anniversary trip!

Last weekend (9/22) was Kinsey and I's 5th wedding anniversary!  We decided to take a long weekend trip to New York.   After much searching, we found a nice converted barn around the Woodstock/Saugerties area.  We'd never been to that area before and thought it would be perfect for a nice and relaxing anniversary weekend.

The place was really nice and open.  I especially loved the wooden beams and floor throughout!  Here's the downstairs area (complete with our mess of bags on the table!) and below is half of the upstairs area (looking across the room from the bed).  Lots of good natural light and a very quiet area.  On Saturday night, there was a fairly quick thunderstorm and it was pretty cool to look out and see absolutely no lights or rain except every so often when the lightening would light up the entire sky.  

A box of delicious chocolates awaited us when we got to the barn/cabin from the owners!  They were so good!

On Saturday, we went to see the Saugerties Lighthouse, which sits in the Hudson River.  The lighthouse is only accessible (other than by boat) by taking a 1/2 mile trail.  The trail is not accessible during high tides, so you have to plan your hike accordingly.  The lighthouse is actually a bed and breakfast as well.  I would love to be able to stay here sometime!

Kinsey and I LOVE apples, so of course we visited a few orchards in the area.  Our favorite apple hands down is the Macoun.  It's very common in New England (we had our very first at the Bar Harbor Farmer's Market...yeah!), but not so common were we live.  A few orchards have them, but they only have a handful it seems and they're just not the same taste.
We went to Minard Orchard on our way back home and loved it.  First of all, they had lots and lots and lots of fresh, great looking, perfect, crisp Macouns.  We bought a huge amount (we very well knew that these may be our last for the season!) and were so excited to taste them.  (The apples were wonderful!  We have a small handful left and are cherishing every last one.)  Then, we got Kinsey's favorite thing, cider donuts.  He said these were the best he's had.  They had the usual sugared ones and (yes!) non sugared ones (which is a rare thing to find where we live).  Of course, we topped off the trip with some freshly pressed apple cider.
Now we're wondering, is it worth a 4 hour drive to go back for more?  (Probably!)

On Sunday, we also did the Walkway over the Hudson.   It's billed as the longest, elevated pedestrian bridge in the world.  The bridge spans 1.28 miles long each way, so we got so good exercise walking across and back.  It was a beautiful and clear day and you could see for miles and miles.

View from the bridge.  The right side is in Highland and the left is in Poughkeepsie.  This was a great way to end a wonderful trip!

Acadia...four years later

We just came back from a 1 and a half week trip to Acadia National Park.  We first went to what we call our "favorite place ever", on our honeymoon back in 2007.  We decided to celebrate our fourth anniversary with a trip back to the park and some much needed relaxation.  

 Here's an overlook at the top (well, what we discovered to be the first of the three "peaks") of a mountain that we grossly underestimated the climb.  At the top, you could look out over the lakes, oceans, and land of the island.  It was a great first hike of our trip and an excellent place to enjoy a soft pretzel and maple mustard that we packed from our new favorite bakery.  (I admit that I became rather obsessed with these pretzel nuggets of glory....and the mustard was phenomenal.  I could eat one everyday.)

This is from my favorite "secret" spot along the park loop in Acadia.  There is a little pebble beach that isn't marked at all and you wouldn't know it was there if you weren't looking for it.  I have no idea how we found it on our honeymoon four years ago, but we did and we think of this place when we think of Maine.  There are all kinds of gorges between the mountain of rocks and when the water is rough, you can witness some pretty intense wave crashes.  I love this sheltered hole of water along the edge.  Check out the those colors!

Kinsey skipping stones on the "secret" beach.  

A trail in the woods we followed.  Who doesn't like the quiet of the forest with soft pine needles on the ground and moss?

Two of the videos stocked in our cabin.  We aren't movie people (we have only been to the movies 4 times in the seven years we've been together), but these scream us.  Seriously.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to watch them.   

We did have time for these books.  A Walk in the Park proved to be an invaluable guide.  It list all the trails in the park with detail information on the elevation, difficultly, terrain, and different routes.  We learned that when the author says "different and strenuous", he means it.  We wanted an easy hike one day and chose a trail described as "one of the most difficult and dangerous trail in the park".  (Jordan Cliffs, anyone?)  

I loved the bright orange book (which takes a certain person to enjoy) and the one with the raccoon proved informative when on our last night at the cabin, we saw a family of raccoons come right up to our (glass and locked) screen doors.  Raccoons are much larger in real life than you may think.  The only other time we saw one was in the middle of the day at a nearby creek back home and yes, it definitely wasn't healthy.  

We stayed here.  The cabin was in a wonderful location in the park and really close to trails (walking distance).  We loved this fireplace in the corner.  The window to the right of the fireplace is where the family of raccoons came up.  The cabin even had a small loft (which I named the "puzzle loft" because there were puzzles up there).  

Here's the outside of the cabin.  Complete with a birch tree growing in the middle of the wooden walkway to the door.  Love it.  

Countdown to Bar Harbor.....

"About midway along it on one of the uprights is a plaque marking the state line, and I for one always begin to feel wonderful the minute I've passed that marker.  The air starts smelling better, and the trees across the river on Maine soil look greener.  When I come off the end of the bridge, I always think, "There! Now at last I'm in Maine!" and everything is suddenly bright, even on a foggy day.  Maine has that effect on her partisans."

~The Coast of Maine by Louise Dickinson Rich

In exactly 7 months, Kinsey and I will be in the middle of our anniversary vacation to Acadia National Park.  Our first and last trip there, was for for our honeymoon, which will be 4 years ago in September.  We are super excited to go back and if you know us at all, you know we can mention Maine daily, especially Acadia.

So in 7 months we could be here (on the overlook of Bubble Rock):

Or here (on Sand Beach):

Or here (one of our favorite spots that we call Rice Beach):

our anniversary...and jellyfish!

Today is Kinsey and I's 3rd anniversary. So this past weekend, we decided to do a series of fun and relaxing things. We took a trip to Baltimore on Monday and went somewhere we've wanted to go for a while now......the Baltimore Aquarium!
In case anyone is planning a trip here, Mondays are a great day to go. We ran into zero school field trips and overall it wasn't too packed. We saw all the different exhibits and a lot of fun fish like this one.....



However, our absolute favorite exhibit was a temporary jellyfish room they have.  It's called "Jellies Invasion".  The aquarium's website has a fun section on the exhibit here.

I took some of the best pictures I ever have of the jellies.  The contrast between light and dark really turned out beautifully.  We had a good time watching them swim in the huge tanks and spent a great deal of time in this room.  

Here's some upside down jellyfish.


Looks kind of like a sun print, huh?  All the stringy tentacles just float around like this.

This one reminds me of space.  Kind of like those satellite photos you see of planets.

The last two are my favorites from the day.  I loved the tank with these jellies in.  The colors ranged from a really soft peach to a deep red.  The contrast of the background really makes them jump out.