Maine Vacation, The First Few Days

We left for our vacation early on a Thursday evening. We drove for about 5 hours up Interstate 81 through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and then we stayed overnight in Port Jervis, just over the border into New York. We didn't stop until we got there! We were able to do this thanks to bringing along sandwiches to eat for dinner, a box full of little toys to keep the kids entertained, and the availability of oldies music on the radio, which my kids love. I think the time of day we were travelling helped as well; I suspect this long of a drive would not have worked had we tried it first thing in the morning.

The only source of frustration for Samuel on this leg of the trip was that he had great difficulty in trying to see the sun set. We were driving through mountains so by the time he thought of looking at it, it was below the horizon of the mountain tops. When we left the mountainous area we had tall trees to contend with. The setting sun was a gorgeous orange ball that evening, but you could only see it when a quick opening came up between the trees. Samuel started crying and said "I want to leave tree land!"

We stayed that evening at a Comfort Inn right along the interstate. Samuel was quite happy, he loves staying at these kinds of places. He talked about it the rest of our trip. I asked him today what his favorite part of our vacation was and he answered "Staying at the Comfront (how he pronounces it!) Inn."

The next morning our family of six invaded the breakfast room at the motel and then got on the road for a roughly six hour drive to Freeport, Maine. We traditionally stop at the roadside liquor store in the narrow stretch of New Hampshire that we drive through (New Hampshire either has a low sales tax, or maybe even no sales tax, on liquor). While we were here Samuel said hello to several people that we saw. He did this quite frequently on our trip and would then ask "Where are you from?" On this occasion the woman he spoke to told him she was from Cambodia! People are surprised to get a "Hi" from him, but everyone he talked to was very friendly.

We ate a late lunch/early dinner at The Jameson Tavern, a place we have frequented just about every trip to Freeport. Samuel got a case of "the sillies" while we were here. This was to be another frequent occurance on our vacation. He started laughing and giggling very loudly. I'm sure this was just a reaction to being cooped up in the car all day. Each time he did this I took him outside for a few minutes (or somehow removed him from what was going on at the time). This time I took him out to the parking lot and had him jump around. I also gave him some "big squeeze" hugs and I had him hold my hands and spun him around a little. We got a few funny looks from passers by, but I'm sure I'd take a look if I saw something like that too.

We stayed that evening at The Harraseeket Inn, a family tradition. My husband and I stayed there on our honeymoon and we have stayed there three other times now. It's quite an adventure each time we go with more children, but it is a very family-friendly place. Samuel remembers his stays here and always looks forward to going back.


While at The Harraseeket we went on a walk along Freeport's main street that has lots of outlet stores. We always stop at the L.L. Bean outlet store. We browsed there a bit and my husband returned solo the next morning to do some clothes shopping. We went in the pool at the Inn several times. Samuel has been afraid of the water on past trips but this time he loved it. It was our baby girl's first experience in the water and she loved it as well.

I neglected to take any pictures while I was on my trip but still want to share some of the images from our trip. I am able to do so thanks to Flickr.com and the following photographers: First two photos: Port Jervis, NY , from Click Click Photography;New Hampshire Liquor Store photos: Red Building from The Cod 72, Road Sign from autumnsan ;Jameson Tavern from kara.brown ;L.L. Bean outlet store from kmf164;Harraseeket Inn photos from marcomazzei and j_dian