It was our intention to leave the Boston area Thursday evening. The iffy forecast gave us pause, so modifying the departure to a first-in-the-morning wake and dash seemed sensible. I say the weather, but that’s not it really. It was the prospect of sitting in traffic for hours in the rain, setting up a tent in the rain and dark, only to lay down to a questionable sleeping experience. How ’bout we just leave in the AM? Yup.

Camping

We did our homework months ago, choosing the area and specific campground – these are things you do in February to keep sane! Building off an amazing camping experience in the vicinity last summer, we figured a bit farther up the coast towards Camden would be a solid basecamp to explore the area… or just chill in the woods and doing nothing!

This stretch is known for its rocky shores, hence towns with names like Rockport, Rockland and McRockenstan.

OK, I made that last one up.

We stayed at a quaint, clean and on the smallish side campground, sandwiched between coastal Route 1 and the ocean. It was a wooded loop layout that catered to RV folks, tent campers and even had some cabins. My kind of place!

Before we could fully exit our vehicle, we were verbally bombarded by our new neighbor, a friendly, but overly chatty, newly retired nurse solo camper. Luckily, she was accompanied by an equally friendly (but less talkative) black furred collie mix named Ray Charles. I let the nurse spend her ammo, while politely smiling, nodding and petting the pupper.

The site had all your standard campground amenities (none of which we really utilized, but would be nice and/or necessary for an extended stay), but the feature that really stood out was a brook. It ran the length of one side of the property, down to the ocean in a little waterfall.

The rain, we learned from the chatterbox, was a torential downpour the night before, washing out most of the lower sites, ours included. Our laziness or contempt for traffic turned out to be quite beneficial. No one likes a camping trip that starts off with a first night soaker!

Adventuring

We started our local adventuring with a quick hike. The trailhead was maybe a mile up Rt. 1. The hike put us on a steady climb through the woods for twenty minutes, opening into a beautiful hilltop pasture. A solid stone building perched upon its crest, enjoying a 360 degree view: open ocean and harbor islands east, misty shrowded mountains inland. It was spectacular despite an overcast sky. We made a semi-serious commitment on the spot to come back for sunrise (if we could get our fannies out of the tent that early!).

Continuing the hiking vibe, our next adventure involved meandering about a nature center located a few more miles up Rt 1. The center was closed, but we just wanted to walk the grounds anyway, so it worked out great. We had the whole place to ourselves for an hour.

We enjoyed walking through the various gardens. Ms IS spotted a cute little groundhog and tried her best to encourage him to come out from under a shed to say hello. We hiked trails through fields, bogs and an arboretum with dozens of different tree species.

As you can see, I enjoyed capturing the flowers. They had so many different varieties!

It wasn’t to be all smooth sailing, as it turns out. We reserved, and then promptly worked ourselves into a tizzy of excitement over the prospect of a two hour ecotour schooner ride. A two-for-one deal through the campsite to sweeten the deal. We were pumped!

Unfortunately, bands of t-storms rolled through most of the afternoon – it even hailed later in the day! – which made the skippper call off the afternoon slot cruise. Bummer dudes!

We made lemonade by heading off to an (extremely rocky) beach for a couple hours.

Eating

The lady and I can be foodies to an extent – not the snooty kind of course, we just love cooking, eating and experimenting with new ingredients and flavors. Beyond a truly rad fish sandwich acquired via roadside shack, we didn’t have any noteworthy dining out culinary experiences.

HOWEVER, it is becoming a bit of a tradition for us to do seafod by campfire. It takes a bit of work to stoke up and maintain good hot coals, but dang is it tasty and a fun activity around a fire! We grabbed two lobsters at $8.99/lb. and two pounds of steamers at $5.99/lb. Not too bad for the freshest and tastiest you can get! I didn’t take any pictures this time, but a future post on backwoods clambaking techniques may be warranted?

I hope you’re fully into the swing of summer. Here in New England, it goes quick. We’ve got most of the calendar spoken for with weekend warrior adventures that we are excited to undertake (and write about). We’ll try not to book it all out so we can stay flexible and take advantage of spontanous cool stuff going on in our neck of the city.

I’ll leave you with a final thought and a personal highlight of the trip. Simple, but memorable. The campground woods are home to the paleated woodpecker. While working up the campfire to make breakfast the final morning, I was serenaded by two of these melodious wood miners. Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat. They pecked away, sometimes in unison, sometimes in round robin call. Their machine gun bursts of sound reverberated through the stillness of the morning forest. “Much better than car horns,” I reflected, placing a log on the fire.