bar with a book while I went to bed early with the kids.
On Monday, it was time to keep on moving. You might think the kids would be sick and tired of riding, but car time usually meant device time, so they were generally excited for the driving. It would be a very long drive all the way up to Charlottetown, PEI. Our drive through northern New Brunswick felt very Midwest. I could have easily been convinced we were riding through Minnesota. Sidebar: most of the roads were two lanes, with the occasional third lane for passing. Whenever we were stuck behind someone and had the opportunity to pass at one of those lanes, the driver would gun it so we couldn’t get around them, and when the passing lane ended, they were still in front of us and back to slow speeds. It happened repeatedly in Canada and Maine! Anyway… The drive into PEI meant crossing a 9-mile bridge over the Northumberland Strait. On the way into PEI it was free, but on the way out that same bridge has a $50.25 toll! The city of Charlottetown greeted us with many roundabouts, including the confusing ones with multiple lanes. I was in the inside lane and not quite sure how to exit. The traffic signals also threw me for a loop as they had different shapes and blinking patterns. For our Charlottetown hotel, we splurged a little and went for more of a boutique hotel, The Sydney, which was basically a full apartment with multiple bedrooms. I was surprised how little of a city that was. It was very quiet and walkable, and felt extremely safe. We walked just a few blocks that night to another beer garden, the Charlottetown Beer Garden & Seafood Patio and sat outside. It was cool with passing showers. The waitresses actually came to our table holding a chalkboard beer menu every time we wanted to order. Based solely off the first hour of being in town I adamantly declared this was where I wanted to live one day! It got downright cold as the meal went on, none of us dressed for 60º weather. On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped at a playground and the kids encountered a friendly neighborhood cat that they wanted to keep. Yes, the first night in PEI was pretty great.
The next morning I awoke to the sight of a giant cruise ship docked on the water. We wandered around the harbor area and discovered the city probably lives off of these cruise stops, flooded with tourists crowding all the shops and restaurants. To be honest, we didn’t really encounter a whole lot else to do or see in town. The kids stopped and watched a children’s play of some sort that attracted a crowd, but otherwise they were very cranky to be forced into walking another harbor. We decided to do a beach day instead, and headed to the far north side of PEI to Cavendish Beach, right along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. How many kids can say they swam in both the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico over summer break! In driving from the south coast to the north coast of PEI, it took roughly 40 minutes! Yeah Prince Edward Island truly is the Rhode Island of Canada. It was barely 70º, but the beach was full. It was really a pretty neat area with big rolling dunes along a nice sandy beach. John immediately got out in the choppy, frigid water and was having a blast diving through the waves. The rest of us couldn’t believe John got out there on foot, with ten feet of jagged rocks lining the shore! I tiptoed through the rocks and then it turned to sand. It turned out John had just found a particularly un-rocky entry to out into the water. I eventually brought Edie into the water with me, and the three of us swam around for a long time with many other beachgoers while Lauren read on the beach. It was a fun time, but also funny to think that this was considered beach weather in northern PEI while back in Texas it would have been considered far too cold. We returned to our hotel and had dinner at Merchantman Fresh Oyster & Seafood. I realized at this point I was looking much fatter in the face than usual, and indeed I had put on a whopping 9 pounds! They say that’s largely water weight when traveling, but I don’t know, I think I drank more water than if I were at home.
At this point, mentally, I was sorta ready to be done with the trip and get back home. Edie was also beginning to say she missed Texas. As much fun as we were having, it had been 11 days since we departed, was our fourth big trip of the summer, and it was beginning to feel a little drawn out. So, for future reference, I would not plan a trip longer than 10 nights. Things like cleaning the garage and catching up on my actual job were starting to sound more appealing than driving to another new city! But, we weren’t done yet, so I made sure to put those thoughts away and enjoy the moment.
On Wednesday morning we checked out of The Sydney in the driving rain, and took the bridge back to New Brunswick. It rained for hours and hours, all the way to the US border. The US checkpoint proved to be far worse than entering Canada! We waited in line for over 45 minutes behind only about seven cars. Each car took literally five to ten minutes to pass through, and two were waved to the side for additional inspection. I was getting very impatient. Just as we approached the front of line, there was a shift change and we got a new, quicker inspector who basically took a peek at our passports, asked if we were smuggling any potatoes through, and passed us right on through. We were back to Maine, and had regained that hour as we re-entered Eastern Time! We stopped in Bangor at the kids’ favorite restaurant in the universe, Chick-Fil-A, and then booked an impromptu hotel in Portland, Maine. We headed straight to the pool to let the kids burn some energy. In the pool, a kid was drowning right next to me and I never noticed! His frantic dad leapt in the water fully clothed and pulled him to safety. Good wakeup call that it’s really hard to spot a kid underwater! All ended well for the kid and his family. We ate dinner that night at Sebago Brewpub, where I finally ordered my first lobster roll of the trip. Lauren ordered them repeatedly and I always had bites of hers, but I couldn’t go the whole trip without fully enjoying a roll. It was a pretty low-key night at the Hampton Inn.
