Category: Recreation

Hiking Maine | Fore River Sanctuary & Jewell Falls

11 Comments

Who does’t like to see a good waterfall? We’d heard rumblings of a waterfall in Portland, and as the summer heat continued to blaze, we headed to the Fore River Sanctuary in search of falling water. We prepped a little better for this hike bringing actual sunscreen and water so we were ready to enter this little oasis surrounded by city.

The entrance to this trail is located at the end of Rowe Avenue and easy to find. After a short walk from the parking area, on a path that runs parallel to railroad tracks, we hit the main part of the trail and turned left towards the falls. It was an easy walk with a few small hills, although nothing too steep.  The roots of the trees that flank the path create a random, uneven obstacle course and do require that you gaze down at regular intervals so as to not trip. It’s nothing too difficult just something to keep in mind.

Continue reading →

Hiking Maine | Going Urban (Sort Of) on the Eastern Promenade

7 Comments

Having recently returned from two weeks soaking in amazing green countryside during our Irish Adventure, we decided to go urban for our first hike back in Maine, so we headed into Portland and the Eastern Promenade. While this trail is located in the city, there are still plenty of opportunities to interact with and enjoy nature on this path.

This is a well utilized trail and one I’ve hiked previously, but it had been a while so it was nice to see it again with new eyes. A lack of planning also known as not bringing our sunscreen, as well as other commitments later that day, meant we had to do a more abridged hike so we weren’t able to enjoy the full trail. We really need to pack a “go bag” with hiking supplies at the ready. We seem to end up unprepared a lot! Even though we didn’t do the entire trail, we did get enough of a taste to remember why it is so popular.

Continue reading →

A Fairy Tale Hike at Donnabeth Lippman Park in Windham

8 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

Hiking Swan Island for Father’s Day

6 Comments

Free is a happy word. I’m always up for finding a bargain so I was excited to learn that Maine Resident’s Day, offering free admission at many Maine State Parks and Historic Sites, was scheduled for Father’s Day. We decided to take advantage of the free admission and try a new destination. While Swan Island is generally excluded from the free admission, I noticed on their website that they too were offering free access on Father’s Day. Admission is normally $8 per person, but on this sunny Father’s Day it was discounted 100%.

In planning our hike, I learned that for this particular trip, apostrophes are important because there are actually two destinations where you could end up if you google Swan Island and they’re located fairly far from one another.

Continue reading →

Kite Festival at Bug Light Park, South Portland

7 Comments

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.

Continue reading →