maine : acadiaaaaa

remember the woman who told me i had to go to martha's vineyard?

 well that same woman said if i went anywhere outside of massachusetts

 i needed to go to acadia, maine. 

(which is that island where the little blue dot is)

this woman's thoughts on the vineyard were spot on so i decided i definitely needed to heed her advice and make my way to maine! or as you might notice below, "vacationland".

but before that i tried to pull together every warm thing i had and started panicking because maaaaybe i sent all of my warm clothing home in august forgetting that fall was only a month away. whoops!

when we arrived in acadia it was already really dark so all we did was pitch our tent, sit by the fire for a little bit, and then go to bed. the next morning we met up with everyone else and got our hike on.

 when people said that the views were breathtaking they were NOT lying. holy cow i was dying. i was also obsessed with that baby lake in the picture above. it had this great grass stuff in it that made it look like it was from the lorax. 

parts of the hike had iron rods attached to the rock since it was so narrow- we are grateful to whomever made that happen. it made certain parts significantly less stressful slash dangerous.

none of these pictures really do this place justice, it was SO pretty

i really enjoyed this part of the hike with the little wooden trail and best skinny trees. later we found out we took a wrong turn and so all the pictures from here on out are of scenes we weren't actually supposed to see. yay for getting lost! 

john decided to look for mushrooms the whole time since he is now obsessed with them 

(i mentioned how this happened a few posts back)

 ..and then anne marie and i would take pictures of them. who knew mushrooms would make john stop hating my camera? for this moment in time

rather than bore you with a million mushroom photos, i will just bore you with my little fave!

after our hike we headed down to the beach. every hike should have this option. 

and then we began climbing again to get to the rest of the group

 turns out they decided to do some cliff jumping haha

and i got sick of waiting for people to actually jump so i went exploring and found so many treasures!

and then rain started pouring out of the sky and none of us were really prepared for that to happen so we headed back to our cars (but not before snapping a photo of this beautiful view! neature and beach together = a perfect combination)

we had heard about thunder hole and decided to check it out. apparently on days when the waves are a bit bigger the water spouts out of this little area up to 40 feet! yes, i just learned that on the website i linked. 

we loved thunder hole.

 we decided to make a loop around the island and stop anywhere that looked like it might be nice

so we found this little lake with pretend mountains! (we will take what we can get)

 after our neature drive the weather cleared up enough to head into the cute little town of bar harbor

(which i loved)

(alot)

we didn't stay long since we would be going there later that night but i was happy to see it in the day. these little towns along the east coast are my favorite!

everyone felt tired so we went back to our campground. some people slept, some played games, and i (unsurprisingly) took pictures. look at that great moss!

 john could tell i was going a little crazy just sitting at our campsite while there was so much beauty to see so he offered to take me up to see a lighthouse nearby

sadly it was closed to maintenance but happily the drive was great and the time of day was perfect so i wasn't even mad!

aaaaand then eventually we went back to bar harbor and i decided it was time to get lobster 

(small but important detail might be that i don't even really like fish)

they always seemed fine looking when i would watch other people break them apart but it turns out i had never seen one turned around and all those legs just made me want to diiiie - as captured in the completely candid before and after photos (john's most happy and content face!) above.

it was rather traumatic and after about two minutes i let john go at it because i just couldn't. good news though - i didn't hate eating it as much as usual so maybe this whole east coast thing will break me down and i'll become a fish lover?

the picture above would be the genuine sadness i felt when everyone was lame and wanted to watch the BYU/U game that was going on that night rather than go to THE MOST MAGICAL STAR GAZING FESTIVAL ON CADILLAC MOUNTAIN. I'm still working through this, obvi. 

luckily some people decided to just go back to the camp and agreed to stop right before getting into the campground so i could enjoy these stars i had heard so much about. this picture above is my attempt at capturing the moment (complete fail) so just imagine the ocean to your right, a lake to your left, and stars not only in the sky but all around you. and by some miracle there are no trees in this little part of the island so there is nothing obstructing your view. i felt like i was in some sort of star globe and didn't understand how i was eye level with the big dipper. the fact that it was a new moon that night made it even more magical! those people that live there are the luckiest. 

the next morning we drove up to cadillac mountain to watch the sunrise.

 it was freezing but oh so worth it! 

(imagine the next few pictures happening at night with stars! ah it would have been the best) 

it is kind of neat to be able to say we were some of the first people to see the sun rise on the east coast that day. and the fact that it was in such a beautiful place made it even better!

and then the last few moments of our trip were spent with my head out of the little doggy door of our tent so i could soak up the sun and trees and camp smells. i wish i could have stayed there all day slash realized it was a door sooner haha. 

and then our quick as a flash trip to acadia was over and i'm just so happy it happened!

 even if college football tried to ruin it