EasternLoop2016 – Page 3

America’s Historic Triangle

By Jennie Simpson | October 19, 2016

Located in Virginia: Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown are known as America’s Historic Triangle. We spent two weeks here, but really only scratched the surface of what there is to see and do.

We started at the Yorktown Battlefield where we learned about the final major battle of the American Revolution.

The boys loved it. They got to hear a canon being fired not once, but several times during our visit.

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I thought y’all might want to see the cannon fire and hear how loud it was.

If you head into the Visitor Center, you can see the Witness Cannon they have on display. What’s a Witness Cannon? It’s a cannon that was actually at the battle. It’s genuine. You need to say that last part in your best Southern accent. Really drawl it out and add a few syllables.

You can even see where a cannonball hit it.

We love the battlefield auto tours so we grabbed one in the Visitor Center and headed out to see the battlefield. There were a few other families out doing the tour, but not many.

The countryside in Virginia is beautiful. We really enjoyed our time in Virginia. It’s nice to get back to the Southern hospitality.

Historic Jamestown was next on our list. This is the site of America’s first permanent English settlement. You don’t really get to see anything that was there. It’s all buried to keep it protected. But they’ve built a few structures to give guests an idea of what it might have looked like. It was neat to be there…but I think next time we’ll check out the Jamestown Settlement, which is the State Park version of the one we went to.

The last place we went was Williamsburg. We had some good friends fly all the way from Texas to Virginia to visit with us and they went with us to Jamestown and Williamsburg.

We toured the Governor’s Palace where we got to see how the king’s representative lived.

The whole house was impressive, but I liked the entrance the best. Check out all of those weapons!

All of the weapons were on display not only to show wealth and intimidate, but also to keep them in easy reach when needed. Can you imagine having to keep all of those polished and cleaned?

All of the bright colors surprised me. The photo above was in the ballroom. The rug was rolled up and stored to the side anytime dancing happened.

I’m happy to report none of us got lost in the maze! It was close…I’m soooo bad at these things.

Some of my favorite things about Williamsburg were all of the artisans. We got to roam around and poke our heads into the many wonderful period era shops.

Most of the historic interpreters did a good job of staying in character without making it weird or awkward.

Littlest and The Dude were kind enough to demonstrate the pillory for us. I may or may not have taken my time getting this picture. ha!

One of the highlights of the whole two weeks was the tour through the capitol building at Williamsburg. Our tour guide was amazing! She was knowledgeable, entertaining and came across as genuinely passionate. If all history lessons were as good as hers, I would’ve done so much better in school.

We had to check out the jail. The one above was a bit morbid with the coffin in it. See the steps on the right side of the picture? That’s the toilet.

We were close to Richmond, VA so we took the opportunity to see the VA State Capitol Building.

The VA State Capitol Building was a nice surprise. From the outside you can’t see the dome…but, surprise! There’s a dome!

We had a great time in Williamsburg. We will definitely be back to visit VA again.

See y’all down the road!!

#easterloop2016

Pizza Roundup 2 Wives Pizzeria

By Littlest | October 13, 2016

For my fellow pizza lovers, I bring to you a pizza post from 2 Wives pizzeria in New London, Connecticut.

2 Wives is a really good pizzeria with tasty pizza, and the crust is like bread sticks!

The service there is good and the staff are nice, even better, they have a great selection and dairy free cheese.

The decor was ok and the bathrooms were clean so in all that, I give 2 Wives Pizzeria a 5 star review.

See ya next time on…

Pizza Street!!

Washington DC

By Jennie Simpson | October 11, 2016

Hey Guys!! We spent one week in the DC area and it wasn’t nearly long enough. We had four very crazy, very full, very looonngggg days where we ventured into the DC area and we still didn’t get everything on our list done.

We somehow managed to snag tickets for the White House tour. We heard we were one of only five Texas families since February 2016 that’s been approved.

We got to look through some of the rooms that I’m pretty sure aren’t really used much anymore.

Several of the rooms had a color theme. Can you guess the name of the room above?

There were Secret Servicemen everywhere. Most of them were super nice and full of all kinds of info. We asked them all the questions we could think to ask. From how many colors of green were in the Green Room to how heavy the chandeliers are in the photo above.

