I FINALLY GOT TO GO TO MAINE IN THE SUMMERTIME!
The weather was perfect and there were so many different places to explore. Will had always wanted to go on a camping trip down the Saco River, and since I had never officially been camping, I wasn’t going to say no. And it also sounded like a lot of fun. Apparently the Saco can go two ways — you can go on the weekend with a ton of crazy, drinking, loud, partying kids. OR you can go on a weekday where it will be a lot less crowded. I prefer nature being nature so I was glad when the only days we could go were a Monday / Tuesday. Some blogs made it sound like a total craphole that had been “ruined” by partying, but honestly I didn’t see any of that. It was actually a lot cleaner than I expected.
If you care about logistics : we took 2 cars and 2 canoes. Dropped off both canoes at Swan Falls, drove 2 cars to Brownfield Bridge and left one there so we could drive back to Swan the next day and pick up the other car. Kind of confusing but it worked. WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE DONE THOUGH: is parked the 2nd car at Walker’s Bridge, making the trip 10 miles instead of 20. (doing 10 miles the 2nd day was rough, especially in the cold, pouring rain 😦 ) There are tons of camp grounds between Swan and Walker’s Bridge, and we were very slow paddlers who liked to stop at every beach and every rope swing.
The water was really shallow most of the way there. If it was warmer / if I was a little kid again I would have spent most of the day in the tube.
There are campgrounds with bathrooms / grills you can use / reserve? I’m not sure how it works. But they weren’t as far down the river as we wanted to be (we were hoping to go half way the first day). This is our little beach though and it worked out fine. I also heard a fisher cat for the first time, so that was terrifying.
So many rope swings!!
I’m not going to go into how the next day it started non-stop raining starting at 9 AM and I got 35 bug bites, but it happened. Apparently the rain just can’t stay away from me haha.
Day 2 was a learning experience but I would definitely do it again! Saco is awesome.
A Place in Prague 