It was only last year that we discovered how many family-friendly activity options were along Route 26 from Gray to Newry (and probably beyond but we've only made it to Newry so far).
Between Gray and Poland there's the Maine Wildlife Park, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Range Pond and Poland Springs Preservation Park (we enjoyed the trails there last fall). Then there's the Oxford Plains Speedway and Perham's, which is a neat store where you can also pick up a map to get to their public quarries. There's more to do and see so check out more of Route 26 sites for the rest.
During this trip to Oxford county, we found quite a few yard sales and scored two new pairs of snowshoes (they were good quality and inexpensive - no more mishaps for me this coming winter/spring) along with several book sales that had titles we were looking for, including a 1970s 'How to Snowshoe' book I had to pick up just for fun.
We were so distracted by the yard sales though, we didn't get to Perham's to pick up their quarry map (they have three quarries open to the public) until after lunchtime.
With the daily thunderstorms these past few weeks, Fino and I consulted the quarry map and decided the short hike to Waisanen Quarry was a good choice for us. We figured that the 1/4 mile hike would get us back to the car quickly if a storm started to roll in during the afternoon.
The hike was easy and we were pleasantly surprised to find several wooden screens at the quarry. There were coarse and fine screens (which was even better and more unexpected to have both choices) and the kids got to digging and sifting right away. They rinsed the screens in the nearby pond and we did some reminiscing about our trip to the Western Maine Mineral Adventures with their 4-H group last summer.
We found lots of mica and feldspar, which was what this quarry was known for, as well as some clear, black and milky quartz. We didn't have any spectacular finds at the quarry and L. declared that she liked Mt. Apatite better because she thinks the purple apatite rocks she has found there are prettier. But that was OK. We enjoyed our time out in the quarry and took some time to check out the old mining relics parked nearby before we headed back to the car (which was cut a bit short as a thunderstorm started rolling in).
Do you have a favorite stop along Route 26? If you do, we'd love to hear about it because we hope to make a return to this stretch of road in a few weeks to hike at Grafton Notch State Park again. We don't mind hiking in the rain but the thunderstorms have really put a damper on our outdoors adventures this past month.
We're looking forward to getting back to the trails when this weather breaks, which should be soon. Well, it has to right?
No comments:
Post a Comment