Caught this view out one of the White House windows. Not bad, right?

I’m pretty sure they set this up as a photo opp…but it’s a good one.

And check out this piano! Gorgeous!!!

The very first thing we did in the area was visit the zoo. Littlest is panda crazy and has been looking forward to seeing a real, live panda in person all summer.

He was in heaven. We met an old friend of ours and her family at the zoo. *waves at Kiki & family* We got to catch up while the kids all watched the animals.

We stayed at an RV park not too far from DC. They have an orientation about how to get around the area. It was super helpful. We used these two maps the whole time. We never had to actually drive into the DC area. We always utilized the Metro system.

One of the experiences we missed out on in NYC was the subway system. The boys were curious about it and wanting to ride it, but we just didn’t get to do it. So, while we were in DC we rode the Metro often. The first ride was pretty exciting for them.

For those of you wondering what it looks like. Here’s one of the Metro stops.

We found a few foodies… This is a Banana Fosters Shake. It was fantastic! So good!!

And we found a great little hole-in-the-wall Salvadoran place. It too was just fantastic!!

We hit all of the memorials that we could. This is the WWII Memorial.

We had to snag a picture by the Texas post.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

Lincoln Memorial. We actually got a decent picture of the boys here without tons of other people in the shot. I think there were roughly a thousand or so people there at the same time we were trying to get the Junior Ranger stuff done.

Korean War Memorial

The Washington Monument was closed while we were there. Something to do with the elevators. We still enjoyed seeing it.

Vietnam War Memorial.

Iwo Jima Memorial.

We found the National Cathedral. It was gorgeous. I love all of the angles and spires around it.

We made it to the Arlington National Cemetery.

It’s a lovely place full of quiet reverence.

We spent several hours here walking around.

We watched the changing of the guard before we left. It changed us all. You can’t watch something like that and not be changed. The boys still bring it up in conversation every so often.

We made it to the Maryland State House!

The dome was ok…

It had some pretty stained glass.

We found the reddest room in the world. If it’s not official it should be. The walls were red velvet.

The Maryland State House is where George Washington resigned from the military.

There was a neat little museum on the first floor. The area around the building was pretty neat too! We enjoyed this one.

We even managed to get in a tour of the Nation’s Capitol Building! We wanted a complete set…

Did you know that if you contact your State Rep that they will set up a private tour for you so you don’t have to wait in the long lines? And you get to go into the tunnels that connect the Capitol Complex. It was pretty cool.

I want y’all to know I got in trouble taking this picture for y’all. Apparently, you’re not supposed to stop in the center and lay your phone down on the ground while you’re at the Nation’s Capitol. I thought for a minute I was going to get kicked out. I made sure to snap the picture before getting up though. I mean, I was already there…and in trouble…might as well get the shot.

Each state gets to have two statues in the building. So…there are statues sitting everywhere. It’s kind of weird.

Our tour guide showed us the Whispering Spot where John Quincy Adams used to have his desk in the room in the photo above this one. We stood over this spot and our guide stood way over across the room and whispered. And we heard him! It was the coolest thing!

This is the old Senate Chambers. It used to have wooden floors. Notice the spittoon. They were everywhere! According to our guide all of the Senators used to chew tobacco and instead of using the spittoons they would just spit on the floor. It became so gross that if you dropped anything at all you just left it. And instead of stopping or using the spittoons they would just rip out the wooden floor every so often and replace it. Talk about a waste of money. Sheesh. Can you even imagine the smell this room most have had??? Bleh!!!

We found a few pretties…

Not too many. It was late in the season.

We walked a lot in the four days we were in DC. Sometimes it pays to be the Littlest.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Foodies, Friends, and Forts

By Jennie Simpson | October 4, 2016

We stayed in South New Jersey for a week so we could see the Delaware State Capitol Building. We struggled with connectivity here too.

The Delaware State Capitol Building looks more like a building you might find on a small University campus somewhere.

It’s very small and sparsely decorated.

It didn’t take us long to stroll through the entire building.

Right across the street from the Capitol Building is this really cool Compass Rose. It took us longer to look at this than it did the building itself.

