Best Ever!

For Steve's break from school we went on a six day camping trip. It was the best vacation ever, besides the fact that we got rained on everyday besides the first and last (the two days we spent mostly in the car). It was so nice not having to share Steve with mountains of homework! Everywhere we went we took the scenic route and just basically marched to the beat of our own drummer, if we wanted to stop at look at the scenery we did, if we didn't eat lunch until 3:30 in the afternoon and dinner at 10 pm-- no big deal right?! We were on vacation! It was lovely.

Our trip started in south eastern Maine. I wanted to see some of the lighthouses that are there. We ended up seeing three (one up close and two from afar). We also walked up along the coast at this beautiful state park. The rocks on this coast seriously look like petrified wood-- it's crazy! Maine was beautiful though, I want to be one of those old retired people who "summers" in Maine :).

One of the lighthouses we saw from afar-- It took something like 10 years to build because half of the day the bottom part of it is underwater. Crazy huh?

These are all pictures of 'Portland Head Light', it is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the U.S, I think you can see why. The grounds for the lighthouse were beautiful and there was this huge park. If you ever drive through Maine- drive by here!

This is the restaurant we picked to eat Maine lobster at (well Steve at lobster-- I ate a cheeseburger!) Steve didn't order a lobster though he ordered a lobster roll which is lobster, mayo and lettuce in a bun. He loved it! The restaurant was so nice and CHEAP! We ate outside and listened to the waves crash up on the rocks

Entering New Hampshire....

Best tinfoil dinners ever.
They were a little unconventional because the day we had them there was a torrential downpour and our campsite-including our fire pit- was under like 3 inches of water. We ended up having to go into town and buy a tarp, some rope and some stakes and make a 'shelter' (pictured below) just so we could have a place to be dry. Instead of heating these up in the fire we heated them up on a griddle on our campstove. They were seriously so good though, we are going to make them at home just for fun!

Our awesome shelter, that made a great clothesline too!

The next couple of pictures are of the place we stayed in New Hampshire, White Lake state park. The lake was beautiful and had a nice sandy beach and surprisingly warm water.

Our friends, the Dawsons, met us in New Hampshire for a night and then we camped in Vermont together too.

All kinds of crazy mushrooms grow in the mountains of New England. We saw different varieties of mushrooms everywhere we went!

White Lake

Entering Vermont....

We got to Vermont and decided it was time for a hike. After all we had been camping for three days and no hike yet because of all the rain. So we set up camp and headed out for out hike. Almost as soon as we started walking, it started to pour. And I mean POUR! We decided to keep going. We got half a mile into our hike and these pictures show how wet we were. You can see the dry patches on my shirt.

This was the only part of my shorts that was dry. We were SOOO wet!

The vista we hiked to see...

Most of this hike looked just like this picture- LOTS of trees... everywhere!

On Monday we went for another hike but FORGOT OUR CAMERA :( I was sooo sad when I realized one mile in that we didn't have it. So no pictures but oh well. We hiked Mount killington in Vermont. I'd like to say I loved the whole thing but it was HARD and I didn't feel great therefore I became tired and irritable. I eventually came out of it and the hike ended up being fun.When we were half a mile from the top it started to... guess... RAIN... so most people we saw were telling us the hike to the top wasn't worth it because all you could see was white and nothing else. However we decided to keep going, right as we came out of the trees the clouds parted and the view from was incredible. You could see green mountains for miles. We stayed up there for probably half an hour just looking. But once again the clouds moved in and we started the descent.

This is the view from our campsite! We looked at this while eating dinner and playing games! I've never had such an incredible from our campsite!

Steve staked our tent into a tree stump and it definitely got stuck. We started calling it the sword in the stone. Finally our friend pulled it out though...

Our campsite had this cute little lean-to shelter. It definitely saved us from some rain!

Some of our other friends met us in Vermont. From left to right it's us, the Dawson's, and the Segrera's with their little girl Elana.

We were planning on going to Six Flags New England on our way home but in the end decided it was going to be too expensive. Instead, we stopped a roadside ice cream shop for some vermont maple soft serve and drove to a ski resort that had an alpine slide. It was almost like a roller coaster!

This was so fun. I can't wait to do another one!

A couple of days after we got home Steve got a fly fishing bug (haha no pun intended) and we ended up driving to Western Mass. so he could do some fly fishing. I think it might have been his favorite day of all! He caught some fish, and I set up our hammock between some trees and read my book. It was great.

Steve tying some expert flies.

Where I set the hammock up

Steve's awesome get-up :) Love it.


On Friday we went to the Museum of Science, spent 5 hours and still didn't see the whole thing! Some of the highlights were the lightning show, the huge stuffed moose, seeing a saguaro cactus (well it was fake but whatever), and the giant ear. We also saw a cool exhibit on pregnancy and child birth. There was really exhibits for just about everything. I can't wait till someone comes to visit so we have an excuse to go back!










Now Steve is back in school (he started today), I'm feeling pretty nervous about this semester, it's going to be a new adjustment and I might never see Steve but, it should be ok right?Anyways, I go to Utah for a week tomorrow cause my best friend from high school is getting married. I will get to meet our new niece and get spend time with my sisters!

P.S. Sorry if you are inundated with pictures but I couldn't help myself! I wanted you to get a taste of the New England.