Last week we had a wonderful family vacation to Maine, specifically Acadia National Park and a bit in Bar Harbor. Maine, specifically Acadia, have been on my list of places I've wanted to visit for awhile. It got bumped around a bit when the pandemic messed up our vacation plans but all the way to LAST June, I mostly mapped out the trip, had Matt request the week off, and then a year later...we went.
The biggest problem with Acadia and Maine is that they are really stinking far from Indiana. The drive was around 18 hours before stops. And even once we got to Maine there was still another ~3.5 hours in the car. We were gone just a few hours over exactly 7 days and yet we spent FORTY-FIVE hours in the car, close to 2500 miles. It was a HAUL. (That does include our time driving around Acadia). Let me tell you, that kind of proximity to your family for that amount of time will change a person, even if just a little. It was A LOT of hours in the car but our time in Maine was so wonderful that it was worth it. More coming from that trip once I finish sorting the 1500 pictures!
It was the best kind of vacation in that we made some wonderful family memories in a truly beautiful place, visiting somewhere none of us had ever been before. The boys were at times grouchy, tired, and annoyed at the audacity of us to make them do hikes in a National Park (all of which, but one, were rated excellent for children!). None of us got quite enough sleep, our plans in the park were scrapped more than once due to lack of parking (and they aren't even in their prime season yet!). BUT...there were so many good things about our trip too. The scenery was AMAZING and the air felt so clean. Plus, home was going through a 90°+ heat wave while we were gone and our hottest day was 78° (and that hiking was so hot we had to get ice cream afterwards). We picked, a year ago, a very good week to be gone!
I don't even know how to explain it but I felt like a bit of a different person in Maine and I'm not entirely sure what to chalk that up to. Staying in a very new place was part of it. I also nearly lived in the same, new, sweatshirt all week (it was chilly enough for one!) and it was exciting to enjoy a new piece of clothing that much! I also paused my "must drink 24 ounces of water before anything else" in the morning rule by, gasp, having some tea nearly first thing (although I still hit my water goal almost ever day, just not all the ones we were mostly in the car, for time saving reasons!). And then there was a belly bag.
But then this summer, with this trip and a short one to Kings Island looming...I started to reconsider the belly bag again. In Kings Island we hoped to split up to take Luke on bigger coasters and it seemed the easiest way to hold onto my phone when on coasters while also being able to get a hold of Matt to figure out where he was when we got off. And then there was all the hikes we planned to do in Acadia. I have a small cross body purse that I've used on past trips but that seemed like a bit of a hassle on hikes, especially jumping over rocks. But I still wanted to have my essentials (phone, wallet, keys, lip balm, park map) close.
SO...belly bag it was. I kept my sisters more updated than they probably would have liked on this journey, first when they started arriving in the mail (I ordered 3, returned 2) and then started wearing them. You all, they are wonderful. It's not the most fashionable thing but also I am close to 40 and also highly value convenience. It even holds my wallet easier than my cross body. And, you all, after jumping and clambering over countless boulders last week...that belly bag earned it's keep. Plus Kings Island.
Is it silly to feel different just from a new sweatshirt, a new belly bag, relaxing my water rules, and some fresh air? Maybe. (Also, my hair seemed to behave very well on the trip which is not a small thing!) But, also, nothing can clear our minds and reset routines like a good vacation out of the house. I even forgot my face washing routine by the time we got home! It took me a few seconds longer than it should have to remember what to grab! But it feels like a good reset, like restarting a computer or phone. It's easier to break in new routines or adjusting to the summer of having Luke home once we've shaken up our schedule a bit. It's easier to mentally turn our habits and routines over and around in my mind to see what might be working and what isn't. Just getting a break from everything we do all day makes us look at those things differently.
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| (Also wearing my beloved new sweatshirt here, I'm sure more of that will be popping up!) |
I know we are lucky that we are able to travel, for a variety of reasons, especially given these gas prices (our gas budget for the trip had to increase quite a bit from what I planned in December!). I want my kids to see the world from different places, even if that's just parts of the US, it always helped me care and understand different parts of our country better. The recent news about the flooding in Yellowstone means something different having been on those washed out roads! And I firmly believe our National Parks are a treasure and hope to take my kids to many more. It's easier to want to make a smaller impact on our Earth when you've seen the beauty beyond our paved roads and streets filled with buildings (although I love a good city visit too!).
Not taking a trip in 2020 really made me appreciate even more the break and reset that comes with actually traveling. I never want to leave my house in the days right before a planned trip but then once we are more than an hour-ish from home, I'm so excited to be headed somewhere new, to shake up those routines, and maybe play with being a slightly different version of myself. I'm not looking for radical changes and I do love our little life here, but it sure is nice to know I can still rock a belly bag and appreciate small changes. And all that fresh air never hurts. Maine was marvelous and really might be my favorite vacation we've taken the kids on, it's certainly up there.
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