From Portland to Mayfield Heights, Mostly Unphotographed

The only clear view my dad and I got from the top of Champlain Mountain was of a wooden signpost.

Somewhere between Portland, Maine, and Mayfield Heights, Ohio, we ate apple cider donuts, climbed rocks, looked at other rocks, sang along to rock and roll, and spent time with family and with the friends who long ago earned the title. Plenty of pictures were missed. Memories were made anyway.

Maine: a precipice, a signpost, a wall of fog

We started in Acadia National Park on the Precipice Trail, which the park introduces with a warning sign about near-vertical cliffs, iron rungs, and falls that have ended in serious injury and death. Previous hikers had covered the sign in stickers, which felt like a group decision to proceed anyway. It was billed as a hike and behaved like mountaineering.

Dad and I committed to it entirely for the view. We hauled ourselves up the iron rungs and through a boulder field, reached the summit of Champlain Mountain at 1,058 feet, and were rewarded with a signpost and a solid wall of fog. We came down with a new appreciation for the journey, which is what you say when the destination stood you up.

Why Acadia hides its views

The fog was not personal. It was physics, and the Maine coast is set up to produce it.

In summer, warm, humid air drifts north from the Gulf Stream and slides out over the Gulf of Maine, which stays stubbornly cold. Part of the reason is the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, where the tides churn the water near Grand Manan Island so thoroughly that the sun never gets to build a warm layer on top. A plume of that cold, mixed water, around 10°C (50°F) even in summer, flows southwest along the eastern Maine coast toward Mount Desert Island, where Acadia sits.

When warm, wet air crosses cold water, the bottom of the air chills to its dew point and its moisture condenses right where it is. Meteorologists call it advection fog, or sea fog, and it can roll inland over a granite summit as easily as a harbor. A National Weather Service study of buoy records found low visibility most often over the eastern and central Maine coastal waters, with July the worst month and a foggy season that runs broadly from May to October.

So we climbed a 1,058-foot mountain next to a natural fog machine during fog season. The view is up there. The ocean just had other plans.

Massachusetts: chicken-egg tag and a very famous rock

Massachusetts was where we found our rhythm. At the Barcroft Apple Fest we invented a game called chicken-egg tag and spent the rest of the afternoon perfecting it, as though anyone else would ever need the rules.

We paid our respects to a number of fascinating rocks, most notably Plymouth, and to the Mayflower II tied up a short walk away, then headed to the Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield, where we unleashed our inner creators and discovered our rhyming skills were exactly as strong as we had always feared. Dad and the bronze Lorax had a standoff outside. Negotiations stalled.

Connecticut, briefly

Connecticut got a quick but devoted visit: a tour of the Mark Twain House in Hartford and a brisk history review, the kind that reminds you how much you forgot after the test.

New York: hugs and the first fall color

New York met us with hugs and the first real fall foliage of the trip. We gathered around a delicious meal with Sister-Sister and the Sisters, which I maintain is the name of a rock band waiting to happen, and then stopped at Strawberry Place to plan future adventures with Vivien, because one road trip is never enough when you are still on one.

Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the long middle

Maryland was our final road trip pit stop, and we squeezed every hour out of it. We caught up with the Thelens, where Eleanor, Ashley and I flipped a cardboard box into a colorful animal masterpiece. Eleanor can also recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We did not test Ash.

A stop with the Reeds brought great food and serious Jackbox plans. Then we navigated all the cross-state traffic, laughing more than the traffic deserved, to an early morning catch-up with Darcee.

Gettysburg gave us a touch of history and a Starbucks, in that order, and then we rolled into our final stop.

Ohio: Monster energy and Lake Erie

In Ohio we were reunited with Jazzy and Kimie. We trekked through parks, cheered on Dad and my bonus mom at the Mammoth March (complete with all the Monster energy drinks), rocked the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, tasted the local cuisine, and sailed the waters of Lake Erie with the Cleveland skyline behind us.

If you go

• The Precipice Trail is a real climb. The National Park Service lists it as a 3.2-mile round trip that rises more than 1,000 feet in 0.9 miles, with long series of iron rungs and ladders up open cliff. Allow two to three hours. The park does not recommend it for small children, people with a fear of heights, or anyone in wet weather, and advises against descending it.
• Check that it is open. The whole trail closes for several months each year, through spring and early summer, to protect nesting peregrine falcons. Rangers enforce the closure.
• Budget for fog. On the Maine coast, July is the foggiest month and the fog season runs broadly from May to October. If the summit view is the point, leave a spare day in your Acadia plans.
• Plymouth: the Mayflower II is run by Plimoth Patuxet Museums and occasionally leaves the harbor for maintenance, so check its schedule before you plan around it.
• Springfield: the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum is part of the Springfield Museums, in the author's hometown, with a bronze sculpture garden of his characters outside.

Until next time

It was a trip held together by love, laughter, and a camera roll with more gaps than evidence. The best views were the ones nobody could photograph anyway: a cardboard animal, a new game with no rules worth writing down, a summit that showed us nothing and still felt like a win.

Until next time, USA. There are more Bruton adventures, Amazon deliveries, and service station stops in our future.