The Misadventures of Maddox, Maize and Fox

Saturday morning found us down at the beach again. We found many creatures washed up on the shore including hermit crabs and whole clams. We helped Avery make a tide pool habitat to house all the creatures he found and he enjoyed telling random beach goers all about it. We could have stayed there all day, but we had other plans to attend to. We had lunch plans with a coworker Jared met over the summer at an event in Milwaukee who insisted that we contact her if we ever made it out to Maine. So we did! Jane and her family were amazing hosts and from what we've heard, their hospitality is a common trait amongst Mainers. We had planned to eat at Portland Lobster Company right on the harbor but due to Hurricane Florence, three cruise ships had been diverted to Portland and all the passengers had recently disembarked, flooding the seaside with tourists. So we opted for a quicker option at B. Good (which had amazing food) a little further away from the port. We then hopp...

After leaving Albany, we took two days to drive through Vermont and New Hampshire on our way to our next stop, Portland, ME. We were there too early in the season to see much of any fall colors, but it was still a beautiful drive through winding back roads most of the way. In Maine, I chose an RV Park in Old Orchard Beach because it was just a few blocks from the ocean and very reasonably priced. Old Orchard Beach is a good 30 minute drive south from Portland, but it was totally worth the drive to stay here instead of in the city. In fact, this was my favorite place of the entire second loop. After we arrived in Old Orchard Beach on Thursday evening (Sept 13th), we decided to walk down to the beach for our kids' first ever view of the ocean. Gryffin saw the ocean (and even put his feet in) when he was 5 months old, but that hardly counts. The kids were looking forward to seeing the ocean more than anything on this loop and Old Orchard Beach did not disappoint. I took too many pic...

Let's talk tolls. There are a LOT of tolls between Milwaukee and New York. And the thing is, even if we knew this ahead of time, there really isn't a better way to go to Niagara Falls unless we wanted to add a few hours to our trip (or go through Canada, which unfortunately we can't do due to our kids not having passports). Thankfully our IPASS is accepted at all EZPASS tolls so we haven't had to have excessive amounts of cash on hand. Every time our IPASS replenishes, it adds $30 to the account. And it replenished 4 times before we were out of New York. I'll let you do that math. We made it to Niagara Falls on a beautiful fall day, cloudy and cool, my favorite kind of day. Sunday morning dawned, promising to be another day of autumnal bliss. We drove 5 miles to Niagara Falls and first enjoyed the view from the observation deck. If you're afraid of heights, this is a bit frightening. I mostly stuck to the middle where I could see the falls safely without pictu...