Coast of Maine

Gregg recently passed the halfway point of his program and as a senior-level resident has entire weekends off from call! We decided to take advantage in mid-August and take a trip up to Maine.  Our trip started early Friday morning with a long 10 hour drive from Brooklyn to Bar Harbor. We checked in and headed to dinner just as the sun was setting.

The view from our balcony

Meg interpreting navigation maps in the lobby

First dinner was at the Reading Room

Bar Harbor Inn in the background

Lobster Meal #1 of many

Saturday morning we planned on driving in to Acadia National Park (just up the road) and doing some hiking. As predicted from our research for the trip, the forecast for the day was wet. Acadia and the surrounding coastline receives the 2nd highest total precipitation in the continental US behind the Pacific Northwest. We packed our bag with the essentials and headed out.

Bar Harbor is named for the large sand bar that connects the main island to Bar Island (top right) and is both visible and hikeable during lowtide. In the picture above you can just make out the sand bar along the top of a hotel as it joins the leftmost border of Bar Island. Those tiny specks are actually people walking on the bar!

Lobster is the unofficial mascot of Maine

Starting the day off with a Great Maine Breakfast, one of two highly contested "best breakfast in Bar Harbor" restaurants. Very homey feel and friendly atmosphere. Gregg had the most incredible blueberry pancakes we'd ever tasted.  Bellies full we hopped in the car and headed up to Acadia.

Atop Cadillac Mountain with Bar Island and Bar Harbor (far left) in background

Closeup with 4-foot cairn (trail duck) in the foreground

Down to the rugged coastline for the remainder of our hike

Mussels crammed in a small tidepool

At Sand Beach. We didn't notice someone had written the "Maine 2016" in the sand until after we took the picture!

We decided to hike around the peninsula on the left for a better view of the coast

True to form, the rain started as we hiked, slowly at first...

Then it really opened up. Other, less prepared hikers were soaked through within minutes. The ponchos were life savers!

The rain stopped after about 30 minutes and we ventured over to Jordan Pond. The crystal clear water and steamy mountains were picturesque. The two rounded peaks on the right are called the Bubbles.

Once the rain stopped, the temperature jumped back up to the mid-70s, covering the Park with wisps of steamy clouds

We headed back to Bar Harbor in the afternoon, cleaned up, and set out to explore the town.

First stop, lunch!

We soon realized that, like lobster, blueberries are another Maine staple. Here, Meg enjoys a delicious blueberry beer with real blueberries in the glass!

Lobster Meal #2

At the Atlantic Brewing Co tasting room in downtown Bar Harbor. The blueberry was of course a favorite as well as the ginger infused ale.

Ice cream break after the beer tasting

That evening we had tickets for a sunset sail into the harbor. Unfortunately with the cloud cover, there wasn't much of a sunset to see but at least there wasn't any more rain. The ride was serene and we got to see a harbor porpoise swim along the boat.

Hard to see them all in the photo but each buoy marks a lobster trap on the harbor floor. There were thousands and thousands as far as the eye could see, each with a color and pattern unique to the trapper.

After the sailboat trip, we grabbed a bite to eat and walked around town some more.

Lobster Meal #3

Famous blueberry pie.  It was an option on every menu we saw during the trip and we couldn't resist any more.

Sunday morning, we decided to settle the Breakfast Wars and went to the other highly touted breakfast spot in town, Cafe This Way. 

Enjoying a coffee on the patio while we wait for a table to open up 

The restaurant had a much more eccentric vibe and our breakfast was also delicious in a less traditional sense. After much debate we too had trouble picking our favorite of the two, they're both so good!

One last walk around town before heading home

Even though we already faced a long trip, we decided to take the scenic route home and travel down the coast. The drive was filled with beautiful small harbors packed with tiny islands and quaint coastal towns.

Fort Knox (no, not THAT one) is in the left hand side of this picture

We eventually made it down to Portland, a town quickly gaining a reputation for delicious food and a growing number of New York City transplants. We stopped for a late lunch and a bit of exploring.

Tipsy Pig?  No strawberry fields here, just a lot of hot dawgs.

Cool rocking chairs made out of lobster traps

Our lunch spot, Eventide Oyster Co.

Tasting the local brews while we wait for a table

 <-- Lobster Meal #4

Potato Donuts?! Whhhhhhat?

We finished up our brief detour in Portland and headed back home. And after driving through a massive thunderstorm somewhere in central Massachusetts we finally made it home to Brooklyn and decided that even after all that driving (24 hrs total), it had definitely been worth the trip.