The plan was to visit Fort Delaware, but when we got to the ferry crossing we discovered Fort Mott. We also discovered that we’d just missed the ferry and would have to wait an hour or so for the next one. Bummer.

So, we strolled around Fort Mott. It’s a pretty neat fort.

There were some great info signs and some great views…but it was super hot and the boys were starting to make some noise about eating so we left before we got to see Fort Delaware.

The best thing about this stay was meeting up with my friend Nicole and her family for some burgers! *waves at Nicole* Nicole and I have been Facebook friends for over ten years, but we’d never met face-to-face. It was so fun to finally get to sit and chat with her!!

We had some great burgers at a place called Burger 21.

And…I found my new ice cream obsession. Crème Brûlée Shake.

So. Stinkin’. Good!!

We also found a really good Mexican place! We were so shocked! Y’all know we’ve been to our fare share of unfortunate Mexican restaurants. We really don’t even try them anymore, but we were wanting something spicy so we threw caution to the wind and tried one. We were not disappointed!

See y’all down the road!!

#easterloop2016

Connecticut

By Jennie Simpson | September 26, 2016

We spent one week in Connecticut.

The State Capitol Building is impressive.

The dome was beautiful. You know I’m a sucker for a good dome. I love this one!

The architecture was interesting. I’m also a sucker for a good staircase.

There were stained glass windows and richly painted walls.

It’s called the Charter Oak Chair. Our tour guide called it The Wish Chair. The boys all sat in it and made a wish…There’s a story behind it and please forgive me, but I don’t remember it well enough to tell you. I struggled with connectivity issues so several weeks have passed since we were there. I’m sure you could find the story online if you’re so inclined.

The CT State Capitol Building made it to our top ten.

We caught the blue onion dome on our way out of Hartford. We didn’t really stop or get out of the car because it wasn’t in a safe neighborhood.

The only other thing we did in CT was visit Gillette State Park to see the “castle”.

We enjoyed touring this castle just as much as we did the Newport Mansions. They had nothing in common.

The castle had a very rustic feel. There were 42 doors and all of them were different. The light switches were carved from wood.

If you look closely, you’ll notice the chair is on rails to keep from scratching the floor.

There was even a library. Sadly, they had to add the wooden bars in front of the books because people kept trying to walk off with them.

Gillette loved trains so much he built his own train depot and track on his property.

You might recognize Gillette’s name if you’re a Sherlock fan. William Hooker Gillette was a play writer. Arthur Conan Doyle approached Gillette in the mid 1890s to see if he was interested in writing an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. Not only did Gillette write the play, he also stared in it as Holmes. Gillette gave the iconic character some of the symbols we’ve come to associate Sherlock Holmes with…the deerstalker cap, the pipe, and the catch phrase “Oh this is elementary, my dear fellow”. The phrase eventually developed into the “Elementary, my dear Watson” that we all know.

We didn’t do much in CT. We had zero cell service. And we didn’t really care for the RV park we stayed at. It was a long week of doing nothing and it kind of dragged by for us. I’m sure there are some very lovely and wonderful areas of CT, but we didn’t stay near them.

See y’all down the road!

#easterloop2016

Newport Rhode Island

By Jennie Simpson | September 20, 2016

We spent one very long, very busy week in the Newport area of Rhode Island. This post is going to be picture heavy. I tried to scale it down, but honestly, I could do a separate post for each of the Newport Mansions. I don’t have time to do that though, so y’all will just have to go visit them. Pictures don’t do these mansions justice anyway. To fully appreciate them in all their grandeur you really must visit them. We ended up getting a one year membership to the Newport Mansions. If you can believe it…it was cheaper for a family of five to get a membership and have access to all eleven locations vs. paying for a bundle or buying tickets at each location.

I really struggled with getting decent shots of the insides of the mansions. The lighting was bad and I’m not experienced with shooting rooms like this. Sorry…I tried.

We started at The Elms. Built in 1901, the house was completely “modern” and had all of the technological advances of the time.

I should mention now that all of the Newport Mansions were considered summer cottages. They were used five to six weeks out of the year.

