ACADIA 2020

We have been planning this trip for a few years and it was originally part of our trip to Nova Scotia, which also hasn't happened yet. We decided at the beginning of the year we wanted to spend more time at Acadia National Park than we had originally planned, so decided to split up the trip into two segments, hopefully giving us more time to enjoy each of these areas more. With COVID now upon us more than any of us wish, the trip has been in limbo somewhat, however, we decided to forge on and continue to live our live having to make a few adjustments. We will start the trip a little rusty not getting the "normal" opportunities to weekend camp prior to the trip, but its like dancing you never really forget, although is packing seems to be more of a struggle than usual.

I began planning for this trip by first securing our 8 nights at Acadia or near Acadia, we will be staying at Desert Mountain Campground a private campground, made reservation in January, opting for staying outside the National Park as I secured a campsite on Frenchman Bay. Its a god thing I chose this route as the National Park Service since has closed the entire park to camping due to COVID. So the planning began almost a year ago.

So en route to Acadia we plan to visit Gettysburg, my sister Deb and her husband Randy in Pennsylvania then arrive in Acadia where we will spend 8 nights and then home, yet to be planned.

It takes a lot of time to pack a teardrop camper as everything has its place and every inch of space is used. We also have to be very organized, something I even find frustrating at times. We began packing for the trip about 3 weeks ago, as you can tell whenever we think of something we just make a pile, which also includes our non perishable foods. There are also equipment piles in the garage, shoe piles in the house, and of course Missy has a bug spray pile, I think she is planning for a second biblical insect plague.

So the non perishable food is then sorted and packed, the top container has about 10 days of breakfast and supper meals, the bottom action packer has all of our lunches and snacks. We also have about 7 days of freeze dried meals, just in case the world really goes to pieces while we are gone, and we have to boondock and fight zoombies for our meals..all of ours drinks and perishables will go in our refrigerator and we have one ice cooler. Today is August 28th, tomorrow we will start to pack and organize the trailer, Sunday we will concentrate on the car and topper.

August 29th

Spent part of the day getting things packed and checking off items on our lists. One of those is preparing Ellie's food for the trip, 40 individual baggies for her meals. Wow how little space it takes, maybe we should be eating dog food, just think how light we could pack. Above Lyla thinks she is either going with or not going to let us leave, she's wrong on both counts.

Making sure Missy has everything in Ellie's meals that she is supposed to put in..

Slowly moved everything to garage to pack into car when I get off on Tuesday

All packed and ready go Tuesday after work. Got on the road by 4:15 PM. Look who is first in the car.

Arrived at Kickapoo State Rec Area near Danille, IL about 4 hrs. later was dark and raining when we arrived, found a spot 46R, very nice campground, will be back here close enough to home. Everything pretty wet when we got up but we were high and dry inside.

O.K. may not look appetizing, its actually very good. Freeze dried strawberry and blue berry with granola, easy to make..just boil water..

We think this was a RAGBRAI bus that got lost and still trying to find the route...... Got on the road by 0930 or was it 0830 already losing track of time zones, 7 hr drive ahead of us today.

Ellie in her traveling nest, got a have that pillow..also the next 40 pictures are in reverse order, so sorry, but loaded backwards..oh well. If you want to view in order scroll until you see t hi is same picture then follow backwards..enjoy