Maine

Since most of week one of our vacation was not a vacation for Brian, we added on another week of camping through New England to give him some much needed time off too.  We checked out of our hotel and headed north to Maine.  I just love Maine, but haven't been back for 20 years!

As luck would have it, the weather turned rainy and cold the day we left Boston and headed north.  We drove up the coast to Portland, Maine and stopped at a lighthouse and a beach front community on the way.  It wasn't a great day for a beach walk, so we just took a look and kept driving.  

Portland was a cute little town.  To think we almost lived here!  Brian was offered a job here, but he declined, and one of his Delaware colleagues took the position.   I spent one of my days off that summer in Maine in Portland and had a great time as a 19 year old and haven't been back since!  This time it was cold and rainy, but we ate a great meal and had fun roaming around.  
 You don't have to go to Paris to find a key bridge!  Portland has one too.  
 After Portland we headed west through the Maine countryside on our way to the New Hampshire White Mountains.  We had reserved a campsite in Crawford Notch State Park for the next 2 nights and we were excited to get there!  Unfortunately, the rain kept getting heavier and heavier.  Once we hit North Conway (a cute town with an epic LL Bean outlet!) we decided camping in a tent in the middle of a rain storm all night sounded like a bad idea.  We stayed at the coolest Hampton Inn I've ever seen.  It had an indoor water park!  Our room was a huge family suite with a kitchen!  The played nightly movies.  Seriously - such a great Hampton!  

The kids were crazy excited.  Plus, I finally found that washer and dryer I needed to give us clean underwear for the rest of the trip.  It was a win/win.   (My original laundry plan was to wash them in our Boston hotel, but apparently fancy hotels don't have laundry machines tucked away.)  As we ordered a pizza and listened to the heavy rains all night long, we were super grateful to have decided to stay!

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