DAY 1 Our first day's adventures included riding the carriage trail around Eagle Lake. It was just shy of six miles and thanks to a tip from one of the rangers, a fairly easy ride. The trick about biking around Eagle Lake is to ride with the lake to your LEFT. It's mostly downhill that way and a good introduction to the carriage trails. There were a couple of uphill climbs on this trail and since the girls were carrying extra weight on their bikes they weren't used to (we added racks to the back of their bikes for their backpacks) we got off our bikes and walked them for a bit when the peddling got hard for them. After our ride around Eagle Lake we decided to start the EarthCache program. I don't want to give away any secrets but at some point, after solving riddles and figuring out coordinates to new locations, we ended up climbing to the top of the South Bubble. Our first day to the park was a work-out but everyone left ready for more the next day.
DAY 2 Our second bike ride was supposed to be a bit more difficult ride than Eagle Lake but I took a wrong turn and it turned in to a whopper of a challenge. We started at Parkman Mountain and turned on to a trail I thought would take us to the Waterfalls Bridge. We did eventually get to that bridge but in a major round-about sort of way. We took the Around the Mountain trail to Gilmore Meadow. At that point we ate lunch and continued on the Seven Bridges trail that lead up Parkman Mountain (not to the precise summit cairn but pretty darn close). This turned out to be a serious elevation gain (about 450 feet) and not a ride I would recommend for anyone unless they were serious riders (reap the benefit of this advice from our mistake!). The girls were troopers on this trail and those long rides we've been taking around southern and central Maine this spring really helped their legs handle this particular ride. But truth be told, we did quite a bit of walking our bikes uphill with many water/snack breaks along the way. The whole trek turned out to be nearly 10 miles, which was mostly uphill, to eventually get to the Waterfall Bridge. The kids were not as impressed with the beautiful views on this trail - or the waterfall - as they would have been had we taken the shorter loop I had originally planned. And as if this is any surprise, the girls (and Fino) spent a good deal of time at the top of Parkman Mountain eating lunch and lamenting my map reading skills (which normally are pretty good). Ooops. Since we had hiked a couple of miles around the Otter Cliffs trail on Gorham Mountain *before* we undertook this bike ride, my crew was seriously tired. But everyone seemed to forgive my poor navigation skills once they ordered big sundaes at the Dairy Bar before heading back to our cottage. Oh, and we did manage to complete the EarthCache program and report back to the ranger’s station with the answer to the final riddle before we left the park that night. I must fess up however that one of the riddles required some serious thinking and a math calculation that I‘m embarrassed to say took Fino and I more than a few minutes to figure out. We were tired. That must have been the reason for our lack of problem solving skills. Yeah, that was reason. An upside to our long day, at least in my opinion, was that coaxing my crew to shut off the cable TV (a highlight of the trip since we don’t have it at home) was minimal.
DAY 3 The kids and Fino said they needed a break from bike riding on our last day so we decided to hike to the top of Gorham Mountain. We enjoyed the trail but with a 500-foot elevation gain to the summit and then another bit of climbing to The Bowl, we opted to hike the Beehive Trail for a only a short time before heading back down the Bowl trail to Ocean Drive. We agreed this wasn’t the trip to hike the Beehive (rated "difficult" by the park service because of exposed ledges and cliffs with a warning on the map's description, "adults with a fear of heights should stick to the Bowl Trail"). Next time we decided. We needed a little more energy to tackle that one. If you’ve never been to Acadia, you really are missing out on a wonderful, relatively inexpensive family vacation. We stayed in a small cabin with an efficiency kitchen for about $70/night (that’s a spring rate, prices go up in July and August) and ate out only one night (which also included an ice cream stop) thanks to the food we brought from home. The park fee was $10 for the week and other than gas, we had no other expenses. The memories of this trip - the good, the silly and the navigationally challenged - will likely be shared with much animation by the girls to anyone who will listen. That will have been worth every penny spent ... ... and then some.
Eagle Lake
Close to the end of our ride around Eagle Lake, L. still had some energy to goof around with her imitation of a shark (which came about because her sister thought this duck looked like a shark when it's head was in the water).
Atop the South Bubble overlooking Jordan Pond.
L. thought this rock looked like a butt crack, which of course was hysterically funny.
More of our 'trick' photography with the "jellybean" (a glacial erratic) at the top of Cadillac Mountain.
Exploring the caves at Otter Cliffs on Gorham Mountain was fun.
We all spent some time taking a closer look at the beaver's work on this tree. Touching the teeth marks and scrapings was pretty cool.
One of many water breaks biking up the trail around Parkman Mountain.
At least everyone mustered up a smile once we got to the Waterfall bridge.
The look on the kids faces when they realized what was going to happen would have been a prize winner if I could have captured that moment on my camera. But I was at the back of the crowd with no room to move to get that shot.
Then there was the 'cleaning out' process that involved pulling out handfuls of manure before inserting the ultrasound probe.
And I don't know if this process is like yawning or not but all the cows around us starting letting loose. Since there were cows on both sides of our group, most of us did some quick moving around to avoid the splashing and splatters.
It was quite an hour in the barn.
There were a variety of workshops offered through other academic departments and G. and her friends had a chance to explore other academic areas (fine arts, physics, etc.) in various buildings around campus and really enjoyed the experience.
Workshops were scheduled until 11 p.m. on Saturday and it took a while to get all the kids settled in to their rooms for the night. Since wake-up calls were made a 6:30 a.m., there wasn't much sleeping during this conference so when we finally rolled into our driveway on Sunday, we were all thoroughly exhausted.
But G.'s thinking college is cool and that was worth a sleepless weekend to me.
This conference is an annual event held in mid-May and open to all Maine 4-Hers. If you're interested in learning more about 4-H (it's not all about animals), 
Now we just have to find 3 more EarthCaches and develop one of our own (
Geocachers use the compass screen to follow the arrow to the geocache as well as the distance you are currently from it. The trick about using the unit's compass is that it points to the direction of the cache, not necessary the way you should actually hike to it. Following the trail and GENERAL direction of the compass arrow is the safest way to find your hidden treasure.
I also taught some of the kids in my classes how to MARK their own waypoint. Several 4-H projects these kids are working on require them to make their own maps and highlight particular points on that map.
If you've never played the Geocache game before, here is G.'s (she just turned 12) explanation.
______________________________________________________________
1. What is Geocaching?
It is a game you play with a GPS to find hidden treasure.
2. How do you play?
First you go on to www.geocaching.com to look for geocache coordinates. You need those to find the hidden treasure. Once you see a cache you want to enter it in to the GPS unit. The coordinates are called waypoints.
3. How do you find a cache?
Now you drive to the trail where the cache is hidden and turn on your GPS. Find the nearest waypoints on your GPS and look for the name of the cache on your waypoint list. Then you click on it and you will see a screen that says “go to.” Click on that button. That button will show you a compass. The compass will tell you how far the cache is and the arrow will tell you which direction to walk to find the cache.
4. What do you look for?
The GPS will only lead you to within 30 feet of the cache. Once you get to 30 feet you start looking for the cache. You look for sticks that are stacked together or rocks that the cache is hidden under. Once you find it you open it and put your name in the log book so people know you have been to the cache. And then you can have a toy. You can take one but you have to leave one too. You can not take a toy and not give the cache one. Once you are done with your trade you put the book and geocache back the way you found it. Then you come home and log on to Geocaching.com and post that you found the cache.
______________________________________________________________
I also added this bit of info to her explanation of the game ...