Our summer plans initially included a few days in New Orleans (a conference for G, and a few days for me to play tourist) and then a two-week trip to the West Coast—a week in Washington State with family then a weeklong road trip down the Oregon Coast and into Northern California. We were looking forward to a few camping weekends as well, but most of those hadn’t been planned out at that point. And then, well, the global pandemic. Needless to say, our plans went out the window once COVID-19 hit. We canceled all of our bookings and flights and even the two camping reservations we had already booked. We cleared our calendars. As for summer? We would simply wait and see. Now, as I write this, we’re currently scheduled to be camping 30 days this summer, in 11 different parks (I’m hoping those numbers increase with the addition of more reservations—we’ll see!) throughout Maine and New Hampshire.

That same stillness and quiet in a typically bustling place is what draws us to Acadia National Park in the off-season, and in the winter in particular. While sharing the park, one of the most visited in the country, with so many others is certainly fun on some level of community and camaraderie, we’ve come to love the days and months when we can hear our only our own footsteps on a trail or when we share “hellos” with only a few others.

Our “camping” lasted a few years. I’m not sure how or why we stopped. But in my mind, I yearned to a return to that vision of ourselves. But now, in my mid-40s and G in his early 50s, the idea of sleeping in a tent on the ground wasn’t one that we were both thrilled to return to. And then I started looking at vans. And rooftop tents. And trailers. And then back to vans. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that we bought a van in November—a 2002 VW Eurovan Weekender…with the cool Westfalia pop-top. She’s a beauty; I’m in love. And for Memorial Day weekend, we headed off to Maine for our maiden voyage.