Maine, Part 1: The drive up.

Andrew and I took our first vacation without Cooper this month. We decided to go all out and be away from our little boy for 8 days/9 nights. It was fantastic and rejuvenating. I can't remember the last time I felt so relaxed.

We went with 2 other couples: Bronson and Sarah, and Adam and Julie. The car ride was actually a lot of fun!

On our way up, we spend the night outside of Boston, but not without making a quick trip into the city for dinner. I quickly fell in love with Boston. It's age, it's beauty, it's charm. Just a few minutes into the city I knew we would, indeed, be visiting Boston again.

We passed this building so many times. It reminded me of the scene from European Vacation..."look kids, Big Ben, Parliament."

One of Andrew's favorite t-shirt companies, Johnny Cupcakes, is in Boston. For father's day he got a trip to the store and a t-shirt from them. When I learned it wasn't really a cupcake store, I was pretty bummed, too. But they play up the cupcake/bakery thing. They display their t-shirts in big freezers and bakery cabinets.

That night we found a very local pub where we could eat, named Barracuda Tavern. Everyone but Adam had fish and chips. Yum-O.

The second day of our drive was about a 5 hour trip, but we quickly turned that into a 12 hour trip from all our fun stops.

On the road again...

They do things fancy in New England.

First we stopped in Freeport at the LL Bean retail store...the only one there is. There were a whole bunch of outlet stores that we walked around as well. I got some delicious donuts from a local shop named Frosty's, which we all enjoyed during our continued ride.

From Freeport to Bar Harbor we drove along the coast, stopping in a couple of neat towns.

We stopped at a town where they build ships. It was pretty neat to see a little bit of how they are built, as well as see how big they really are. We found this nice little spot to visit and take a few photos. There were so many dogs there. On our way out we realized it was a dog park.

We stopped at another quaint town, where we got to see some boats docked, a nice waterfall, and a beautiful library.

Our last stop before Bar Harbor was Fort Knox. We got to walk around learn about the unique features of the fort. It was really neat to imagine all the fighting that went on and how cool and also terrifying it would have been.

Sarah and Andrew pretending to give orders. 

Bunk Buddies

Cartwheels is what you do in forts.

On our way out we read that this fort actually saw zero fighting. Go figure. It was manned during times of war, though. I guess no one wanted to do battle in Maine.

We rolled into Bar Harbor around sunset. Adam (who is from Maine) took us up to Cadillac Mountain, where we got to see the sunset. It was beautiful. It made me so excited to be in Maine for the week.

We looked for moose the entire week. Andrew even perfected his moose call (see video below). Sadly, this was the only moose we saw.

We finally rolled into our rental house, which *hooray* was right in the middle of the town.  Once inside there was some drama over the beds, and the boys all ended up together like this after one of the bed frames broke.

It was so nice to finally be in Maine and settling down for a great week.