Things to do in the Area

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Yesterday, I was listening in on Tami’s phone conversation with a camper, and they asked her what there was to do in the area.

“Why would anyone want to LEAVE the campground?”  I grumbled, after she’d hung up the phone.

“Maxx, Maxx, Maxx,” she laughed.  “There’s more out in the world than just the campground you know.”

GASP! “Bite your tongue!” I said.  “Everything they need is right here!

Like swimming and kayaking and fishing in the lake

Wildlife watching too!  Especially the eagles, beavers, loons and herons.

What about races in the pool, huh?

and other cool kids activities like ice cream making, horseshoes, kids candy bar bingo, Wednesday night campfires with popcorn, pool tournaments, arts and crafts and sports and games and stuff

I mean, we’ve got lots of wicked fun themes and stuff happening every day, all day in July and August!”

I was on a roll now!   “And . .  and . . .  there’s spectacular shows like BJ Hickman, The Steelgraves and Mad Science . . .”

Tami held up a hand to interrupt me.   “All those things are fun Maxx, but so is going to the  Maine Wildlife Park just down the road.  I love to watch the moose, raccoons, mountain lion, lynx and coyotes, porcupines and black bears.

And you know how much we like to go hiking and geo-caching.  Especially on our two new favorite trails,  Mt. Apatite and Mt. Rattlesnake The views from the peaks were amazing,  and our customers will think so too.

exploring Portland’s  Old Port, is always fun, and so is taking a cruise around the harbor, spending time in the  museums, hanging out at the   Head Light

and exploring the rocky coastline of Two Lights.”

Tami shook her finger at me.  “Even David and I escape one day a week to play outside the campground.  There’s so many places to go and things to do, we always have a hard time choosing.  Beaches, museums, shopping, restaurants, tours  . . . I had to make a booklet for our customers about it all.”

I folded my arms.  “Yeah. Okay.  So, maybe your right.  But we have one thing that NONE of those places has.”

“Really? And what’s that Maxx?”

“None of them have ME!

Maxwell Moose!”

Tami patted my nose.   “You are one of a kind Maxx.  That’s why we keep you.”

Tami adds:  Click on the tags to the right: hiking, day trips or things to do to bring up blog posts about other fun things to do in the area.

Book your campsite early!

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Hey Maax here!

Don’t worry, Tami doesn’t know I stole the blog back.  She’s too busy doing this  . . .

Poor, poor Tami.  She’s been soooooo busy taking new reservations and processing deposits to hold existing ones, that she fell asleep at her desk!   I took a little peek over her shoulder while she drooled all over her lap top and I saw 28 confirmations ready to go out in tomorrow’s mail.  Yesterday, she processed 22 and the day before that 25!

Sites are going fast I tell you . . . fast!

So I visited with Ben instead.  He’s more fun anyway.  We  wrestled jumped on the couch celebrated the beginning of February vacation, and I asked him if he had a clue what theme weekends were booking the quickest.

“Well,” he said, while digging into a carton of ice cream,  “I heard Mom grumbling about Memorial Day almost being booked and wishing she had double the sites.”

“That one has fun kid’s activities” I said.  “Remember the  awesome Pots and Pans Parade!?  There was red, white and blue all over the place.  They decorated wagons and bikes and clothes  . . .”

Ben waved his spoon at me, splattering my antlers with ice cream.  “Oh, and she said there were three calls, back to back,  for Super Hero weekend too.”

“Da, da, da-DA!  Mighty Moose!”  I said.  “Good times, good times.”

Ben nodded.  “That one’s pretty cool, but I like Halloween best. You know, all those games and prizes and 132 sites to trick or treat at.  Hey!  I still have some candy under my bed!”

We were just unwrapping our fourth mini snickers when the camp phone started ringing.  Ben threw his candy bag  back under the bed.  “Fun’s over.  Mom’s gonna wake up to take that call.”

From down the hall we hear Tami snort, stretch and answer the phone, “Poland Spring Campground, can I help you?   Labor Day?  Three families?  Sure!  I can do that . . . ”

Take it from me . . . this is no time for a siesta!  Book your camping vacation early!

Can You Help Us “Think Spring”?

Hi!  Tami here . . .

A little bird told me I’d better check out the blog, and it’s a good thing I did!  That Maxwell!  He’s always sneaking on  to post something.  Even when I ask him to do the posting, he never does it like I tell him to.

I say: Tell your camping friends, the Calendar of Events will be out in the mail soon.

He posts: Hey!  Guess what?  I kind-of-sort-of- got a sneak peek at the 2010 Calendar of Events and here it is!

