Acadia National Park and Cape Breton

Going along with the places I have visited and my experiences, a trip that really sticks out to me was when my family went to Cape Breton.  Cape Breton, Nova Scotia is in Canada, and the drive was a long one from Albany, New York.  Along the way we stopped and camped in Acadia National Park in Maine, which is an absolutely beautiful park.  Again I don't remember much because I was pretty young at the time, probably 6 or 7, but there are certain things that I remember from this trip which still feel special to me.

On our drive to Cape Breton, I remember we were driving at night and we came across a mother moose and her two calves in the middle of road.  I remember being enraptured by this and also terrified.  My dad said we had to be careful being so close because the father was probably close by.    We had to wait probably half an hour before they moved off the road, but it was so cool to see wild animals like that, especially moose; you don't see those up close that often.  Later down the road we saw one running through the woods, which we assumed was the father.  When we finally arrived at Cape Breton, we set up camp.  Cape Breton is an island in Nova Scotia, known for its cliffs over the ocean.  We actually were camping along the cliffs and had a fantastic view of the Atlantic.  During the day, you could see pods of whales on the horizon.  We had kayaks with us, but my dad was the only one that went kayaking; sea kayaking is extremely hard to navigate and really no place for kids.  I was always jealous though, because my dad got to kayak with seals.  Today, I don't even know if I would want to go sea kayaking, the waves are totally different than a lake, even when it's windy!  But back to cliff camping...

We camped for about a week, and while we were there a family from Germany was camping next to us.  Their son was around my age and our parents encouraged us to play together.  I distinctly remember trying to play Trouble with him and I remember being very frustrated; He knew very little English but eventually we both figured out how to communicate with each other relatively well.  By the next day we were playing hide-and-go-seek with each other and tag.  I always think back to that trip and meeting him (I don't remember his name, unfortunately) and its funny to think that even though we didn't know each other's languages, we were still able to play games together.  That's another aspect of AmeriCorps that I would be really excited for--getting the chance to meet new people, people from different countries and learning about their experiences.  That's definitely the cool thing about traveling to new places like National Parks; everyone is a tourist!  And tourists come from everywhere.

(Screenshots from @acadianps, @piefortheroad, @mistyodellmusic on Instagram)