Thursday morning it was time to pack up and get back to Boston. But we couldn’t very well leave Portland without doing anything remotely Portland-related! After all, it is a pretty big tourist destination. It was very early morning so nothing was open, but there was the famous lighthouse, Portland Head Light, which is viewable anytime. It was constructed during the US Lighthouse Act of 1789. It was a very picturesque area, and seeing how it was 8am, we had the place nearly all to ourselves! We explored for quite a while and found you could go down near the ocean on the rocks. For whatever reason, the kids decided jagged rocks along the shoreline was a great place to get into their worst fight of the trip, leaving both of them in tears. John also had a bad spill. I told him that a rock looked slippery and not to walk on it. He confidently said “Wrong!” and instantaneously biffed it, really hurting and muddying his butt. We came out of the rocks in tears and hit the road. By the way, reception in that area is absolute zero, so I had to drive around for miles after just to get reception back to get us to I-95.
We went through southern Maine, the far southeast corner of New Hampshire, and on into Massachusetts all in about 90 minutes, stopping to pay tolls along the way. Our first stop was our final meal of the trip, a hearty lunch at a popular sandwich place called Flour. The harbor area was the next stop. I took some time to myself and went for a long walk around Boston while Lauren and the kids hung out at a fun little park called Martin’s Playground. The kids then had a blast at the Boston Children’s Museum for about 90 minutes. I’m not one for children’s museums, personally. Obviously I’m not the target audience here. I’ve just been to Austin’s Thinkery too many times and spent too much time pretending to eat plastic fruit that kids bring over in the pretend grocery store. We checked into our hotel at the airport around 4, the same one from before on the front end of the trip, while Lauren returned the rental car to Avis. Trip over, right? As John had confidently said earlier that morning, “Wrong!” We still had time to get to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. Unfortunately, Boston traffic was at an all-time worst. No one was quite sure why, either. The Hilton shuttle driver swore he had never seen traffic at such a total standstill. We were planning to have the shuttle drop us at the airport and take the subway to the game, which all told should have taken at worst twenty minutes. Instead, we were stuck in traffic for forty minutes before bailing and getting out of the shuttle and trying to get to the station on foot. Thanks to Lauren, a Minneapolis native and former Toronto resident, navigating metro transit systems is second nature to her, unlike me with my rural South Dakota upbringing. She got us to a free bus that could drive right around all the shuttles and other traffic and took us straight to the subway, which we then easily navigated to the ballpark and still managed to be there for first pitch. Our seats were right inside Pesky’s Pole down the right field line, but we wouldn’t get to enjoy much of the game. The rains hit, and never really let up. Seeing how the Royals weren’t scheduled to play in Boston again for the rest of the year, the teams played through the rain, which got very heavy at times. Lauren and Edie wanted no part of it and headed for the concourse, which of course was jam-packed and loud. They both had had enough and wanted to leave in just the second inning. John and I wanted to stay. After much deliberation while eating a Fenway Frank and walking the concourse, John and I noticed how few people were actually in their seats, so we snagged some great seats right behind the plate and watched a couple innings from the tenth row. We agreed two innings of great seats was a fair trade and left the park with the gals, taking an Uber ride back to the hotel. It made sense to leave early anyway, given our 4:00 wakeup call.
Lauren wanted to take the shuttle to the airport at 5:30 for a 7:00 flight. I argued that was cutting it too close; what if traffic was still heavy in the area, or bag check lines were insane? I argued we leave at 4:00. We settled for 4:45 which proved to be ideal as lines were long, but still gave us time to grab breakfast. The flight was on-time and smooth sailing back to Austin. We were greeted for perhaps the first time ever with our luggage sitting and waiting for us. We strapped the carseat back in a new Uber car—much more easily this time—and were home before noon.
Wow, that was quite an adventure. All told, we visited four new states and three new provinces, drove about 2,000 miles, stayed in eight different places, ate about 300 sea creatures, climbed some mountains, took some hikes, and made many great memories. The trip was a great time and a success. I came back feeling refreshed and actually looking forward to the day-to-day routine. I think that would constitute a successful vacation? Or is a vacation more successful if you wish you were still there? Well, still being on the trip was absolutely not an option, so I think coming back feeling reenergized signals a win. I don’t think I’d do much differently in retrospect. We didn’t break the bank thanks to free airfare and lodging in many places. I should have been more active and stuck to my plan of getting in a morning workout in each city, which I accomplished only once, in Saint John. Spreading the trip out over many quick destinations was the right move, not having a lot of knowledge of any of them in particular. Knowing what I know now, I would take more time to explore Maine in the future, and I know we barely scratched the surface of all the Cape Breton Highlands has to offer. In fact, I’m currently recommending Maine as a great destination to my parents who are looking for a relaxing getaway.
Were the kids a little ornery? Absolutely, but probably no worse than could have been expected in such circumstances. John is old enough to where he’ll remember the trip, and like me, he’s really interested in keeping a list of places visited. The idea of driving over to Vermont that day just to say he had been there was very popular with him. Maybe one day Edie will appreciate that her parents took her to so many places as a young kid, but right now she would prefer to go to the local pool over a new state. I think I’m all traveled out for 2023.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 