2 Nights Camping Fee:

We feel like kids writing home from summer camp with this post about Lily Bay State Park:

Dear Mom and Dad,

You would not believe how amazing this place is. I know everyone said it would be great and it’s not like we didn’t believe them, but we just didn’t think it would be this cool!

P.S. Can we come back next year?

Sincerely,
Us

Many people told us that Lily Bay State Park is their favorite state park. Several of these folks return annually because they love it that much, and because of this there had been a lot of hype going into this weekend and the expectations were high. To give you an idea of how popular this place is, we waited until Friday after reservations went live on February 5th to book our site. We had all of our dates and parks selected for the season, plus we had a list of sites we wanted to stay at for each park. By February 9th, all of our top choices at Lily Bay State Park were booked for the weekend we wanted! Thinking it had something do with it being the weekend before July 4th, we looked into flip-flopping with our August dates. THOSE WERE BOOKED AS WELL! So word of advice, if you plan to stay at Lily Bay and you want a particular site, plan to visit during the week or reserve a weekend THE DAY reservations go live in chilly February.

Lily Bay State Park beach area

Why is it so popular?…we soon found out. Lily Bay sits on Moosehead Lake, the largest lake in Maine. Many of the campsites have direct access to the lake (those ones go fast!). The panorama option on your iPhone camera was created for places like this. You can’t possibly capture all of its beauty in a single frame. We spend a lot of time in or around Maine’s second largest lake, Sebago Lake. It’s a huge, beautiful lake, but Moosehead Lake puts Sebago to shame with its mountains and hills protruding out of the water.  The park isn’t perfect but it is certainly unique and deserves all the attention that it gets. You’ll know what we’re talking about when you come over the hill and start making your way down into Greenville, the scenery quickly sets the tone for your trip.

Scenic view of Moosehead Lake from Greenville

Before making our way to Greenville and Lily Bay, we made a lunch stop in Monson, the Appalachian Trail Hub for the 100 Mile Wilderness. It’s the start or finish of the longest and loneliest leg of the AT. This tiny town is in midst of a complete transformation. Lily Bay is around 3 hours away from Portland but Monson is only 2 and half. It would be an ideal location for a Ruby Family camp some day! We made a stop at Spring Creek BBQ, which now resides a few buildings down from their old stomping ground.

Old and New Spring Creek BBQ locations

This food was a 10 out of 10. Normally Dad tries leave Eloise’s left over food untouched, as a best practice, but her grilled cheese might have been one of the tastiest of all time and couldn’t go to waste. The staff are friendly, free spirits and the food is delicious. We sat at the long communal table inside and wondered how many groups of hikers must have shared a meal and stories at this table over the years. Monson is special little town, with a bright future.

One last stop before heading to the park was at the Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville. If you need it, they have it. We moved a couple dates around back in February in order to book water site #28. It sat right on a quiet cove and seemed ideal for a flotation device. Canoeing is near and dear to our hearts, so it only seemed fitting to rent one and expose Eloise to this passion during our trip. Canoeing The Allagash Wilderness Waterway is Mom and Dad’s favorite place in world (and we’ve been a few places). We hope someday she will enjoy family trips down the river just as much as us, but on this weekend we started small and tested the waters (pun intended). The canoe rental was $60 for a 2 days, plus any gear we needed including the accessories for mounting it to the car. A no brainer and best decision we made all weekend.

Canoeing on Moosehead Lake

Our site had a walking path down to the water, which was nice buffer between our site and the water. It gave us plenty of time to chase Eloise on her many attempts to the waters edge. We didn’t have to worry about her going right in if we had our backs turned for 3-5 seconds. It also made the prefect runway for a mother duck and her ducklings every morning. They would come and visit us after breakfast. As you can imagine this was the coolest thing on earth to Eloise. Her reaction was similar to the band One Direction walking into an teen girl’s camp without invitation. Mom and Dad loved it too because the ducks ate all of Eloise’s breakfast droppings on the ground and polished off the leftover bread. Plus, what’s cuter than a flock of little duckies?

Path from our site #28 down to the water

Mama and ducklings come to visit Eloise at our site

The site “set up” was one of our favorites yet. When we made our way around the rest of the park we really got a feel of the layout compared to just staring at the park map. The park is massive and there are many sites split between two campgrounds. To us, this is the only negative part of Lily Bay.  We enjoy being able to walk to every part of a park. This is possible at Lily Bay, but would make for a fairly long walk. The Ranger station, wood, showers and beach were on the other side of the park from where we were staying so we had to drive to access these amenities. It was possible to hike from our site to the beach, but would have been a 4 mile round trip trek. Doable but not always ideal depending on what you have planned for the day. Cobscook Bay State Park was similar this way.

