Beach to Beacon and Acadia Nat'l Park

A while ago, Lisa searched around for races in New England and found a race near Portland, Maine called "Beach to Beacon." Its a 10K race which is extremely popular and the registration closed within 24 hrs -- so we were lucky to get a spot! Lily and some of her friends signed up as well, so we planned a little weekend around it.

Well, it turned out that Lily's friends backed out at the last minute and Lily had a bum foot. She decided to come anyway and we headed up to beautiful Cape Elizabeth, Maine (the start of the race). Cape Elizabeth was beautiful and we explored around a bit, saw a few lighthouses, walked around Higgins Beach, then ate some fresh seafood at a local restaurant. While eating, a guy named Uncle Don came up and greeted us. No joke.

Everyone in Maine seems to either be there enjoying the summer from a plethora of places ranging from Ohio to Quebec...or locals who are super friendly! It was also funny hearing people comment upon seeing that our license plate was from Texas. We heard at least 5 people say something along the lines of, "Oh my, they're from Teeeeexxxxxxxxassss?!" Good times.

On Friday night, we stayed at a sketchy Travelodge and left around 6:30am to make it in time for the 8:00am start. Lisa had a sore neck/shoulder and Lily had an enormous growth on her left foot, but we did the 10K race regardless. The course was actually quite nice - rolling hills and nice views (although not as much waterfront as we imagined). We finished at around the 55 minute mark, about twice as long as the 1st place finisher, a Kenyan. Kenyans and Ethiopians pretty much dominated the race...all 10 top finishers were foreigners!

Afterwards, we made the 3.5 hour drive to Acadia National Park. A bit about Acadia: it was the 1st national park east of the Mississippi and is just a tiny spec of land on a peninsula along Maine's far Northeast coast. We had heard great things about Acadia and were super excited. Well, it was absolutely breathtaking! The weather was foggy/misty and a bit unpredictable (apparently this is pretty normal), but the park was spectacular nevertheless.

We now are official National Park passholders ($80 for the year), and are valid park visitors until August 31, 2009. So our goal between now and then is to visit as many US Nat'l Parks as humanly possible, gas prices withstanding. Check out all our beautiful parks at this link. The neat part is that you can actually use this pass at a number of Federal Recreation sites beyond Nat'l Parks (such as those managed by the Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, etc.).

Anyhow, check out our pass below...and let us know if you have any ideas of where we should go next (we have the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone on our list)! And if you ever get the chance, you must go and check out Acadia!