Maine Acadia National Park Vacation

In August, I went to Acadia National Park in Maine with my family, mom, dad, my brother Alexander; my grandma; my aunt and uncle and their children, Justin and Kyra; my cousins David and Jessica and their mom, for a late summer vacation.

As always, my mother had me write a trip report.  Since the trip was one week long, and we did so many activities, I’ll just give some highlights of the trip, the biking trip and rain day at the beach. 

Biking

It was the 3^rd day of the trip in Acadia and we decided to go mountain bike riding. We went to a bike shop in the morning to rent bikes.  I’m not going to describe the wait for the bike since it was about an hour and a half long.   I will say however, that I was moaning out of boredom for the whole period while we were waiting.  Finally, when the bike shop decided to get us our bikes, I got a bike with seven small gears and 3 big ones. 

Before we could ride the bikes, we had to walk the bikes to the trails.  We walked for 15 minutes uphill, on the side of the highway with cars zooming by.  I was angry about not being able to ride the bike yet, because I was very eager to try it out.  I was also upset that Alexander, Justin and Jessica didn’t have to walk, because they had tag-alongs attached to parent’s bikes so the parents walked the bike, while the kids just had to sit on it and keep their balance.  

We had reached the trail, but there were a lot of pebbles on the road, so it was extremely bumpy.  Everyone was racing up hills and down hills and through forks just to be in the front of the group.  David and I were having a private race to be in the front of the group, and it was always a close race. About a quarter into the trail, after a very tough and long hill, David’s mom got tired and almost fainted from riding up a long hill, carrying Jessica on the tag-along and a heavy backpack. Her face was very pale, and everyone needed a rest.  We took a break while waiting for her to recover.  Someone opened the backpack and found out why it was so heavy, there were bagels for everyone and a big camera inside.  She was so thoughtful that she had brought bagels for everyone.  Since it was about lunch time, we decided to take out the bagels and have lunch.  It was a bland lunch, but it was better that starving. 

The trails were straight forward after lunch.  Sometimes I lagged behind everyone else since there were a lot of up-hills and my legs got tired of pedaling.  We stopped at a pond where some people were Kayaking and everyone washed their hands in the water and then we rode down a narrow steep trail that had pebbles all over it.  A lot of people were on that trail, so it was hard to maneuver.  We finally made it to the bottom after some turns and stops, only to find that we had to go back up!  L The trip up was a lot harder.  I walked the bike since it was less tiring, and my legs were really sore.  Surprisingly, grandma was able to bike the whole way, without getting too tired.  I’m very proud of her.

Back at the top, everyone went to the bus stop, where we got a bus back to town.  The bus was like a stretch van, with a bike trailer hooked on the back. We filled a whole bus since there were 12 of us and 9 bikes.  David nicknamed it an Asian Mafia.  I laughed so hard that water came out of my nose, while I was drinking from a bottle of water.  We took the bus back to town, rode the bikes to the shop to return them, and found our car and went back to the hotel. 

                             Cold Beach Day

It had rained the whole morning that day, when it stopped, we decided to go to the beach in spite of the cold.  The parents thought that we would just walk on the beach, so we went with shirts and long pants.  Upon reaching the beach, all the kids rolled their pants up and rushed to the water.  The water was ice cold, and a wave splashed against us making our pants wet already. We instantly got cold feet on first contact with the water, so we started to dig places where we could put our feet, warm up, and keep ourselves from the waters chill.  

Sometimes, to get pushed by the waves, I would go into a wave and crouch, and let the pressure push me to shore.  At first I thought I had warmed up enough to do it, but I got proved wrong.  It was freezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing cold, and I only jumped in 3 times, before I got too cold.  I had been wearing long pants but rolled them up because I thought I wouldn’t get wet there, but by going into the water like that I got my pants totally soaked.

I spent the rest of my time building a sand fort to warm up.   It started to rain, at first no one noticed except the adults.  So the adults decided that everyone should leave.  Mom had gone back to the hotel to get some clothes since the kids were wet to the underwear. We waited at the bus stop for a long time, so long that I was tempted to take the bus back to the hotel.  I was so relieved when mom finally came back with towels and clothes.

We rushed to the car once changed since it was still raining. When everyone was in their cars, we left for the hotel.  After getting back, I seriously needed a shower, from the sea salt, that I picked up at the beach.

 I was very pleased with the fun I had at the beach, even though it was freezing and raining.

These are the highlights of my trip to Acadia National Park.  There were other activities we did, I couldn’t list them all.  We played Mini golf, I tried lobster for the first time ever in my life, we had quality family time together, watched China Olympics at night. We especially had fun watching Michael Phelps win every single swimming event.