Day 28: Exploring the Bar in Bar Harbor

One of the many things we have loved about our previous visits to Maine is our usual day trip to Bar Harbor, a beautiful coastal town that has much to offer.  In the past, we have come to see the boats, explored some of the natural wonders in nearby Acadia National Park, taken a whale-watching cruise, eaten delicious food, and shopped in the one-of-a-kind stores that line a few blocks near the water. There never seems to be enough time to hardly scratch the surface of all there is to do and see around here.

Having an RV this time meant we could stay in a campground very close to Bar Harbor for several days and experience many more things all in one visit.  After getting set up at camp, we took the Island Explorer, a free bus that operates all over Mt. Desert Island where Bar Harbor is located, into town.

Of course the first thing you have to do in Bar Harbor is come down to the waterfront and take in the scenery.  When we arrived, the gray overcast day was just giving way to the sun and we caught the transition as we looked out at the water.  While some rays of light were starting to shine through, the last of the fog was still burning off.

We realized that we were there shortly after low tide and that we would be able, for the first time, to walk out onto the bar that gives Bar Harbor its name.

What a fascinating experience to get to walk way out on what is normally the bottom of the sea!

Petunia and I are walking out at the beginning of the bar. Yes, this is normally covered in water high enough for ships to pass over. That land out there?  It's Bar Island. But a couple times a day, a little before and a little after low tide, you can walk (or drive your car) to the island.

Many interesting things await discovery out there!

When we went out, we were past low tide, so some water was starting to come back in. The little pools of water made the exploration even more exciting. We got to see a good bit of (very small) sea life in that water.

All the while, higher water and large ships are not too far away.

The water comes back in so subtly, but so quickly, that you don't realize how fast it is rising.

We had a fabulous hour out there. If the water weren't coming back in rather quickly, we could have stayed longer.

By the time we got out on the bar, the weather was wonderful!

This is what happens when the tide comes back in so unexpectedly fast.  Mark had a little dry path to walk out and look at some pools and two minutes later, his path was gone.  He had to balance on a rock and take off his shoes so they wouldn't get soaked.

Petunia, a lover and respecter of all life forms, got carried for a lot of the visit because she couldn't stand the thought of possibly stepping on a shell or clam and injuring it.  She made certain we stepped as carefully as possible, too. Love her heart!

We sure did work up an appetite and were thrilled to get back "on land" and go eat a delicious dinner, followed by the first of many trips to an ice cream shop during our visit.  What a great day and our Bar Harbor adventure was just barely under way!

Day 16: You win some, and once in a Blue Moon you lose some

As I've written about our travels to the north, I have shared that I only had reservations in one place between where we left home (Texas) and our destination for August (Maine.)

We have had a lot of luck, which I am calling Grand Adventure serendipity, on our side, and even though we've been winging it with almost no reservations in the middle of a beautiful summer, we have had no problems finding a comfortable place to stay.

When it was time to end our most delightful stay in Watkins Glen, New York, our idea was to head to the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. Besides wanting to experience its beauty, legend has it (along with lots of websites and rv camping forums) that there are plenty of places to stay for free or nearly free in federal lands, as long as you don't need a full hook up with electricity and water.  That seemed like a great plan for us since we only wanted to spend one night and get back on the road fairly quickly.

My best guess is that we were getting a little too comfortable with our "winging it" luck. Because we loved the state park we were leaving, we did not leave very early in the day. Then we had to drive across New York and into Vermont.  Even though the National Forest is right there on the border, it takes some time to get where you are going. They don't call them the Green Mountains for nothing. Those mountains are legit!

We drove up and down, coaxing (the-yet-to-be-officially-named) RV who did a great job, but was kind of saying something like..."Umm...what??"

Cloud level driving in the aptly named Green Mountains

We still haven't fully figured out if the following story is due more to this particular National Forest, our status as newbies, or the nighttime arrival into the camping areas.  Whatever the reason, this was our experience...

I had tried to do a little reading about where a motorhome could camp for the night in the Green Mountains and we headed to a camping area. When we got there, we saw that we had arrived at a "normal" campground--albeit with very tight spaces--not the primitive wide-open fields we were expecting.