I say:    Maxx, post a little blurb about our Medieval Weekend.  Throw three or four pictures in there too.

He posts: Twenty pictures and two pages about all the fun medieval recreation games we had that weekend.

I say: Don’t post that picture of me in a gas mask!

He posts:    That picture of me in a gas mask.

Sigh.

This week, Maxx was really worried because one of his facebook camping friends told him they couldn’t “Think Spring”, no matter how hard they tried.

“Tami, Tami, what do we do?” he asked.

“Did you mention the cracklin’ campfire?  Remind her of the sad loon calls?”

“I did, I did!” he said.

“Really, Maxx, she’ll be fine,” I said.

Maxx wrung his hands.  “No, no she won’t.  She needs some spring NOW!“   And he ran off into the campground to find spring.

I don’t think he’s going to find it, do you?  Even the groundhog insisted there’d be six more weeks of winter, no matter how hard Maxx tried to get him to change his mind.

But maybe these pictures that the Snowdon’s sent in will help.

They camped with us last August and caught these beauties

There’s three generations of fisherman there!

So what about all of you?  Can you help poor Maxx out?  If you have any pictures from your stay at Poland Spring Campground that can help us all start Thinking Spring, e-mail them to us and we’ll post them here!

Guess What??

Today, I accidentally on purpose,  kind-of-sort-of,  peeked at the papers on Tami’s desk while she was helping David do some outside work.  And you know what?

I got a really, really good look at the Theme Weekend line up!!   Tami hasn’t even given it to David.  It’s not on the website. It hasn’t been mailed out to anyone.  That’s how new it is!!

You wanna know what’s happening?  Huh??

Do you??

Huh?

Here it is!  Just for my little camping buddies.  But don’t tell Tami I showed you . . . okay?

Apr 30 – May 2     Clean Up Weekend

May 7 – 9            Mother’s Day Champagne Breakfast

May 15th            Bouncy House with ME!

May 21 – 23        Ice Cream Party with Pot Luck Toppings as an entrance fee

May 28 – 31        Memorial Day Weekend (3 night minimum)

June 5th             The Bouncy House with YOURS TRULY again!

June 12th           Ice Cream Party with Pot Luck Topppings

(Hey!  Why aren’t I going to the ice cream party?)

June 19th           Father’s Day Chicken B-B-Q

and Father/Child Horseshoe Tournament

June 25 – 27      Chinese New Year weekend

July 2 – 5             Fourth of July

with BJ Hickman magically appearing Friday night.

July 9 – 11           Pirate Weekend featuring The Magic of the Steelgraves!

July 16 – 18        Christmas in July with Santa!!

July 23 – 25      Super Hero Tryouts Weekend

with Mad Science and their Up, Up and Away show!

Jul 30 – Aug 1      Fiesta Weekend with Pinatas

and a big party in the playing field

Aug 6 – 8                 Medieval Weekend

Aug 13 – 22            Halloween Weekend . . . two times!

Aug 27 – 29           Adventurer Weekend!

Sep 3 – 6                  Labor Day Weekend

Debbie and Bryant have come up with some new games and stuff too!  And as always, all the recreation at Poland Spring Campground is free . . .

FREE!

FREE!

And you know what else I saw?  They have new discounts for campers who want to stay longer.

No, really!!

Stay one week and get 15% off.

Stay one month and get 30% off

Stay two months or more and get 35% off!

Can you believe it?  And it includes your electric usage too.

I fell over when I saw that . . .

Maybe all my little camping buddies can stay a little longer this year!

WooHoo!

Closing Weekend??!!

What?

Tami just told some guy on the phone that this is our last weekend!

Ack!

It can’t be the last one!  We just opened the campground yesterday, right?

No?

But . . .

but . . .

I never got in the boucy house!

I never got to drive the golf cart!  I never got to taste a half a chicken at the B-B-Q

or take a kayak ride . . . or get a tattoo

Tami promised me a tattoo!!!

Sigh.

I can’t just sit around and let them close my campground.  I need more relay races!  More water balloon slingshot!  More hayrides and magicians and ice cream making and arts and crafts and science guy and bubble play and volleyball and horseshoes and

Storytime!  Who’s gonna read me stories now?

Awwww!

Maybe Alex will talk to Tami and Dave for me.

Maybe not.

I know!  I’ll talk to Santa . . .

No, no.  Santa’s too busy gettin’ ready for Christmas.

Only 76 days left you know.

