Acadia National Park (Banned Version)

A few months back I wrote a blog post about my trip to Acadia National Park with my children. It was just me and the five kids - so no adult supervision. I prepared two versions of that post: the official version, and the band version. No, there are no pictures of me running au naturel through the nature of Maine, thank goodness. Instead, I wanted to show what a man does with his offspring when there aren’t more sensible dissenting voices around. Since a friend of mine said that I was the best dad in regard to a previous adventure post with my kids, I thought it only fair to finish this post and set the real record straight.

So below are redacted excerpts of the trip that were not shown to the general public and shows why I always keep backup kids in inventory:

Redaction 1 - Can we get across this? 

Yes, we spent several minutes considering how we can get the whole family across the overflowing and churning river. And baby tossing across the gap was not out the question. I'm pleased to report that after consultation with a 13-year-old and 12-year-old we opted to double back and take a different route.

Redaction 2 - Sure you can climb that.

After soaking ourselves during the hike, we finally found the beach which had some neat, but slick rocks to climb. So when your son asks to climb the wet rocks….  Hey, there was some soft sand at the bottom.

Redaction 3 - Can I play near the big waves? “Why yes.”

We found a great point with large crashing waves beating against the rocky beach. This was fascinating for the kids and so long as they ran when the big waves came, why not?

  

Redaction 4 - Dad do you think I can jump this?

You mean this large crevasse over the in-rushing jetty of bubbling ocean? Well let's find out.

Redaction 5 - Can I scale down a cliff into the little cave that the ocean keeps filling up?

Yes, just don't fall (see there were some good parenting skills there) 

Redaction 6 - Blowhole photo

The kids found a spot where the waves crash against the cliffs and sprayed huge geysers of water all over.

So naturally we decide to stand there to pose for a photo. As I am looking back at the camera, this wave which is coming into view absolutely swamps all of us.

Redaction 7 – The Beehive

We found an interesting hike called the Beehive. The map said it was a little tricky, but hey I'm a pretty experienced hiker and I'm only taking along five kids who are all older than three.

It featured many narrow hiking trails with no railings and only 30 foot cliffs on one side.

At one point, I decide to be a safe father and told everyone seven and under that they had to wait with me while the older kids finished the remaining third of the hike – unsupervised of course. After only one of the three children returned, I left him with the youngest two on a generally safe cliff edge and ran up the mountain to find the two stragglers.  I found them and got all of the kids together.

 

This is a view of the trail going down where I found the kids , you can see the metal rail.

Proudly, we all made it down safely. In honor of our accomplishment, we decided to pose for one more photo next to a cliff - this one overlooking the ocean.

Redaction 8 – Daddy I’m not Buckled
After making it through the park safely and hitting the road back to New Hampshire, it should all be safe from there. That is until after an hour into the ride, the three-year-old hopped out of his car seat leans forward to say "Daddy, I am not buckled." I guess you only need a seatbelt on when you're crashing.

Notice: no children or fathers were harmed in the making of this blog post or during the trip depicted there in.

[Blog dictated by Dragon voice-recognition software. All liability for typos, misspellings, dirty words, innuendos, and blasphemy rests solely on the shoulders of their substantially capable, yet often imperfect, programmers. No liability is accepted on my part for a slight Utah accent and rather incoherent mumbling into my microphone.]