On this trip to the Cottage it was rainy and not very fun to be stuck inside so we decided one day to drive to a light house I remembered my Dad taking me to many years ago. It’s within a day’s drive of the Cottage but is still quite a trip. It happens to be a state park so we paid the fee and went to the visitor center as well.
The lighthouse is a beautiful place (even though it was foggy and you couldn’t see any of the ocean it was on) and the visitor center, as most are, was filled with photographs and information. The pamphlet section by the door had these little green books that said “Maine State Park Passports” The kids wanted them so we picked two up and flipped through.
Each participating state park in Maine has a page with information and a circle that you can get stamped while there. We got our passports their first stamps at the lighthouse and then decided to go to another state park not far from there to get the 2nd stamp.
The second state park is mainly an area of land on the edge of the ocean for camping and sometimes clamming. The gatehouse has a Park Ranger but the stamp is located in a lock box at the day use area. Each park has a lock box with the stamp inside (if you can’t find the ranger to help you). The kids loved that the ‘secret code’ to open the box was the year the park was formed.
After that we decided to head back to camp.
Later we decided to go to the local restaurant for dinner and leave a bit early to head to yet another local state park to get the kids their 3rd stamp. This state park is considered one of the birth places of the United States Navy and is an old fort. This is an ‘unmanned’ park so no Ranger but we found the lock box, entered the code and found yet another special park stamp.
If the kids get 8 stamps they can redeem them for a free magnet, 16 stamps and they get a patch (like a Girl/Boy Scout patch), and so on and so forth. If they get all 48+ park stamps before September they get a free state park pass for the year.
Some of the parks (like the 2nd one we went to) have a super special GeoCache stamp box. We will be heading back to the 2nd park soon to locate the geocache and get that stamp. If you collect all 8 geocache stamps you are entered to win a variety of awesome prizes which include: canoe, gps units, map software, etc.
We won’t be trying for that set of prizes since some of the geocaches are located in very very remote parts of some parks and our 3 year old could never hike that far and our 6 year old might be able to but both of them need to be present to have the stamp ‘count’ so that wouldn’t be fair. We’ll just find the ones that are located in easier places to find.
In one day my husband, kids and I visited 3 state parks we had never been to before and have located 2 more to visit before the summer is out.
I’d say the purpose of the Maine State Park Passport has been met: To get people to visit parks they wouldn’t otherwise.
Does your state do this? Would you participate if they did?
Have a happy day,
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