Not wanting to disturb anyone further at the late-ish hour we had arrived by unhooking our car and backing into a space, all while shining lights in every nearby camping spots' location and in general attracting more attention than a lightbulb at a junebug convention, we decided to pass on that area and look for a new spot.

We didn't know where we were heading and we were off to find a place in the wide wild forest.

In God's provision, it happened to be the night of a Blue Moon.  We sure would have had it rough without those moonbeams!

I know this is not the caliber of picture normally found here, but I wanted to give just a sense of of the wonder we felt when we saw this full, bright moon pop up right between those mountains out of nowhere!

To make our long night's story shorter, I'll just say we drove around for a couple hours. At every potential spot, we spotted homes or private businesses. Is this normal in a National Forest? We were expecting much more deserted land. We'll do a bit more homework before we plan that again.

We finally decided to "give up" our idea of roughing it in the forest and headed for a state park campground we discovered located within the forest. We made our way there and found out that it, too, was full. When it rains, it pours.

At this point we needed to stop and rest.  We pulled into a thankfully large and empty parking lot of the state park, turned around to be ready to head out as soon as possible, and settled down to a dinner of Honey Nut Cheerios with banana slices before grabbing a few restless hours of sleep.

We pulled out very early in the morning before anyone would have to tell us to leave. We put a good number of miles between us and our less-than-ideal camping spot before turning into the quintessential, small town diner for a large breakfast. We got reset, and headed out ready to tackle the new day's adventures.

My eggs florentine with breakfast potatoes were scrumptious!

You win some. You lose some.  You gain experience either way.

9 things I want my child to gain from traveling

As I've stated before, one of my objectives in this blog is to encourage families to travel with their children. I enjoy sharing some of our personal experiences and I am glad to offer some tips from time to time that I find make whole-family travel easier.

However, today I want to back up and share what I want my child to gain from such a travel-focused life, and I hope it resonates with some of what you want for your children as well.

I think I could add more reasons or state them differently, but here are the top 9 things I want Petunia to gain from traveling.

1. My time and attention

We do make "family fun time", as we call it, a pretty big priority around here. But let's be honest, there is always work, housework, sports practice, growing a small business, Facebook (for me), t.v. (for her), and living ordinary life that gets in the way of meaningful connection. We still have thoughtful games of checkers and cards, good conversations over ice cream, and plain ol' cuddle-on-the-couch moments. I am not saying we need travel to give our children our time, just that it's a great opportunity not only to give them more attention, but to have deeper talks born out of richer, non-ordinary experiences. Not only did Petunia get the full attention of Mama and Daddy all day on Canada Day when we celebrated it in Ottawa, but we got to speak about what that day meant, compare it to our Independence Day and have all kinds of good talks.

2. A sense of adventure

a.k.a. A willingness to take risks! I want her to climb the mountain, literally and figuratively. I want her to try things she thinks she cannot, but will try anyway because the location demands the chance be taken. (Which, by the way, is how very unlikely little I climbed Mt. Fuji.) There are rivers to raft, strangers to talk to, subways to ride, paths to wander, and I pray she'll have a sense to undertake a lot of adventure. In travel, as in life, I want her to be brave. (To my mother: I will be okay if she leaves out certain adventures I sought to undertake, but you would love the redemption, I understand; so let's just see how things go, shall we?)

3. Compassion

There are many ways to gain and practice compassion while traveling, from giving up your seat to the elderly at an airport or bus, to coming face to face with real need and hurt in the world. When we've traveled out of our normal zone, we've encountered homeless people in cities, desperately impoverished children living in shacks in Uganda and a broad spectrum of people with all sorts of special needs. We want Petunia to know about poverty (including, actually, that it exists in our hometown), loneliness, and the vulnerable of society, and we often use our experiences as springboards into life lessons.  Of course, the discourse and practice of compassion happens fairly regularly around our house (I am employed as the Director of Compassion Ministry at our church, after all) but the world makes a great classroom for further study and exercise.