One of my favorite things to see on the tours were the vanity tables. I love seeing all of the old brushes and combs…everything they thought was necessary to be presentable.

Don’t forget The Elms had all of the modern day technologies of the time…check out the bathroom. No outhouses for these guys.

This is the china closet.

The tours are really well done. They’re all self-guided…kind of. When you enter the “summer cottage” you’re given an audio tour with headphones that guides you through the house. You get to hear about what’s in each room…little stories about the people who lived there…and even some about the people who worked there. At The Elms there’s even a separate tour you can take called Servant Life Tour. I’ll come back just for that and to go through all the mansions again.

The other part of the tour that always fascinated me was the kitchen. Check out that mortar and pestle sitting on the table. It’s hard to judge just how big they are, but you can kind of see a few bowls next to them. And check out those copper pots!! They’ve got spigots on them!

One of the themes we heard in several of the mansions was that “the mansion ran like magic”. You weren’t supposed to see how the place was cleaned or how the supplies got there. You weren’t supposed to see any of the servants except the male butlers. The Elms took it so far as to hide the entrance to where all the deliveries were made.

I somehow missed getting a decent shot of the front of The Elms…but here’s what the back looks like.

The next mansion we toured was The Breakers, built in 1895.

The Breakers is just one of the Vanderbilt’s summer homes. Some of the best things about the audio tours were all of the stories about the inhabitants. The Vanderbilt Family was just that…a family. We heard stories about the kids sliding down the staircases on serving trays. In fact, it wasn’t just the kids that did that. Apparently, they would have parties and everyone would take a turn sliding down the stairs.

There are 70 rooms at The Breakers.

This is the ceiling of the room in the picture above this one. There were so many great details.

I had to share these wall panels with y’all. They’re platinum leaf…so they’ll always be shiny. Platinum. You know…just because they can.

The gardens of The Breakers were all just as showy. I took way too many pictures here. Each house really could have its own post. I’m not even scratching the surface with what we saw here.

The saddest story we heard was at The Rosecliff.

The Rosecliff was built in 1902 by Tessie Oelrich who was a silver heiress. They were considered new money.

Tessie was very into the social scene in Newport and was considered “one of the three great hostesses” in the area. She loved a good party, but as time went on the other big families in Newport moved on. Tessie couldn’t quite let go of her Gilded Age life and stayed. In her later years, Tessie would wander through the empty rooms “serving guests” and encouraging them to have “just one more drink”.

The Rosecliff has been in several movies. You might recognize it from the 1974 Great Gatsby.

I love the view from Rosecliff.

Chateau-sur-Mer belonged to the Wetmore family and was built in 1852.

I love all of the painting in this house. The walls weren’t just decorated with wallpaper…they were artistically painted.

The ceiling in one of the rooms is carved solid wood. Not plaster painted to look like wood…but actual wood. I loved it!

The dining room had leather wallpaper that was stretched smooth and painted.

Here’s a closer look at the leather wallpaper. It’s starting to crack with age. But can you imagine the effect it had back when it was new? Go back and look at the previous picture. The dining room had a fireplace and was only lit with candles. They would put mirrored partitions in front of the doors to reflect the light and pull the curtains closed. With the shine of the leather…I bet it was magical.

Check out all of those different brushes!

Chateau-sur-Mer was the only mansion that didn’t have an audio tour. We had a guided tour here.

The boys’ favorite thing was the European Weeping Beech. They declared it fort worthy. It was pretty awesome.

Here’s what the whole tree looked like.

The last mansion we went through was The Marble House. It was built in 1892 to be the “ultimate statement of Gilded Age privilege”.

This is the Gothic Room it was built to display the Vanderbilt’s Gothic art collection.

The ceiling in the Gothic room. I never really paid attention to ceilings before doing the Newport Mansion tours, but the ceilings in these “summer cottages” were just as detailed and amazing as the rest of the room.

Because we all need a fresco above our dining room table. You know, it was kind of funny to hear how much work it was to summer in Newport for these families. They were expected to be seen doing specific things at the right time of the day, each day, wearing the appropriate attire…which meant changing clothes five or six times a day. And then there were the parties they had to attend. They had zero time to do what they really wanted to do.

