Tag: Acadia National Park

The “Adult Playground”: Acadian Chill-Out

Published on by Ben in BeninLeave a comment

After graduating and having only four months before my deployment to Benin, I have decided to take a well-deserved summer break. Relearning to relax has been rough though. I have spent the last three-and-a-half years working full-time and studying non-stop with 18 – 22 credit hour course loads and summer internships.

My life has been a Redbull-black-coffee-fueled, sleepless, academic mad-dash for the past few years. I literally would have dreams about doing tax returns in French! That is how dominant education and work have been in my life. Not even in my sleep did I get to relax. So, now that I can, I am finding my work ethic to be somewhat of an –aholism. I’m working on it though.

People say, “The Peace Corps is the hardest job you’ll ever love”, and this has encouraged me to relax while I have the chance. I also want to spend as much time seeing friends and family while I can as well. Over the last week, I had an opportunity to do both.

One of my oldest friends got a fantastic job opportunity and was fortunate enough to have some transition time off. Since my schedule was wide open, I took a bus up to Maine to visit. We decided to go check out Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island. The place has a cool history and is absolutely gorgeous. My buddy appropriately dubbed it the “Adult Playground”.

My crack at oil painting some cliffs. Impressionism is back right?

We spent a day climbing over the rocks at the edge of the crashing sea.

Took silly photos that looked like we were falling off cliffs.

Had the worst fish sandwich of my life for lunch at a touristy bar in Bar Harbor.

Had some excellent lobster for dinner at a road-side shack in Bumble F*ck.

And had a harrowing ride home (too long of a story to tell).

The rest of the visit consisted of . . .

Chilling out.

Catching up.

Chowing down.

Drinking up

Sleeping in

And generally palling around.

I would highly recommend you try doing all of these things the next time you are in Maine! All in all, it was a hilarious time and I think it was a great way to spend some time before leaving for the Peace Corps.