Home for the weekend

Bundling fire wood – $6 a bundle

The beach was gorgeous. Our photos do not do it justice. It’s like sitting in a painting that is hanging on someone’s living room wall. The playground, volleyball and basketball courts and picnic tables overlook the beach. There is a lot of space so we can’t imagine it ever feeling crowded. Because Moosehead Lake is so large we expected the water to be very cold, but it was surprisingly refreshing with the 80-90 degree weather we had during our trip. Even with two boat launches on site we barely saw any boating traffic on the lake. As with all Maine State Parks we’ve visited, the park staff was so friendly and helpful. Just to give you an idea of how friendly, when checking in, some tired and stressed out campers in front of us had a boat with a motor that wouldn’t start. Their campsite also ended up being too small for all their stuff and the staff gladly switched them with a newly opened sit. The ranger then called her husband, who was at home, to come by and look at the motor for them while they set up their new campsite for the week. That is Maine for ya!

An afternoon at the beach on Moosehead Lake

This trip was a blur. Not stressful or overwhelming, just too fast. You think you’d be bored at times but there isn’t enough hours in the day at place like Lily Bay.  We regret not staying at least one more day. We had talked about possibly visiting a couple places in the Moosehead region but it just wasn’t possible during this stay. We’ll have to visit them when we make the trip back to checkout Mt. Kineo State Park. Most of these camping trips we do are 2 nights/3 days because of the number of places we plan to see. We both agree that once the state park mission is complete, we will certainly take longer trips to our favorite parks.

Helping dad with the dishes

Playing on the beach playground

Our neighbors on this visit were also Mainers and had 3 kids (12^th grade down to 4^th). They were spending the week at Lily Bay, then in August they planned a 2 week stay at Cobscook State Park, then just dad and son were doing their own long weekend back at Lily Bay again in September. They have been doing trips like these as a family for many years. There was a lot that made this family great and at one point when the parents were away, we witnessed all 3 kids reading a separate book by the fire. Over the 3 days, not once did we see any of them with an electronic device and that’s including phones. It was a pleasure to meet and learn from them. The mom of the group even dished out a sweet compliment on our toddler-proofed fire pit.

A dog pen purchased on Amazon keeps Eloise at a safe distance

There were lots of firsts on the this trip which made it extra special. Not all the firsts were great but any bump in the road from the weekend seemed to turn into something special. Take our hike for example, we thought Eloise would fall asleep in her hiking pack so instead of getting her to nap at the site for a much needed rest after the beach, we pressed on during the afternoon for a gorgeous 2 mile hike through the network of park trails. She ended up staying awake for the whole hike, powering through it without fussing but she was clearly exhausted. We realized that she’s now too big to nap in the pack. She ended up falling asleep just before dinner, slept through dinner so we had to wake her because it was getting late. As you can imagine this wasn’t ideal and made for a late night that cut into mom and dad’s fire/drinking time.

On the 1.6 mile trail from Rowell Cove Campground to Dunn Point Campground

Late afternoon nap

To get Eloise to sleep we ended up driving around Greenville for about an hour. Because of this we were able to witness an incredible sunset over the lake, and just as she was starting to fall asleep we drove down to the beach and came upon the park deer! Where else can you walk right up to deer grazing in a field, over looking the lake, over looking the mountains. Being the good parents that we are, we woke her up from the daze and let her experience these beautiful creatures up close in person. Zero regrets.

Four deer grazing on the beach lawn

Some other Eloise firsts:

• • bathing in the lake (check)

• • playing with worms (check)

• • major camping thunderstorm (check)

• • meals on a cast iron (check)

• • fireflies, many of them! (check)

• canoeing around the lake (check)

Bathing in the lake at sunset

Playing with worms

That is right Memeres, she was in the canoe, she loved the canoe and now we might have to finally buy our own canoe. If you are parent, then you know when your child experiences a first, it’s like rewinding time and you’re doing it all over again as well. If you are not a parent but plan to be one someday, this might be one of the best things to look forward to. Don’t just take our word for it, ask your own parents.

We give 9 Rubies for Lily Bay State Park! It came and went in a flash and was so different from our trip to Lamoine State Park last month. Where that was more of a mental getaway, this was more of a physical one. It’s like an amusement park in the middle of nowhere, with tons of attractions and no height requirements. Tickets go fast so plan ahead for this one and enjoy the beauty of Lily Bay and Moosehead Lake.

Enjoy some other beautiful photos from our stay at Lily Bay on the slideshow below!

Reading a book from the park library. She loved this book so much we bought it when we got home!

Ranger Station

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Helping setup the tent

Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner

breakfast on the fire

Ducklings stop by for a visit

Cooking veggies from Danielle's company's farm share

New blog website sticker on the camper. A gift from Danielle's parents.

Map of Lily Bay

Forecast for our stay

Another visit from the ducks

Slice of heaven

Camp hair don't care shirt

back again!