Acadia National Park

Andrea told us that her house in Maine was two hours from everywhere, and that was true. It actually took us about three hours to drive all the way out to Acadia National Park. But the drive was pretty and we were just so happy to be close enough to go there at all! I had heard that it was so beautiful and was excited about seeing it in person!

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Shore Acres hike

One of the best things about going on a trip with lots of ages of children is that you don't have to do EVERYTHING TOGETHER! Ha! I do LIKE to do things together, and it always gives me great satisfaction when the older ones are happy to do things with everyone else, but it is also so nice to not have to drag people along to do something they aren't very interested in!

You know it's going to be a good hike when it starts out like this!

In that spirit, Sam and I went out on a hike by ourselves one morning, and it was lovely to just leave the little ones playing at the house and the big ones sleeping in, and enjoy being together…without them! We were just five minutes down the road from three different state parks. We started on a trail at Sunset Beach State Park and then hiked up onto the cliffs along the ocean and into Shore Acres State Park. It was so beautiful!! The morning was cool and misty, and there were long lines of rocks along the coastline that made the water spray up in huge hundred-foot-high plumes when the waves crashed into them. (I didn't have our zoom lens, but look at this picture, for example!) Sam and I could NOT get enough of it.

I know all these pictures look basically the same, but each wave was so different. Some sprayed up in columns. Some broke across flat rocks and made whirlpools and waterfalls. Some crashed over outcroppings and formed impossibly-located pools and channels lapping back to make new patterns with the oncoming waves.

This was my favorite—a huge waterfall that only formed every so often, when a big enough wave crashed at just the right angle over the rock.

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Our own little beach

One never expects to really do much playing in the water on the beach in Oregon. But we were lucky enough to have some sunny afternoons, and while I didn't get IN the water myself, the children seemed to stay warm enough! They would run in and play and then come out and dry off and warm up, and I mostly held Ziggy and Teddy's hands as they got braver and braver jumping over the waves, and watched everyone laughing and making up games and burying each other in the sand. It was lovely. And this picture above makes me so happy every time I look at it! Look at Seb's smile! I love seeing that smile.

The other great thing is just that we were all by ourselves here, which always makes a place feel like your own. It was great not to have to worry that we might be bothering someone…or to have anyone bothering us! Ha ha. It was such a great little secluded spot.

The bravest among us.

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Oregon Coast things to do

What we did on the coast was…basically everything we did last time on the coast. Plus a few new things we found. We wanted to show Sam's parents this cool cedar tree and wetlands in Rockaway Beach (directions are here. Don't be confused and go into someone's driveway. The trail doesn't really look like a trail right at first, but you go into the wooded spot directly at the end of the street, and as soon as you get around the first tree you can see the trail.)

Such big leaves! Teddy did NOT want to sit here on this log by the big leaf.

But Daisy didn't mind! (Hi, Grandpa's arm!)

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