On June 24th, we left for our first out-of-state summer trip, a trip that would take us from the coastal Maine, including Acadia, to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The whole family, including our dog Finley, piled into the car, driving north from the Richmond area through Maryland, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts before stopping in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Our trip would take us to Acadia National Park and Maine and the White Mountains in New Hampshire, among other places. As always, Google’s estimate of how long the drive from Virginia to New England would take for my family proved wildly optimistic.

After a day spent cooped up in a car navigating the 95 corridor, we were ready for an adventure in Portsmouth.

One of the famous harbor parks in Portsmouth is Prescott Park, and we had intended to walk through Portsmouth’s Prescott Park with Finley, who was definitely ready for a walk after our 15-hour drive the day before. Unfortunately, this was where we first encountered the anti-dog bias of the trails on parts of coastal New Hampshire and Maine.

Since Finley prefers Laura to any other human, Laura took the hit for the team and walked Finley while McKenna and I explored the Prescott Park gardens.

As we were to find, this was apparently the rainy monsoon season of New England. That cloud in the picture below on the left followed us for like a thousand miles.

Fortunately, there were other things to do in rainy Portsmouth, as the center of Portsmouth had lots of shops and restaurants, and, as an added bonus for Finley, many of them were more open to dogs than Prescott Park.

After completing a circuit through the dog-friendly stores, we headed north from Portsmouth, crossing into our sixth state since leaving Virginia, Maine, to begin our tour of Maine lighthouses. We drove into York, a coastal resort town, where people were shirtless on beach, ostensibly to “sun” themselves on this drizzly 68-degree afternoon. We chose to forego the beach experience to visit our first lighthouse of the day, the Nubble Light House in York, Maine. The lighthouse was surrounded by awesome rocks, and, as would become our habit, we immediately began running all over the rocks, photographing as many as possible.

Next up was the Marginal Way of Ogunquit, a trail that runs along the coast in a touristy beach town. Once again, there was no love for Finley.

Since Finley once again had to stay behind with Laura, McKenna and I opted to not wander too far down the trail, going out on the nearby rocks rather than walking down the Marginal Way.

York had been crowded and touristy but Ogunquit was absolutely overrun with tourists. We even bailed on getting coffee at a local café/bakery, which gives you some sense of how desperate the situation was: the café had lattes and macaroons and we still drove away. To maximize the speed of our escape from this black hole of tourists, we briefly jumped on Interstate 95, heading north before cutting back to the coast to visit Cape Elizabeth.

I may have mentioned that the rock formations on the coast of Maine are fantastic, and our Cape Elizabeth stop enabled us to add approximately 10,378 more pictures of rocks.

Maybe we were just distracted by the awesome rocks, but we did not see a sign banning dogs from enjoying the coast, even in the current season. Finley was better at navigating the rocks than some of the others who traveled with us.

Finally, we drove just a bit farther to the Portland Head Light, our last lighthouse of the day. By this time, Laura was suffering from Lighthouse Fatigue Syndrome, and she declared that she did not need to see another lighthouse for at least 24 hours. It’s possible Laura was also motivated to stay in the car so we could avoid paying the $5 parking fee. McKenna and I represented the family in tagging this last lighthouse of the day.

Now that it was dinner time, we headed into Portland, Maine for a dinner of chowder.

The weather, which had been spotty on this day, was forecast to turn stormy on the next day, when we had scheduled a 9:30am Puffin Boat Tour. The storms led the company to reschedule our tour for two days later, on Saturday, which worked for us because, as is our habit, we didn’t arrive at our hotel near Bar Harbor until around 10pm. By the time we had unpacked and organized ourselves in the place we would stay for the next three days, it was after 11pm, so the next day, we got a bit of a late start, finally heading into Acadia National Park around 11am. Parking for the Ocean Path Trail was already at a premium.

Surely our late start had given the sun a chance to burn off some of the fog we had encountered on our drive to the coast the night before.

I would complain that we were unlucky to experience this weather when Acadia in June is normally clear and fairly warm, but a number of people ranging from the receptionist at the hotel to one of our guides reported that eastern Maine had been misty and rainy FOR FIVE WEEKS at this point. It turned out this was just normal for Acadia in 2023. Even without the sun or visibility greater than 15 feet, we found what really mattered in that part of Acadia. Rocks.

In Virginia, the ocean and the mountains are separated, on the eastern and western sides of the states. At Acadia, the mountains and ocean are in the same place, with some of the mountains ending abruptly at the shoreline. That, combined with the weather of the northeast and some Ice Age glacier action, had created amazing rock formations. Of the many fantastic rocks at Acadia, the most impressive may have been the Thunder Hole, a kind of rock gorge that ended in a cave. When the cave caught the waves in just the right way it made a loud booming sound that sounded, um, like thunder.

There is an observation area at Thunder Hole that gives a great view of the “hole,” where people gather in hopes of experiencing the spray that comes from the ricochet of a big wave hitting the hole colliding with another incoming big wave.

Remember how it was wet and misty on this day? That didn’t stop some crazy people from climbing on top of the rock overlooking the Thunder Hole.

After getting our fill of the Thunder Hole from the safe, fenced in observation area, we went a bit farther south to Otter Cliff. Word had it there were more rocks there.

Otter Cliff is famous for its rock climbers, who, like the crazy people at the Thunder Hole, were not dissuaded from climbing by the mist and intermittent drizzle.

The mist wasn’t all bad though; it could be a source of creativity. We drew inspiration to recreate the famous Romantic painting, Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog. I’m pretty sure we surpassed the original.

Having improved upon timeless masterpieces, our work on the Ocean Path was done. We wound our way along the roads to the Bass Harbor area, where there was another lighthouse to visit.

Laura’s Lighthouse Fatigue Syndrome had almost subsided, and visiting another lighthouse helped us get our fix. It had been almost 24 hours since our last Maine lighthouse. This one was just a bit obscured by fog and mist.

Near this haunted lighthouse in the fog was Thurston’s Lobster Pound, a restaurant off the beaten path in the Acadia area that is famous for its lobster in an area already known for its lobsters. Plus, the restaurant had a dog-friendly area, so that is where we ended our day, fulfilling the requirement of purchasing at least one lobster roll in Maine.

The lobster roll was so good that I had eaten about half of it before it occurred to me to take a picture. Coming from Virginia, the lobster tasted remarkably fresh, and Thurston’s scored bonus points with Laura by selling an entire bottle of Pinot Grigio for under $20.

Next up: two more days in Acadia and a boat tip that would somehow allow us to sea wildlife and lighthouses through the fog.