If you google the drive time from St Paul, Minnesota to Bayside, Maine it says it should take 27 hours. If you put four kids (ages 11, 9, 6 and one 8 month old baby) and two adults (age 36) in a van to actually drive the recommended route, it will take 30 hours. And those extra 3 really take their toll. Google apparently doesn't factor in the added time for all those toll booths, the traffic in Chicago (even at 10:30pm), diaper changes that are not timed to the other bathroom stops, and the feat of getting 6 people in and out of a vehicle at rest areas. It's a beautiful drive though, traveling through the fields and plains of the midwest, along the shore of Lake Erie, and into New York with it's rolling hills and forests and then through Massachusetts and up along the coast of New Hampshire and across into Maine. Once into Maine, the smell of the ocean mixes with the scent of the pine of the north woods, and we know we are almost there.
We returned to a cottage we've stayed in before. There is a rocky beach which disappears at the peak of high tide, and is great for exploring at low tide. Across the Penobscot bay we can see the island of Islesboro and even farther, Searsport and Castine, ME. We only had one day of rain- which we spent at the Penobscot Maritime Museum. We were lucky enough to have wind to sail twice, but not too much wind for kayaking.
We took our time driving back, stopping for two days in Vermont to visit family and go hiking. From there we drove to Amherst, MA to visit friends, and then continuing on to Buffalo, NY via Ithaca. I had not been back to Cornell since graduating from college, so it was fun to show the kids the beautiful campus and drive along Cayuga Lake. About an hour from Cornell, Travis started humming "Far above Cayuga's waters..." not having thought of that song for years. It reminded me of my grandfather's story about hiking in Utah as an adult and suddenly remembering the names of grade school friends. Of course neither of us could get past the first line of the alma mater.
We took a photo in front of the clock tower, got ice cream from the university dairy, and took in the view of the lake from the deck of the student union. Then we peered over the bridge down into one of the gorges and walked along the path and up the steep steps by the engineering building where I crossed the gorge to get to campus.
Our next stop was at Kate, Matt and Willa's new house in Buffalo where Willa showed us tricks on her rings in the back yard and we got to see a bit of their new neighborhood. Not wanting to spend any more time than necessary in the car, we decided to save a visit to Niagara Falls for our next visit. Buffalo was only 16 short hours from St Paul (note the sarcasm), so we made it as far as the western suburbs of Chicago where we just happened upon a hotel with a small water park inside. Elisabet found this to be a highlight of the trip. She kept telling us it was the best hotel ever.
Fifteen days after we set off, we returned to our house with 3, 549 miles on the van, four large loads of laundry, and at least a bucket full of sand in the car mats.
Photos of our adventures can be found here.....
