Lily Bay State Park
Phew, our 11th camping trip of the summer, our 25th and 26th nights spent camping in our 2002 VW Eurovan Weekender! After a few trips to state parks that have been busier and a little less private than we would like, our expectations for Lily Bay State Park in Beaver Cove, Maine, were admittedly low. And boy, were we pleasantly surprised!
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As was the case with both Peaks-Kenny State Park and Mount Blue State Park, Lily Bay State Park was entirely new to us. As I’ve written before, we've tended to stick by the coast in our 20+ years of living in New Hampshire. This summer, however, in staying local to just New Hampshire and Maine due to the pandemic, we’ve been able to expand our horizons a bit and wander a bit further north and more inland. At four hours from home, Lily Bay State Park is far, but not too far. Situated on the gorgeous (and huge!) Moosehead Lake, Maine’s largest lake, Lily Bay State Park had a great mix of sites spread out over two distinct parts: Dunn Point and Rowell Cove. Ours was #241, located in the Dunn Point area. We had plenty of trees but not a lot of direct sunlight, something we would have appreciated as the temps dropped throughout the weekend! Ah, summer in New England is definitely nearing its end. The ONLY downside to the site was that it was near two of the vault toilets in the park. Every once in a while, a slight breeze would bring with it the faint smell of the vaults. Next time, I’ll remember to book a site further away.
We arrived mid-day on a Thursday, so we had the afternoon to explore a bit. We weren’t sure what to expect for Labor Day weekend, and while we had originally planned to stay Thursday-Sunday, we ended up leaving on Saturday due to the cold weather rolling in. We’ve found that when nighttime temps dip much below 50, we’re a little uncomfortable, and the Saturday night low was expected to be in the high 40s. Once we have a different rig (spoiler alert: coming soon!!!!), we’ll be able to extend our camping season on both ends—starting earlier and ending later. Who knows, maybe we’ll even be camping overnight in the winter months, too!! But that’s a post for another time…
A short walk led us down to the beach area of the lake, and the views did not disappoint.
After spending a bit of time exploring the beachfront area, we relaxed in our hammocks. Just as I was starting to get a fire going, I noticed a swarm of bugs around the concrete base of the fire pit—tons of them, and I couldn’t tell what kind of bugs they were at first glance. A quick Google search (yay for having cell service!) told me they were most likely flying ants. I sprayed some water around the base of the fire pit, which helped, and they didn’t seem to return the next day. So weird. No sooner did I finish playing exterminator that something caught my eye from the campsite across the way—a deer was hanging out probably only 10 feet or so from the campers. The woman was tossing it food (a no-no), and then after 10-15 minutes, the deer came over and paid us a visit. We didn’t offer any food, and so it didn’t linger for too long, but at one point, it came close enough for G to pet (he didn’t). It was gorgeous—a much more welcome visitor than the flying ants!
Dinner was leftover black bean/sweet potato/corn/olive egg rolls reheated over the fire, and then our post-dinner gaming by the fire commenced with a few rounds of Quiddler. If you’re a fan of Scrabble, I think you’ll love Quiddler. The goal of the game is to build words with the cards in your hand; each round has a specific number of cards, from three in the first round to 10 in the last. The goal is to use up all your letters (while still discarding one card in the hand) to go out before your opponent. Then, you count up the points, keeping track for each round. The winner is the one with the most points after the final round. What’s nice about the scoring is that you subtract the points for any cards unused, but you subtract only until you reach zero. In other words, you can’t go into the negative while scoring. We’re big fans.
*and for a better explanation of the rules, check them out here.
After a Friday morning breakfast of homemade (at home, not while camping) blueberry muffins and coffee, we headed down to the beach area. We had hoped to packraft on the lake, but the wind made us rethink our plans. We sat by the water for a bit (until my goosebumps got the best of me and I returned up to the campsite). We decided to take a walk from our side of the campground to the other to check out the sites. The walk from our area (Dunn Point) to the other side (Rowell Cove) and back was a little more than 3.5 miles (3.65, to be exact). I’m not sure if we have a favorite “side” of the park, as both featured some pretty great sites, some of which are waterfront. While there are no RV hookups at Lily Bay, there is a dump station.
For dinner, we stayed with our tried-and-true buffalo chicken recipe (make chicken in InstantPot, shred, mix with generous amounts of Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Sauce and bleu cheese dressing. Voila!) but instead of using the pie irons (a weekend with using the pie irons???!!!), I made them slider-style, with Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls. I had made the buffalo chicken at home and then heated up the mixture in a Lodge cast iron mini skillet over the fire. Then, once the chicken was warmed up, I assembled the sliders, topping each with a slice of smoked Gouda. Yum. But wait—it gets better—apple crisp!! Seriously, nothing says fall like apple crisp. I packed a few apples we had bought a few days earlier at our local orchard, chopped them up, tossed them with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon, added the oat-brown sugar-flour-cinnamon mixture (mixed at home and packaged separately), and topped with butter. I used another one of our mini cast iron skillets (perfect for making enough for just the two of us), and set that on the fire. So, so good—and so, so easy!
We again resumed our game-playing and opted for a few games of cribbage, followed by a few rounds of Five Crowns, made by the same makers of Quiddler. Five Crowns is a rummy-style game, with the goal of making “runs” (a sequence of three or more cards of the same suit) or “books” (three or more cards of the same value, regardless of suit). You play 12 rounds, with the number of cards dealt determined by the round. For example, in the first round, three cards are dealt; in the second, four cards. For more on the game and scoring, check out the rules here.
All in all, we were thrilled with our two nights at Lily Bay, and it definitely made the list for parks we plan to return to in the future. While we cut the weekend short by a day, we still had a fantastic two-night stay. On Saturday, after packing up (and with me second-guessing our decision to head home), we decided to make a stop to visit the memorial of the 1963 B-52 crash site nearby. That visit is worthy of its own post, so be sure to check back and read that next!