Debbie and Bryant and I  can round up the 2009 pirate crew!  Arrrrgh!

Or the PS Campground Justice League!

Nooooo, wait.  You’re all in school.  Sigh.

Oh!  Oh!  What about the Burger King!  He’d  fight for more cookouts and campfires!

Or a gorilla!  I bet he’d scare Tami so bad, she’d do anything to keep the camp open!

No, that won’t work.  Tami’s pretty scary too sometimes

she’d probably scare the gorilla.

That’s it!  I’m taking the golf cart and driving to . . . to . . . somewhere!  And I’m not coming back until Tami and Dave keep the campground open.

So there!

Buuuuut . . .  Bryant says I can’t do that either.

I don’t have a drivers license.

I can’t do anything I want to do!

Sigh.

Double Sigh.

Guess I’ll just sit here and pout till opening day on April 30th.

What?  Someone’s calling me . . . it’s . . . it’s . ..

Tami!

She wants to take a walk to the lake with Cookie!

She wants to check on the beaver huts and the eagles and the loons.  Do I hear the geese and the ducks??

Tami and Ben are dusting off their snow shoes!

Yes!

Hey!  Come back and check the blog this winter, okay?  I’ll post lots of cool stuff . . .

and maybe I’ll even think of a way to get in that bouncy house!

Fall is officially here . . .

“Where?” I asked Tami.  “Where’s Fall?”

“All around us,” she said.

I couldn’t believe it was here already, so I took a little walk around the campground and look what I found!

From the tips of tree branches, down to the ground, color is peeking through everywhere.  Acorns and pine cones plinked and plunked onto trailer roofs.  One acorn even fell on my head!  Ouch!

I swear a chipmunk laughed at me too.

Tami and I were going through the photos she took this summer, remembering all the wicked cool recreation we’d had and you know what we decided?

We have some well dressed campers!

Pink from her eyeglasses to her puddle jumpers!

I especially love the heeled shoes!

Ummm . . . I’d say these guys are more like . . . oddly dressed campers.

Oh!  Guess what popped up in our campground in-box last week??

Mark Lippke sent a photo of his ‘catch-of-the-day’!!  Isn’t it a beauty?

And the Chicoine’s sent in this photo

from our Labor Day Seasonal Dinner.   Ed, who’d been seasonal with us for 17 years, has made 2009 his final year.  Some of us are taking his announcement better than others . . . I think Tami’s on her 10th box of tissues . . .nope . . . make that 11 boxes after posting this!

If anyone else out there would like to share a photo from their stay with us, please feel free to contact us through the website!

Labor Day Weekend

I really didn’t want Labor Day Weekend to come, ’cause I knew it was the last one with fun recreation stuff to do.  But you know what?

It was a blast!

Debbie and Bryant picked all their favorites like  teen ping pong, waterballoon slingshot, adult bingo, egg games, jewelry making, a seed spitting contest, and a labor day parade

These guys made soooo much noise with their pots and pans, and the shakers they made at arts and crafts!  It was awesome!   Their bikes looked really good too . . . all red, white and blue.

I decided I wanted to lead this rowdy, patriotic group around the campground.  Debbie said, “Go right ahead, Maxx.  Jump on the golf cart.”

So I did.

Bryant jogged right over.  “Debbie meant you could ride on the cart, Maxx.  Not drive it.”

“I’ve watched you,” I told him.  “I know where the gas pedal is . . . and the brake thingy.”

Bryant rolled his eyes.  “You need a drivers license Maxx.  That’s the rules.”

Rules, schmules.  Who makes them anyway?

There was a horseshoe tournament too, a scavenger hunt, hayride

and Kid’s Candy Bar Bingo!!

Bryant and Alex said there were 90

90!

candy bars!

Can you believe it?

The winner of the cover-all game walked away with 23 candy bars!  Hmmmm – I wonder  -   if I asked reeeeee-ally nice . . . . pretty please-ish . . .  I wonder if he’d share?

And that was just Saturday’s stuff.

On Sunday we had story time and a snack with yours truly

ceramics, pool relay races, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, waterballoon target practice, arts and crafts, capture the flag and an adult dart tournament.

Whew!!

It all came and went so fast.  One minute I was in front of the store with all my little camping buddies around me.  The next minute, I was trying to figure out where they all went!

I hope everyone is having a good school year so far . . . can’t wait to see you all again!  The campground’s open till Columbus Day, so if you get the hankering to camp one more time, to have s’mores over the campfire or kayak the lake while the trees burst with red, yellow and orange . . . come and see us!

