Category: Family Fun

Spring teaser at Popham Beach State Park and a visit to the Fort.

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There are always those random days in the heart of winter that tease us with warmer temperatures and remind us that spring is not as far away as it sometimes seems after three consecutive snow storms. They’re always a special, happy occasion. When the temperatures jumped up to 55 degrees on a recent Sunday, we headed to Popham Beach State Park. For Maine in February, this was practically sunbathing weather.

We were struggling to find trails in the area that would be appropriate for winter hiking, so in the end decided to head to the beach and walk along the water which turned out to be the perfect decision. We arrived just after low tide which was ideal for exploring this popular destination. While there is a beautiful, sandy beach area there is also the rocky and interesting Fox Island just off the shore which can be accessed by foot only during low tide.

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Apple Picking at Apple Acres Farm in Hiram, Maine

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Fall brings with it many rituals. Apple picking is one of those activities so when the weather starts to get crisp, and the leaves begin to change, you’ll find me headed to an apple orchard. Things have been a little hectic this year, so I was a little later than usual in venturing to an orchard, but fortunately it’s a fairly long season in Maine and there were still many varieties of applies ripe for picking.

After a hearty breakfast at Krista’s Restaurant in Cornish where I enjoyed a meat lover’s omelet overflowing with filling, my friend and I headed to nearby Apple Acres Farm. As we approached the farm, the neat even rows of apple trees could be seen on each side of the road. The weather was perfect for apple picking and the countryside was starting to show a colorful fall palette making everything especially picturesque.

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The joy of spending a summer evening at the drive-in.

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Everyone of a certain age has their “bouncing around the back” of a station wagon story. Usually one that entails fake wood siding, and sibling squabbles that rival those of Cain and Abel. I’m sure I have a few myself, but the reality is that my memory just isn’t that good. I keep only about five to ten years back in active usage, another ten are sometimes brought up for the occasional recollection, and the rest are more vague. What I have instead are moments in time, and composites of things that probably happened again and again but have been entwined into one memory.

That’s how it is with the drive-in for me. It was one of our regular family outings when I was young, and the only thing I still associate with station wagons.

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A Fairy Tale Hike at Donnabeth Lippman Park in Windham

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On a hectic weekend with little time to spare, we still managed to sneak out for a few hours to get in a quick hike. Hike may be overstating the exertion needed for the terrain on this particular trail. It was really more of a beautiful walk but, given our time constraints, was the perfect destination for this particular Saturday outing.

We had driven by the entrance to the park many times. It is marked by a large, rectangular granite sign etched in black lettering, announcing the entrance to the Donnabeth Lippman Park. But, this was our first time turning down to discover what was at the other end. Given how busy things were this particular weekend, we had not done any research ahead of time so had no expectations on what the trails would be like.

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Kite Festival at Bug Light Park, South Portland

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We own a kite that sadly has gotten little use over the years. We purchased it when our girls were young because kite flying seemed to be just something you do with toddlers. We did attempt to fly it a few times but never to much success other than a few perfectly windy days at the beach, so eventually it went into storage in our garage. Somewhere along the line we picked up a friend for our little kite. I don’t remember where, but most likely it was from a yard sale find that was just too good to pass up. Even though the one kite we owned wasn’t getting much use, a second one somehow seemed like a good idea.

I never thought much more about it, until I found out that South Portland has a spring Kite Festival at Bug Light Park. It felt like the perfect time to pull our kites out of storage and let them fly free again. There was a reason we had kept them all these years.

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