4. Fun

Yes, just a good ol' time!  Amusement parks, favorite characters, swimming in all kinds of things--hotel pools, water parks, rivers, resorts, lakes--all of it, riding all modes of transportation, interactive museums, picking out souvenirs from nature or unusual stores, playing fun games with friends you meet and keep for two hours, hiking, camping, interacting with animals, whew!  I want Petunia to have FUN! And we want to have a lot of fun with her!

5. An expanded education

It's funny how you're always learning something in travel, even when you're not trying. Architecture, historical markers, fun museums, names of town--everywhere is a chance for you all to learn something together or for you to teach your children. Add to that purposefully putting in a little learning: History in our great cities, geography by studying a map of where you're going, math by measuring the distance and/or converting currency and/or accounting for the time difference back home, foreign language that can be put to practice, social studies, art...and then all types of museums where you're learning facts on any of the widest array of subjects all the while enjoying yourself.  Petunia loves museums, so we're grateful for that extra bit of grace.  We can learn a lot in a classroom (and boy are we grateful that Petunia has had some of the best teachers) but some lessons that stick with you forever are the ones you get by living them out.

6. Healthy self-confidence

I believe there are many reasons that travel raises the level of self-confidence in a person. For one, there's something about going places and doing things that are outside of your comfort zone and living to tell the tale that boosts courage.  Then there are the experiences where you really try something you think you can't do and, succeed or fail, the experience alone can raise self-esteem. Ok, especially succeeding. However, I'm a firm believer that if you succeed at everything then you aren't trying hard enough. Finally, suppose I had Petunia just may find herself someday in a work or social situation where it seems everyone else is smarter, richer and more connected. But when the conversation really gets going and she knows a thing or two about countries, currency, and landmarks from personal experience, throw in some opinions on the best art galleries, or science museums, or beaches or NY pizzerias...well, it might just help self-confidence.

7. Humility

Standing before the mighty rushing Nile, right where it crashes northward over falls that are too dangerous to raft, one can't help but have an appropriate sense of one's own smallness in this world.  Playing with children who will most likely never own a brand new toy in their life, but give you a prized Barbie doll head because they want to give you a gift is humbling.  Gazing up into the sky and still not seeing the tops of the glorious trees in majestic forests shouts in a whisper that there is an amazing, creative author of this world and we are just one, though dearly loved, individual in a great span of time.

8. Good memories

This is different than #4 above. We traveled places for Petunia to have fun long before she would have been able to develop any lasting memory of it. Fun is important in its own right. However, fun lived again through memories, and not just fun but wonder, sadness, excitement, even a little fear, discovery, anticipation...these...these are treasures. I cannot overstate the times a smile has caught my lips unawares or a sudden tightening of the chest brought on by a song, a smell, a sight, hearing a name, or reading a phrase that to me will always be linked to a certain memory of other times and places usually, in my case, experienced through travel. My life is richer in layers because of these memories and I wish for Petunia to have all her heart can hold.

9. A broader perspective

The more we become interconnected through social media, the more I learn about how others feel on a wide variety of topics, many of them ridiculously mundane, but others of great import.  Many times I've read the opinion of someone that I generally find to be well mannered and fairly well educated on an important topic and thought to myself, "They just really have no idea."  And that's not mean; it's just true that, often, they really just do not have an idea of the other side of the argument. It's very easy to live life in a single state or two, grow up with people like you, travel only to places that cater to people like you and then espouse opinions and make declarations on social media or real life without ever understanding where the proponents of the other side of the argument are even coming from. To be clear, in this home, we hold some strong opinions. On the other hand, we want Petunia to meet people and go places that aren't in the least like us or like home. I want her to meet--and know--people of different races, religions, cultures, political parties, socio-economic levels and more.  I want her to have a perspective on this whole wide world and all the people that the issues affect.  I want her to grow up into a young woman who holds her own very strong opinions and beliefs and will defend them, but not because she doesn't realize there are other ways to think.  I want her to confidently go on with her choices because she believes they are right, not because she believes that people who hold differing opinions are dumb.  I want her to grow up and be known for what she is for rather than what she is against.  And I want the same for her parents.

What's on your list?  Please share because I very likely want them on my list, too.