And then we would hear how all of those dresses they wore (five or more a day) would have to have the buttons cut off before they were washed (to protect the button and the garment) only to be hand sewn back on. Have you seen how many teeny tiny buttons used to be on those dresses? I can’t imagine being a seamstress for the household.

The stairs up to the servant’s area of the house. The family would never go to the servant area. It was considered taboo.

The Marble House got its name from the 500K cubic feet of marble it’s made of.

We did make it to Providence, RI to see the State Capitol Building!

The dome was being worked on so…I really don’t know what it looked like.

They did have the best library we’ve seen in a state capitol building though!

We also snuck in a tour of Fort Adams.

We got to go into the ruins and hear stories about what life was like there.

They even led us up to the top of the fort where we had a great view!

But the best part was going down into the listening tunnels! I know the picture is a little blurry…we were trying not to be left behind in the pitch dark tunnels that broke off and went in every direction.

It was completely cramped, dark, wet, and you could have easily gotten lost….it was totally awesome.

And for those brave enough to venture in…they were rewarded with a sticker.

We even managed to see a lighthouse! It was one jam-packed week!!

There were some pretties…

we always make time to stop and smell the flowers no matter how busy we are.

Just watch out for the bees.

See y’all down the road!

#easterlooptour2016

Cape Cod, MA

By Jennie Simpson | September 13, 2016

Hey Guys!! We spent one crazy, busy week in the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts! I’d always heard how insane the traffic in Cape Cod can get, but it was so much worse than I ever imagined. There was a particular round-about that really mucked up the flow of traffic. It was hard to get in and out of it and it really caused a backup for several miles.

Other than the traffic issue…Cape Cod is a little slice of heaven on a beach.

We spent our first morning there at a Ranger Walk to learn about the beaches and sea life in the area. The boys loved the cool water after walking on the very hot sand.

The Ranger led us down the beach to see around 200 or so seals. Just FYI…great white sharks eat seals so if you see a bunch of seals taking refuge on a sand bar (and you’re in an area known to be home to great whites) chances are…there’s a shark somewhere close. Just something to think about.

We only had one full day in the area and we spent all of it beach hopping…trying to see as much of Cape Cod as possible. I’ll be honest here…we were also trying to get it done so we wouldn’t have to fight the traffic again. Yes…it really was that bad.

If you enjoy lighthouses this is your place. We visited three but spotted a few more.

We happen to be there on International Lighthouse Day. We tried our best to see all of the lighthouses Cape Cod had to offer.

This one was out on a point and it was sooooo windy! Super windy and parking was tight, but look how pretty it is!

We found a burger place…I know, I know… we have a thing about burgers. Some of you might call it an obsession, but we call it a way of life. This place though… It’s called The Knack. It’s definitely in our top 10.

Y’all know we love to take factory tours. We hadn’t been on a potato chip factory tour so we jumped on the chance to visit the Cape Cod Chip Factory!

For some reason, none of the factory tours allow photography. Which is such a bummer because this one was really neat. You shuffle down the hall where you get to watch a potato chip being made from start to finish.

I was allowed to take this picture of the first bag they used.

This tour is a self-guided, free tour and at the end you get this nifty little sample bag! Does anyone recognize the lighthouse on the bag from a picture earlier in this post? You can visit that exact lighthouse.

Besides some great beaches, we saw some amazing sunsets.

We were really close to Plymouth while we were in the Cape Cod area so we took an afternoon and went to visit the place where it all started. I’d heard it’s very touristy, but I really wasn’t prepared for just how much of a tourist trap it really is. We paid the extravagant price to see the MayflowerII. I wouldn’t suggest you do it. Just look at it from the outside and don’t bother going in. It’s really not worth it.

If you happen to be in the area, swing by and take a gander at Plymouth Rock. It’s…a small rock. It’s free to look at though! So, that’s a plus. It’s the only free thing in the area, I think.

So, here’s the thing. I get that people have to pay bills. I do. I get it. But why charge such outrageous prices for things that are being advertised as “family” and “educational”? There were a few other things in the area that were kind of all grouped with Plymouth and the Pilgrims and that whole piece of our history. You can look them up and make your own decisions…but read the reviews on them. Don’t just go to their website because they do a good job of making it look awesome. Read reviews. We chose not to go to the other things after we went to the Mayflower II.

