The Greatest Thing Since Kevin Bacon

I'm back to enjoying ample free time and wondering about money. My job at the rec ended on Monday, and I leave the great land of Maine next Monday. Currently I am sitting in my pajamas listening to the Eat, Pray, Love soundtrack, eating rice pudding, and blogging away! Well let's catch up and discuss last week. As you may recall, last week was my last camping trip with the rec and we went to Acadia National Park!!!!! WHAT an incredible place! We also spent an evening in Bar Harbor, an equally incredible and fun place. We left Tuesday for Acadia and drove for a good 4 hours. That was quite a long journey and an exhausting job for me, driving a 15-passenger van full of middle school kids. The good news is I saw a car with a big CU sticker in their back window - needless to say I let out a "wooooo!!!! Go BUFFS!" :-) By the time I felt we must be in Canada we finally arrived at our KOA "kampsite" right smack in Acadia Natnl Park which is, of course, completely gorgeous. We set up our tents and ate dinner (burgers, and veggie burgers for me! Yum!) Then we piled the kids back in the vans and drove a few minutes down the road to a hilarious lumberjack show! I've done a lot of things in Maine, and I am SO proud to say that attending a lumberjack show is one of them. Then it started pouring rain so we drove back to our "kampsite" and crammed all 27 of us into the back of our rental cargo truck (picture a 14 ft. U Haul truck size, housing 23 semi-adults and 4 counselors) and played a game of "counselor jeopardy". One of the questions was what does Jennie's car's license plate say and one team of kids guessed "Hippie" bless them. After jeopardy we all went back to our respective tents for the night where I got to test out the waterproofness of my tent again - fortunately it passed again! Wednesday was the day of hiking in Acadia that I'd been anxiously anticipating with excitement for weeks! The "mountain" we climbed was fairly small, definitely a hill by Colorado standards, but that didn't take away from the intenseness of the hike or the incredible view of the ocean from the top. The one thing Maine mountains have that Colorado ones do not is a view of the ocean from the top. The first time I experienced that kind of view was on the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa and I thought it was probably the most incredible view in the world. Quite possibly it is, although I plan to see many more views in my life so you never know! In any case there's something completely stunning about standing on a mountain and seeing the ocean all blue and infinite below you.

After our short but amazing hike in Acadia we headed back to our kampsite where we ate dinner and then had quite an epic lipsync production put on by the kids and featuring a special little diddy by the 4 of us counselors. The kids were in 4 teams and each team had to prepare a lipsync-type performance. We had some pretty hilarious performances with songs by Michael Jackson, Eminem, Will Smith (Fresh Prince, of course!), and Good Charlotte...which was quite a contrast to the performances last session with songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks, Journey, and Miley Cyrus. Hmmm. Then the 4 counselors performed a thrown-together-in-20-minutes performance of awesomeness to the song Footloose sporting, of course, our most awesome neon 80s clothes! I think it was probably the greatest thing since Kevin Bacon.

After an evening of dancing around like fools, we took the kids into Bar Harbor to test out their responsibility level as 12, 13, and 14 year olds. I was glad to discover they could handle it. We gave them 2 hours to hang out, walk around, and shop in Bar Harbor before we met up at a designated meeting spot to head back to the kampsite. They did a great job and didn't cause too much chaos so we were proud of all 23 of our crazy little pre-teens. Also, as per request by the kids, we counselors wore our 80s costumes into Bar Harbor and yes we did spend the entire time our wearing neon and spandex! If anyone ever asks me "have you ever worn neon spandex in public?" I can say "why yes, actually, I wore a complete 80s ensemble for an entire evening in Bar Harbor!" By the way, the Obamas vacationed in Bar Harbor earlier this summer....too bad they weren't there while we were there. Meeting the president while dressed like a fool? YES PLEASE! :-)

In case you couldn't already tell, I had a totally amazing time in Acadia and Bar Harbor last week. Then, to top it off we woke up Thursday morning at 3:30am (and when I say woke up, I mean most of the kids were still awake from the night before and I got a total of about 1.5 hours of sleep) and drove up Cadillac mountain (hill?) to watch the sun rise over Bar Harbor. There are many things about that which made it incredible. First of all is that the spot at which we were is the most eastern point in the USA and therefore, last Thursday we were the very first people in the US to see the sun! How cool is that?! It was also a just totally incredible view, and the sunrise was gorgeous! And it was so much fun to share that moment with the other 26 people on our trip as well as maybe 200 other people who were up there also watching the sun rise. Everyone was all bundled up and barely awake but when the sun started coming up above the ocean and it was bright, deep red everyone woke up, got quiet, and watched in awe. SO COOL! Then we drove back down the mountain and while I drove all 13 of the kids in my van fell asleep and it was one of those peaceful moments in life where you just can't think of anything better. We did, however, have to make a mandatory coffee stop for those of us doing the driving.

After having so many ridiculously cool Maine experiences, I got back from Acadia and still had more fun to come! Last weekend was Zach and Jess' birthdays so there was lots of birthdaytastic fun! Friday we had our girls' movie night and saw Eat Pray Love which was a great movie!! Then went out for drinks. Then Saturday we had a barbeque at Jess and Ben's house, and then Sunday we went to a lake and rented a jet ski and I had my very first (and second!) ride on a jet ski! SO MUCH FUN!! I also tried out a paddle board and did some kayaking. Then we finished the day with pizza and presents. Then on Monday....I had a very important first: my first lobster dinner! A real authentic Maine experience. The lobster was pretty good, but it sure was a lot of work getting to the actual meat! My god. But what an experience. I'm so glad I finally had my Maine lobster! Sadly most of the people eating with me were not fans of lobster which I think made the experience ever so slightly less fun, but I tried to ignore the comments and faces and concentrate on learning how to break off a lobster's legs and pull the meat out in peace! haha. I mean hey, lobster isn't for everyone, but I was determined to successfully eat at least one in my life. And I had a good teacher showing me what to do, and a great photographer documenting the whole experience! The past few days have been filled with packing, playing wii, and planning out my trip through Canada. I feel like I've really been neglecting the beach though so I think I'll take a bike ride down there for a little while today. Soon I'll be back in the landlocked west so I definitely need to enjoy the ocean as much as possible before I leave!

I'm off for now. Everyone take care!!