Apple Picking! :: Wells, Maine

Hello everyone!

It was blazing hot here in Boston for so long, and then all of a sudden, it became autumn!

Figuring that it will probably all of a sudden become winter, as it often happens in New England, we decided to venture out to do the quintessential New England fall activity before we missed the chance. I've gone apple picking once with my roommates when I first moved to Boston, and I was so excited to do it again with my absolute favorites!

As can be expected with this crew, there were many moments of silliness and much laughter, just how I like it =)

Spring Break in Maine :: Portland

Hello everyone!

This spring break could not have come at a better time!  

The weather is gorgeous, David hasn't had a break from work since July, and I was also ready for a break from Boston. While I love the pace of life at this point in Boston, it gets so busy that we hardly ever have time to relax and just spend time as a couple anymore.  This is probably also why I never blog anymore..  it's hard to find the time to sit down and blog, and when I do, it seems that all I've done is work haha

Anyway, since we had such a good time in Maine last year at Acadia National Park, we decided to try Maine again for our getaway!  Acadia is a little far (about 6 hours from Boston with rest stops) so we settled on Camden, Maine with stops in Portland!

As soon as we landed in Portland, we made a beeline to Holy Donut, my favorite donut shop!  We tried 3 flavors last time when we fell in love with this place, and this time we tried 3 different flavors.

My favorite was this dark chocolate coconut one, but the other one, mocha something..., was good too!  haha  

David said the old-fashioned was good with coffee, but as a non-coffee drinker, I wasn't as much of a fan =)

After having stuffed our tummies with donuts, we went for a stroll around town to burn some of it off before lunch haha

Our strolls lead us to the Portland Museum of Art, and we spent an hour or so browsing their collection.  It was a pretty small museum, but it had some interesting works, and we had a good time!

David and the sleeping Tom Sawyer

The part that intrigued me the most was that the museum had a house as a part of its collection.  It was owned by a wealthy merchant back in the day, and they had renovated and opened it up to the public as a part of the museum.  

My favorite part was this staircase  haha

They don't build staircases like these anymore!

Having decided that an hour of art museum stroll was enough to burn off 3 donuts, we headed off to find some lunch at the Green Elephant.

A little vegetarian Asian fusion to kick off the next part of our road trip!  =)

With full bellies, we headed north to Camden, Maine, where some winter hiking and a lovely stay at the Hartstone Inn awaited us.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you are having a wonderful day!

--Janny

A Postcard from Acadia

Hello everyone!

I am now home from Garth Newel, taking a break from violin for a few days, and finally got around to editing some footages from our Acadia adventures awhile back!

Hope you enjoy!





Thanks for stopping by!
Janny

Acadia National Park :: Biking

Hello everyone!

On our last full day at Acadia National Park, we decided to explore a little of their 'carriage roads' system!  The carriage roads connect all different parts of the park, and it's delightfully automobiles free.  It was constructed by one of the founders for his personal use, and then 'donated' to the park so that other people could enjoy carriage rides on them.  Today,  many people choose to bike or walk on the trails, though horses and carriages are still welcome!

I've only recently gotten into biking, thanks to David, and it was a pretty spectacular 'first ride'.  I mean, look at this view.  This is just one example of what we were seeing as we were riding around the park.

There were quite a few uphill battles (we were climbing a mountain, after all), but these views made the trek worthwhile.

gotta stay hydrated when you're biking!  ;)

The weather really couldn't have been more perfect: It was just slightly warm when we were riding uphill, but we cooled right off when we were speeding downhill.  

The uphills were actually pretty challenging, and I couldn't get out of the bed the next day, but it was doable... with many miles of walking the bike instead of actually riding it...  =p  haha

mmm look at those sexy sandals!  I'm already on my second pair, and they are my favorites for any outdoor adventures! now I have David hooked on them as well! =) perfect for any summer hiking, biking, frolickings in the water, etc.

We had a map when we first started on this adventure, but somewhere along the uphill struggle and the downhill speedyness, it got lost...

Thankfully, every fork in the road had these little sign posts, so when we got lost, we could sort of find our way back to where we had originally aimed to go   haha  

We biked for about... 5 hours, so somewhere in the middle of that, we stopped to have some lunch.

Look at our picnic site!  Better than any restaurant, am I right?

After lunch, we rode around a little more, taking a few more photos... 

I mean, everywhere you went in this park, you saw such stunning views!

I would have never gotten a bike in Boston because sadly, I have seen so many bikers get hit by cars during my one year of living there. However, I'm glad David convinced me otherwise.  I may not ride as much in the city, but I loved riding it on the carriage roads at Acadia National Park, and I hope we get to do it more in the future!  =)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

--Janny

Acadia National Park :: Hiking

Hello everyone!

Whenever I see this photo, I feel like I can breathe in the fresh, crisp, mountain air through the picture.  ahhhh...  

Hiking does a soul good  =) and we did plenty of it while we were at Acadia National Park!

We hike quite a bit around the Seattle area, but hiking here was a totally different experience.

Firstly, the vegetation was quite different, and it was fascinating to see such different species while hiking.

Also, the hike here was much rockier than the hikes I used to do in Seattle.

During one of the hikes (Beech Cliff Trail), we had to climb this rock face.

I'm not kidding..  we climbed this rock face. 

I was a little shocked at first when I saw that the 'trail' was a ladder -seemingly- precariously fastened to the cliff, but once David started up the ladder, I didn't have much of a choice but to climb as well haha

the 'trails' here consisted of ladders, boulders, and rocky staircases.  Sometimes, it was kind of scary, but looking back, it was really fun! 

at the top!

Look at this view guys...  

there's Echo Lake!

At the top, there was a trail looping around the whole top section of the cliff, which was pretty incredible to hike.  A 360 degree viewing experience!

The pictures just don't do the scenery justice, and we hardly even scratched the surface of the hiking trails there, but I hope you can still kind of see just how beautiful the hikes are in Acadia  =)

We finished the hike at the Echo Lake, which is one of the very few lakes (maybe the only?) where you can swim in Acadia.  Swimming would have been the perfect end to the hike, but the water was around 40 degrees, so we decided that we weren't actually that into swimming  haha

We had such a great time hiking around and exploring a little bit of the trails at Acadia, and we can't wait to go back sometime soon!!  =)

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny