Maine-ly Magical Times (Wednesday, August 8)

Our last day in Bar Harbor and Acadia. What to do, what to do? Well, for sure, no sleeping in—can’t waste any of the last day lying in the sleeping bag. Well, really, I could. Laying down in the tent at night with the last of the campfire smells still wafting in, with the wind moving the leaves in the trees, with the kids already sleeping deeply around me, with a book and a clip-on booklight in hand, all is well. And when I wake up, my youngest is laying next to me, many times greeting me with a sleepy smile as I turn over and all of us just closing our eyes again and drifting back to sleep. At some point, someone will be up for good, and they’ll pick up a book and wait for the rest of us to come around. The sun starts to make its way into the open screens, birds trill and call, and blue sky awaits the sound of our zipper door. Mmmm.

But we do have a few things to do yet. And so, we pour a bowl of cereal for everyone, brush teeth at the mediocre bathroom facility, and off we go. Today’s agenda: the Wonderland trail and Echo Lake.

The Wonderland trail first takes you on a very short hike out to the ocean, where tide pools are again spread out across the rocks for our inspection. When we’ve had our fill of tramping over rocks, searching for something we haven’t seen before (today it was evaporated puddles that left behind salt crystals on the rocks), we took the rest of the nature trail. One thing we noticed today is how strong a current the tide creates—the water coming into a small inlet looked like a river carrying large chunks of seaweed and shells with it. This time, instead of losing one or more children as we have on 3 previous hikes, we lost Kurt. He caught up with us eventually.

A bit of a drive later, we got to Echo Lake. Echo Lake is one of the inland lakes, gorgeous and surrounded by trees. It has a sandy beach that many, many people seemed to be enjoying. But someone had told Kurt, Katy and Dave about a short hike out to the lake from a different spot, which would bring us to a rock ledge good for jumping into the lake. We found it, and it was wonderful. What could keep 8 kids entertained better than jumping off rocks into a great swimming hole? The water was the perfect temperature, there were a couple of people on little Sunfish sailboats in the distance, and a grandfather and grandson pulled up in their brightly colored kayaks. Looked like a picture from a magazine.

This is the same spot where Katy, a long-suffering middle child, decided it was time to celebrate National Middle Child Day—a very important holiday on her calendar. She organized the other middle children of our tribe (her daughter and ours) to join in a National Middle Child Day “frolic”. They all jumped together to celebrate. This is the best day of the year for Natalie, as she finds community with Katy and Elise. Brian’s the oldest, I’m the youngest. We have NO IDEA what it is like to be a middle child, as Katy frequently tells us, because the oldest gets coddled up front and the baby gets babied eternally. Oh puh-leaze. But at least Natalie had her moment.

Dave and Brian and I went back with some of the kids to the campground for some down time. Translate that as me doing laundry (for some reason Brian packed 4 shirts for 2 weeks, aside from the 2 collared polo shirts that he brought perhaps to serve as usher at the campground church service or maybe to run for mayor of the campground) and Dave watching the remaining kids swim in the pool. The rest of the group went on the Precipice trail, which seems named in honor of the fact that all of the hikers spent some time hanging from iron rungs over a precipice. Glad I wasn’t there. When Natalie came back, I asked her how it was; she responded with a huge smile and the words “I bled.” Some things that would not freak me out to do on my own are not made for me to do with my children. What might not scare me much for myself gets way too scary when I watch them do it. I stayed out of the whole thing.

We made pizzas over the fire. Some of us did some souvenir shopping in Bar Harbor. We decided it would be prudent to pack as much as possible this evening so that we could be ready to go first thing in the morning (Kurt, Katy and Dave are heading to Cape Cod via Boston; we are heading to the Montreal area). We of course did not do any packing. Instead, we made sure everyone got a last shower, and then the adults sat around the fire until midnight talking about the most inane things possible, which is exactly what is so great about camping with other people. Yes, we’ll have to be up at 6:30, but at least we got to shoot the breeze in the dark by a fire the night before. Good times.

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