Adventure Weekend

Hey everybody!!  Adventure weekend was loads of fun!

We had all our usual recreation, plllllll-uuuuus

we made bug catchers, went on a bug hunt and then raced them!

Can you see two daddy-long-legs and a beetle?  I don’t remember which bug won, but everyone had a blast!

We made some paper airplanes and helicopters too!  Then we had waterballoon target practice, you know, in case any   evil villains were lurking around the campground.

There were loads of inside party games, lasso training and tattoos for everyone

Except me, of course.  Tami still hasn’t found any tattoos that’ll stick to fur.

On Sunday, there was story time, bubble play, ceramics, Spy Training Camp, and then a Clued Treasure Hunt!  My camping buddies started out with one clue, that led to another, that led to another

until they had all nine!  The last clue told them to put the pieces together to find the hidden treasure spot, so they turned the clues over

and rearranged them until they saw

the climber!!

So they hurried to it and started digging until they found gold coins, necklaces and rings!!

Afterward there was ultimate frisbee and darts too.

Now Bryant and Debbie have their heads together, planning Labor Recreation.  They’ve taken all their favorite things and crammed them into one weekend.  Candy bar bingo, egg games, arts and crafts, ultimate frisbee, ping pong, adult bingo, a parade and much, much more!

You’ll just have to see it to believe it!

Medieval Weekend

Maxx here!

There was so much for my little campers to do over Medieval Weekend!  Charging and jousting

ferrier fetching (horseshoes),  bocci,volleyball, boat races,

princess and Robin Hood hat making

shield making, cannon ball target practice, a penny hunt, viking ships in arts and crafts, swordplay

a scavenger hunt, porridge eating

and hayrides

Halfway through Saturday, Bryant the Red Knight and his friend Dan the Blue Knight,  had a liiiiii=ttle argument.  You see, Bryant thought Cookie Dough ice cream was the best Ben and Jerry’s flavor ever made.  And Dan thought Cherry Garcia was  tastier.  There was only one way to solve the argument . . .

they dueled!  The crowd cheered them on . . . rooting for their favorite flavor. Um,  I mean, their favorite knight.

Cherry Garcia won the day, but everyone came together in the end.

It was awesome to see so many ladies-in-waiting and knights

Princesses

Robin Hoods and Maid Marian’s

I really, really think it makes the recreation that much more fun when my camping buddies dress up!

On Saturday night Bryant hosted Trash Bag theater.  Three teams came up with the most excellent plays ever!

There was Every Man in a Dress across the  Time Space Continuum

and The Mystery of the Golden Bone

the last was simply titled, Camping.

I had so much fun watching them do their excellent acting, that I got a little carried away and kind of . . .

sort of . . .

conquered Bryant.

Tami shook her head at me.  “Maaaaaaxx!  We can’t do Adventurer Weekend without Bryant.  Help him up!”

Sheesh.

Halloween Too!

Our second Halloween Weekend was a hit!

Tami and Paula checked in a gazillion people Thursday and Friday

All our recreation was a little different aaaaaaa-nd a little the same!

there were all new relay games, arts and crafts, Scavenger hunt and Story Times. We had kickball, volleyball and water balloon target shooting too.

We had a mummy making contest,

a watermelon innards eating contest and a Halloween Hayride.

I bet your wondering if we had a second trick or treating night . . .

WE  DID!

And Tami almost DIDN’T let me go!

“Maxx!  You still have a ton of candy stashed away from last weekend.  Why on earth, do you need more?”

“Tami, Tami, Tami,” I said.  “You just don’t get it. We can never, ever, ever, have too much candy.”

After mega pleading, whining and begging, she finally said okay . . . I could go.  If I did one thing.

Can you guess what it was?

I had to (gasp) share .. .  it . . .  with . . . her.  SHARE IT!

“Oh, okay,” I said.  “But I get all the Twizzlers.”

“Deal,” she said, shaking my hand.  “If I can have all the Smarties.”

After trick or treating, we had a party in front of the office!  There was fishing for spiders

pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern, tattoos, a balloon walk

a sponge toss

a quarter toss, hitting the stack of cans

and fruit snacks!

The best part of the party is that I get to hang with all my friends.  They had some really cool costumes too!

After the party, I almost had Tami convinced to go into David’s Haunted House.

But then the screaming started.

Lots of screaming.

There was some laughing too, but I don’t think Tami heard it because she locked herself in the office again until it was over.

Sheesh.

I wonder if she’ll come out in time for Medieval Weekend?

OOoooooo!  I wonder if Bryant will let me joust this year???