There were a few pretties! I love these…they’re huge!

This one wasn’t completely bloomed out yet, but I love how delicate it looks.

You see the red dots? Those are actually seed pods from some flower that had already finished it’s bloom cycle. I think the red pods are just as pretty as the little purple flowers next to them and then the ocean behind them isn’t bad either.

All in all we loved the Cape Cod area! We will definitely go back…during the off season.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Hampton Falls Area

By Jennie Simpson | September 1, 2016

We used Hampton Falls, NH as our base camp to explore the area. We spent two weeks in NH bouncing around between Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. I usually break these kinds of posts up, but I’m going to smash it all into one this time! Are you ready?

We spent a day in Salem, MA. Salem is a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time. The whole witch trial thing always fascinated me.

There’s so much history in the North East. We made it by the Lyceum Hall where Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call. Extra points if you know what he said!

Salem is kind of what you would expect. It’s filled with all things witchy…new

and old.

The Old Town Hall was in a movie you might have seen…Hocus Pocus! I geeked out just a bit here as we walked by.

We stopped by the oldest grave yard in Salem. The Witch Trails are such a sad part of our history. It bothered us how touristy Salem is…we feel like they’re being a little disrespectful to what really happened there. I’m not going to go into a history lesson here…we all know what happened.

We made it to the Salem Maritime National Historic Site where the boys got another Junior Ranger badge! And that was the end of our time in Salem!

We spent a day in Boston, MA walking the Freedom Trail! I love Boston! I’m just going to throw that out there right from the start. I loved it!

Let’s start with the Capitol Building. It’s gorgeous! Look at that golden dome!

The inside didn’t disappoint either. We did a tour where we met a lovely family from England!

And then we saw the dome. And we stood there with our mouths open for a minute. Look at that stained glass!! All thirteen original colonies are represented in this stained glass. Love it!

One more picture of the Capitol Building…I couldn’t leave out the tile floor. So pretty! This Capitol Building is high up on our favorites list. It didn’t disappoint at all. I could do an entire post about it, but we’re leaving the Hampton Falls area tomorrow and I’m not sure I’ll have cell service at our next spot so I’m trying to get all caught up on my posts.

We stopped by the Paul Revere House and strolled through. It’s a self-guided tour with interpreters around to answer any questions. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside. You’re looking at the oldest house in Boston. Looks pretty good for its age.

Another stop on the Freedom Trail is the Old North Church where the two lanterns were hung on April 18, 1775.

You can go in and look around. We’d never been to a church where the pews were boxed off like this. Apparently, back when the church was first built, you would purchase your own box.

We stopped by one of the graveyards on the Freedom Trail. The one in the picture is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. One of the things we noticed about the gravestones in both Salem and Boston are that they’re a lot thinner than what we’re used to seeing.

Quite a few of the headstones were decorated with the skull and cross bone symbols or a skull with wings. The symbols were supposed to be a reminder to the Puritans of the mortality of the body.

I love the mixture of old and new buildings here.

I may have geeked out a bit here too. I mean, it’s Cheers! Where everybody knows your name!

We went in and had some burgers. No, it’s doesn’t look like the show. I was a little disappointed with that. It was a long hot day of walking though and that air conditioned seat felt wonderful!

It might not have looked like the Cheers on the television, but there was a wall dedicated to it!

I had to stop by the Make Way For The Ducks sculpture. Super cute!

Ok. One more picture of Boston. This is Swan Pond. How lovely is it? We didn’t stick around long here because we were all so tired and ready to be back in the car.

We explored Halibut Point State Park one afternoon.

Halibut Point State Park used to be a quarry. You can see the “pond” it made in the picture above.

We saw this pretty little bird while we were heading back to our car. It let me get really close!

Not far from where we stayed was a farm where you can pick your own blueberries! Anyone need some blueberries? We have plenty!

We explored the ruins of Fort Constitution. There wasn’t much there.

Most of it looked like this. I’m not even sure this was part of the original Fort…it was right next to it.

