Mining for Tourmaline gems in Woodstock, Maine

On our way from Bangor to Burlington, Vermont, we stopped in Woodstock, Maine to do some mining for pretty crystals and gems.  We bought a 5 gallon bucket of rocks and panned through them to find the good stuff.

Maggie was super excited - especially since her expedition to the cave in Acadia National Park Park the previous day yielded no crystals.

She had a necklace made out of the prettiest piece of green tourmaline that she found.

Here are some of the more colorful pieces of tourmaline, amber, quartz, and lepidolite that we found.

Acadia National Park

After our Quebec adventure, we headed into Maine and stayed a few nights in Bangor.  We took a day trip to Acadia National Park.  Unfortunately, it was really crowded and unusually hot, so we spent most of the day in the car driving around, but we did stop to take some nice panoramas of the Atlantic Ocean.

We also go in some nice family pics.

BB was not cooperating, but she did agree to take a photo as long as she got to ride piggy back.

On one of the little short hikes we made from the car, some passer-byes alerted us to a cave that was accessible during low tide.

In and around the cave, there was some pretty neat invertebrate life trapped in the tidal pools.  Orange lichen...

Clams...

In the cave, there were some pink and green sponges.

Whale watching in Gulf of St. Lawrence

We spent an afternoon whale watching where the Saguenay fjord meets the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The air was kind of humid, so there was a fog lingering over the water (which is about 40 degrees).  The scenery was great.

We didn't see many whales, but we did creep up on a sleeping humpback whale, who decided to swim away when we got to close.  I caught a few pics of the fluke as she was swimming away.

We also caught a quick glimpse of a large fin whale and some belugas, which were all over the place near the dock.

Here is the harbor at Tadoussac, which we reached right as the long sunset was beginning.

The following day, we had planned to take the ferry from Ecoumins to Trois Pistols, but we didn't realize that the ferry only had two departures per day!!!  We ended up having to drive all the way back to Quebec City in order to continue on to Bangor, Maine.  Before leaving the dock, however, we took a few pictures of the girls.