Costello loves a good lake swim. He did this for about 5 hours straight. A pro for sure.

June was a busy, busy month. As we rang in July 1 yesterday with a drop-dead gorgeous hike in Acadia National Park, it occurred to me that we skipped over a pretty huge milestone: we're halfway done!

In many ways, Maine (where we're parked in our friends' driveway until July 6th) is the pinnacle of a trip that has had a lot of peaks and plateaus. The northeast, and especially Acadia National Park, is a region we've been talking about, dreaming of and pining for ever since we we kicked up this crazy dream of traveling the U.S. nearly two years ago.

Celebrating America and lake life with Tabled's Team USA Sip Sacks! Click through to purchase or see more of Mel's shop.

Mel and her setup at SoWa Boston! It was a great day and she had a wonderful time. Click on the pic to shop more of Mel's wares at www.ShopTabled.com.

Truthfully, it's a milestone I always hoped we'd reach, but wasn't sure if we'd get to. The reality is that road life is hard. I recently confessed to our (wonderful) hosts here in Maine that the trip, as it stands today, is about a 60/40 split. It's fun 60% of the time; and work 40% of the time. I was well aware that this kind of trip would not be all fun and games, but I think I've surprised even myself with just how completely absorbing and all encompassing it can be. In other words--it's not always an Instagrammable life. The lows are low, and the highs are really, really high.

Anyhow, let's talk about the month of June!

Meet Mountain Khakis, our first blog partner! This is their Canvas Waterproof Dog Water Bowl.

We kicked off the month in NYC visiting one of my best friends and Carson's brother and sister in law. Parking in the city was not a highlight for us ($230 in parking tickets later..) and I lost my glasses and we had to drive all the way to NJ (where we parked the trailer in Farmingdale c/o of a friend -- hi Ali!), but we pulled it together and remembered why we love the city so much.
We have our first blog sponsor: Mountain Khakis, based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's a company we've admired for some time, and we're so happy they said yes! You'll be seeing a whole lot of their great gear in our posts, pictures and videos to come. See above for a little preview(!)
We had some unexpectedly beautiful stays at Mahlon Dickerson Reservation in upstate NJ and West Thompson Lake, our first Army Corps of Engineers campsite, in CT. If you don't know about the Army Corps of Engineers parks yet (we just found out about them ourselves!) be sure to do a search in your area. Our experience so far has been great.
In Boston, we stayed with long-time friends and new homeowners, Ethan and Caitlin. We watched Ethan's first feature-length film; Carson canoed with Ethan and another friend down the Charles River to an abandoned psychiatric facility where they shot parts of the film Shutter Island; in Cambridge, we saw Matt and Jordan, a lovely couple and friends from our time at UNL, as they were wrapping up three years at Harvard; AND Tabled (my online tableware store) set up shop at SoWa Boston for Father's Day. It was a great day interacting with people on products and a concept I've been working on for a long time now. Plus we finished the day with brews at Harpoon Brewery -- I'm kind of obsessed with their Wannamango Brew...
We wrapped the month at the alluring Lake Umbagog in the North Woods of NH. It's definitely one of the most beautiful places we've visited on the trip. We swam, saw our first moose, ate at the local diner on the daily and then headed up to Maine to see our good friends Carey and Fran.

The $5.99 Breakfast Special at Northern Exposure cafe in Errol, NH. Mel had this pretty much everyday of the trip!

We ended out the month with our first lobster of the trip! A lobster roll, lobster stew and fries from Beal's Lobster Pier.

I thought I'd wrap our recap of June with a map of our trip so far. Don't judge us; it looks kind of crazy. But keep in mind that we're doing an intricate balancing act between visiting places we want to see vs. we want to visit vs. where friends/family are and everything in between. Plus, in July things are about to get a lot crazier. We're taking our first trip out of the country together! Don't worry, we're not abandoning our USA tour, just hopping over into Canada for a spin in Trudeau country.

Happy Trails to you all and have an amazing July 4th weekend!

The views from the Beehive trail at Acadia National Park.

Carey Kish and his wife, Fran, were our guides for the day at Acadia NPS. We had a great time!