We went to see the Nubble Lighthouse! It was a gorgeous day!

We checked out the tidal pools at the lighthouse…but there wasn’t too much in them.

Best of all…we got to meet up with one of my friends! Hey Anne Marie!! One of the things I like the most about our nomadic lifestyle is that I get to go visit friends!

Are you ready for some flowers?

I don’t know what kind of flowers these are, but they’re all over the place!! I love love love them!!

I don’t think this is fireweed, but it’s really close. I love the purple.

These are in our RV Park!

You can’t tell from the picture, but this bush is well over six feet tall!

Pretties from Boston.

There’s sumac all over the place here!

I know it’s a weed, but I really like it. They call it Queen Anne’s Lace and when it’s all bloomed out it’s a really pretty white flower.

I think that’s it! We fit quite a bit into two weeks!

See y’all down the road!

#easterloop2016

Acadia National Park

By Jennie Simpson | August 25, 2016

Acadia National Park is one of the country’s smallest National Parks, but it’s also one of the most visited National Parks. More than 2 million people explore Acadia each year and I think they were all there with us. While we loved the park, we didn’t love the crowds. We spent two weeks in Acadia trying to find our own little piece of Down East.

The first thing we did was drive up Cadillac Mountain to take in the views. It was breath taking!

The boys got to take their time with the Junior Ranger books since we were there for two weeks. We went to a Ranger Talk where the boys were introduced to the different sea creatures they could find in the area tide pools. In the photo above, The Dude is holding a sea star.

Speaking of tidal pools…we found tons of them…but no sea stars anywhere! Bummer!! All of the pools we found had plenty of muscles and periwinkles along with seaweed and sometimes…a few crabs.

I love Maine’s rugged coast line.

We made it to Thunder Hole…I think we must have been there at the wrong time though, because it wasn’t very active. The tide was coming in and it was making a little of the thunder noise. Oh well, something to try and catch next time!

The majority of Acadia National Park is on Mount Desert Island. We drove around looking at all of the harbors. I love the bobbers on the buildings.

The tides play a huge role in the daily lives of the Mount Desert Island inhabitants. Most of them have a boat. One of the thing we noticed is that because the tides are so big, they have to anchor their boats pretty far out from the coast. So, they all have these smaller boats to get out to their bigger boat.

We went to see the Bass Harbor Lighthouse. You can’t get a place where you can get a decent shot of it from the coast line. The lighthouse was built in 1858 and is still fully functional. Right now someone lives in it, but allows people to come take pictures with it.

My favorite hike in Acadia is the Bubble Rock hike. It was short, but strenuous up to the summit of Bubble Rock where you get to see a huge boulder left over from when the glaciers moved through the area. The boys tried their hardest to push it off. It didn’t budge.

But, look at the view! We actually managed to get this spot to ourselves for a good twenty minutes! It was amazing!!

When we were leaving about ten or so people were meandering their way up. One of them was nice enough to snap a picture of the five of us at the summit sign.

One of the cool things…and something we hadn’t seen before…is the way Acadia does their trail signs re-purposing fallen trees.

The Acadia Bridges. There are 16 or 17 of them. I guess a lot of people will spend years getting pictures of all of them. We hiked to three…I was over it after the first one. If I’m going to hike, I need the payoff. An old bridge in the middle of a forest just doesn’t do it for me.

The Carriage Roads…sigh. Again, if I’m going to hike…I need something to look at besides a road and trees. There are close to 60 miles worth of Carriage Roads to walk on. You can’t drive on them, but you can walk, bike, or ride in a carriage. I think I was expecting more. Everyone I spoke to…all of the books I read…they all made such a big to do about the Carriage Roads. But, guys…they’re just nicely graveled paths. I dunno. To each his own.

We drove an hour to go visit the Schoodic Peninsula area of Acadia NP and boy howdy, it was totally worth it! We found the top-secret location of the Raven’s Nest. Don’t ask the Rangers, they won’t tell you. I guess it’s deemed too dangerous. We went on a Sunday afternoon and had the place to ourselves. We took our time here and really soaked up the views.

