Exploring Close To Home

This year all of our medieval events have been canceled do to Covid . So instead of attending events on weekends we have been venturing out and about locally for something else to do. We haven’t done enough exploring close to where we live , however what we have done was really nice. Our other intention is to stay in Pennsic shape. Pennsic is a huge medieval event held at the beginning of August for two weeks in Pennsylvania. 10,000 people from all over the world attend this event every year to set up a medieval encampment that spans 1 square mile. Pennsic even gets it’s own postal code during the two weeks. So Pennsic shape means that you really need to be in good walking shape because there is A LOT of walking. I will go more in depth about Pennsic in it’s own post later. It definitely deserves it’s own post or two.

I digress. It was getting warmer out and I think everyone everywhere was getting spring fever. We wanted to be able to go to places that it was easy to stay socially distanced from people. The first place we decided to go to was Snow Falls.

Snow Falls Gorge

Snow Falls is really a rest area on RT 26 in West Paris, Maine. It is a rest stop that has this amazing gorge. The best time to visit is after a really good rainfall. This is when the water is really ripping down over the rocks and the sound of the water is thundering. It has a few very short trails along the river that are nicely shaded. There is also lots of nice vantage points to take pictures from. I love this spot, as it has fond memories for me from when I was a child. When we were on vacation, my parents would stop here for a break on our way to visit my grandparents. I have also taken my kids here since they were little. Hopefully some day they will bring their kids there as well.

After we visited Snow Falls, I didn’t think that was enough for one day so I chose a trail in Woodstock, ME. Bucks and Lapham Ledges Hiking Trail. I won’t say much about this trail because as someone who has hiked all of her life, this trail is not a trail. It is a logging road with clear cut trees on both sides and it is kind of ugly to look at. I would classify this more of a mountain biking road.

In order to get the kids out of the house I did promise ice cream. So we headed back down rt 26 to South Paris , to the Norway Soft serve. I used to live in South Paris and my kids used to walk there all the time to get ice cream . So this was a great bribe.

All in all it was a great short day trip. The only thing I would change was the trail we hiked. It was a spur of the moment choice, so next time I will plan ahead a bit better.