More views from the Raven’s Nest area. I bet you’re wanting to know where this magical place is. We might…just maybe…have the GPS coordinates for it. I don’t know if we should give them to y’all. I mean, what if we give them to you and y’all go and fall off the cliff? I would feel terrible! But, if you promise not to go and be boneheads and fall of the cliff, I’ll give you the coordinates. Promise? Ok, good. Here are the coordinates 44.352005, -68.074934. Now go forth and enjoy the splendor that is known as the Raven’s Nest! lol! Just please be careful and if you have little kids hold their hands.

We made it all the way out to the peninsula and played around on the rocks by the shore.

We found tons of muscles and more periwinkles…but no sea stars.

Littlest and I had fun trying to get pictures of the waves splashing up on the rocks.

As we were leaving the Schoodic Peninsula we spotted some sea otters playing! We sat in our car by the road watching them for a few minutes.

We were losing the light and the otters were moving on when we spotted a porpoise!

On our last night in the area we met up with another full-time RV family. They showed the boys how to go crabbing.

The boys loved crabbing! They had such a great time.

They would catch a bucket full and then take them back to the beach to have crab races with them.

This was our last sunset in Acadia. Not a bad way to end our time there. We shared a campfire with some new friends and got to swap stories about living full-time in an RV with kids.

I know y’all are wondering…yup, we had lobstah!!!

And we had to have a piece of blueberry pie. I mean, we were in Maine, y’all. It would’ve been a crime against nature to not have some blueberry pie.

We also had to have a whoopie pie. When in Maine, right?!

Wild flowers! Everywhere! I was in flower heaven!

So. Stinkin’. Pretty!

Alright! That’s our time in the Acadia area! We already want to go back, but we want to go back when there aren’t 2 million other people getting in the way.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016

Lobstah Rolls

By Jennie Simpson | August 19, 2016

Are y’all ready for another recipe?!

We fell in love with Lobster Rolls while we were in Maine, but they were on the pricey side at around $16 a piece for only ¼ pound of lobster meat. Instead of paying those prices we decided to make our own. I looked on the interwebs and found several recipes, but in the end we did our own thing. Lobster rolls aren’t hard to make. There are very few ingredients because the star of the show is the mild flavor of the lobster meat. If you’re not careful you can cover up the taste of the lobster and you’ll miss the whole reason you’re making lobster rolls to begin with.

I’ve actually got a few pictures to share with you for this recipe. Nope, I’m still not going to do step by step pictures for you (I’m not Pioneer Woman), but I would like to show you a few things.

There aren’t many ingredients to this recipe. It comes together really quickly.

I found this on a place mat at a restaurant. I thought it might give you a nice visual on how to pick apart a lobster. We used leftover lobster meat we had from our Lubec, ME lobster feast. You can use whatever you can find, in fact, if you can’t find good lobster, this recipe would be just as good with crab or shrimp.

We started seeing these weird looking hot dog buns once we got to the Pennsylvania area. I think it must be a North Eastern thing. They don’t even call them hot dog buns, they call them frankfurter buns. Can you see the differences in the pic above? Lets take a closer look.

These are the hot dog buns. Y’all know what these are. We’ve all eaten way more of them than we should. There’s nothing really special about them.

These are the frankfurter buns. Notice how they look like slices of thick cut Texas toast? The sides are flat and cut. There’s a reason for this. These buns have changed our lives. If you can’t find these buns for this recipe, I suggest you try to cut your hot dog buns to look like them. Trust me on this.

Now do you see why frankfurter buns are essential to this recipe? You toast them! With plenty of butter…I mean, really slather that butter on! Y’all aren’t on a diet, right?

[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:2]

Finished Lobstah Roll. This lobster roll ruined all other lobster rolls for us. We stopped eating them out because we were always disappointed with what we got.

If you can believe it, we had leftovers. Not much…just enough for a couple of us to enjoy it at lunch the next day. This stuff rocks on a salad!

Ok! There y’all go!! I hope y’all make these and love them as much as we do! Let me know what you think if you make them!

Disclaimer…we’re not professional chefs or photographers, but we’re doing our best to share our lives with you.

See y’all down the road!

#easternloop2016