June 8 – June 17, 2007
Friday, Day 1: We left at 8:05 a.m. and arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at 5:30 p.m. We knew that this was going to be a long day of driving. We spent the night in Portsmouth with the intention of doing some sightseeing on our way to our timeshare exchange in Ellsworth, Maine which is about 18 miles inland from Bar Harbor.
Saturday, Day 2: When we left Portsmouth it was foggy and chilly. We drove in and out of rain until we reached our first destination: Wisccasset, Maine. We found a parking place and went for a short walk in this pretty town. By then it was just overcast and very cool.
We went to Red's Eats lobster shack for lunch. This place has been written up in numerous travel publications including Conde Nast Traveler. It is right on Route 1 at the foot of the bridge. The line wasn't very long when we stopped to eat. Later it snaked half way around the block. At 3:30 in the afternoon it was still very long. This is not a fancy or inexpensive place. There is the shack where you place your order and pick-up at the same window and 2 small decks with limited seating in the back—nothing else. The lobster rolls were delicious. We each had 3 small tails and some claw meat. There was a choice of clarified butter or mayonnaise. The butter was kept warm in a teapot and poured into a small plastic cup. (We did find a place where we liked the lobster rolls even better later on our trip).
Despite the huge volume of customers, they are very efficient and unfailingly pleasant. The woman taking orders at the window who seemed to be the manager (maybe the owner) addressed everyone as "dear." Total cost of 2 lobster rolls and 2 drinks about $32.00. Was it worth it? Oh, yes.
After lunch we walked around a bit more and took some pictures. Then we headed for the Musical Wonder House. They have a fantastic collection of music boxes, player pianos and player organs. AAA lists this as one of the 8 "must see attractions in Maine." The Michelin Guide gives it 2 stars.
As we entered, we were met and told that this is not a museum that you can walk through, you must take a tour (which we knew). The admission was $20 each. We joined a tour that was in progress and supposedly had just started. That lasted about 10 minutes. We looked at each other and said, "We paid $40 for this!" In the midst of our outrage the guide asked those who were continuing the tour to meet him at the bottom of the flying staircase. We both very quietly said, "Well, we are not leaving." We then had a continued tour with only one other couple. Our guide was obviously very knowledgeable, loved music boxes and had a great sense of humor. We thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our tour which took about 2 hours.
The museum offers several different tours. The AAA guide book, Fodors guide book, and their own materials are really confusing as to just what tours are offered. We still are not sure just what tour we took! In addition, Fodors has a misprint showing the admission fee as $2.00! Fortunately, we had used our AAA guide, not Fodors for the admission.
We had planned to stop in Booth Bay on our way to Ellsworth, but we spent more time than planned in Wisccasset. It was decided to skip Booth Bay and to try to stop there on our way home instead.
As we drove north to Ellsworth the weather cleared, and it became sunny and warm with temperatures varying from 68 to 75 depending on how close we were to the ocean.
On arriving in Ellsworth we had a heck of a time finding the Acadia Village Resort. The detailed directions they sent out actually turned out to be excellent once you got your bearings. After check-in, when we pulled up, my comment was, "I always wanted to stay in a double wide." The unit was actually a manufactured home, but not much had been done to enhance the exterior. This resort has many different configurations. Many of are not manufactured homes and quite attractive.
The unit itself was very large with a beautiful large kitchen (not that I used it much)/dining/living area. There was a large comfortable bedroom with a sink in the bedroom and a large bathroom. The shower was in a Jacuzzi tub making for a very high side to step over to get into the shower. Having 2 sinks was nice when getting ready to leave for the day. We were on the A side of a lock-off. The other side was more of an efficiency. We found the unit to be spacious and very comfortable. But then we were so tired when we returned most evenings, we probably could have slept on the floor.
After we unloaded the car it was off to find "Helen's" for dinner. This place had been recommended to us by the front desk. Again we had a hard time finding it. We waited for what seemed forever for someone to notice we were waiting to be seated. We finally approached the cashier and asked if someone was available to seat us. It seemed like they didn't know (or care) that we were there. The food was pretty basic and okay. Our waitress was outstanding. We took what was left from our loaf of bread back to the unit for breakfast the next morning. I had not packed food because I was concerned about it spoiling in a hot car.
Sunday, Day 3: We both woke up at 4:30 a.m. because it was completely daylight.
The morning was spent buying groceries at Hannaford, (there is also a Shaw's very nearby). Then had an early lunch. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm.
We spent most of the afternoon at Woodlawn in Ellsworth. This is the estate of the Black family. They made their fortune in timber and Boston real estate. It is unusual in that a member of the family lived in the house up until very recently. At the present time it is undergoing extensive renovations. We had a private tour because no one else was there. Before taking the tour you must put "booties" on over your shoes because the contents of the house are considered so fragile. After the tour , we walked around the grounds, visited the gardens (not very impressive, but a gorgeous lilac hedge was in bloom), visited the carriage houses (one for carriages, the other for sleighs). The sleighs were particularly interesting as we had never seen anything quite like some of them.
After we left Woodlawn, we took a walk through downtown Ellsworth. Most of the shops were closed because it was fairly late on a Sunday afternoon. We decided that there wasn't any shopping that we would want to do later. At the end of our walk we stopped at the Maine Grind coffee shop where we had iced tea, iced coffee, and delicious scones. We found that iced coffee was available in most restaurants and lobster shacks in Maine. Then it was back to the unit for an early dinner and early to bed because we planned to be up by 6:30 Monday morning.
Monday, Day 4: Up bright and early and out the door by 8:30. We were headed for Bar Harbor and planned to take the 10 a.m. cruise on the 4 masted schooner Margaret Todd. We walked to the dock and there was nothing there. We found their office and were told that they were not sailing today, but doing maintenance work. We bought tickets for Tuesday and were told that a park ranger would be on board.
We decided to flip our plans for Monday and Tuesday and go into Acadia National Park. It was cloudy and cool, and we were hoping it wouldn't rain. It looked threatening almost all day. There were a few sprinkles as we were leaving but nothing that affected our day.
After we parked in the lot for the visitor's center, we didn't see anything that looked like a visitor's center. We walked over to some signs that informed you that you would have to walk up 52 steps to reach the center. Of course, that means you have to come down 52 steps. We decided to look for the handicapped lot as suggested; however, the road to that was closed. We finally asked someone we thought was an employee who actually turned out to be another tourist. He said he's seen people driving up "that way." We drove "that way" and did find the handicapped lot.
At the visitor's center we bought a Golden Age Pass which is a really good deal. It is for lifetime admission to all national parks. The cost: $10. We also bought a CD for a narrated tour of the park. The guide books say 2 1/2 hours for the loop road. If you never get out of the car, that may be so. We made almost all of the suggested stops on the CD for the loop road. Total time including about an hour for lunch: 6 hours.
We enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Jordan Pond House which is in the park. They are known for their popovers and strawberry jam. We decided to make this our main meal of the day. We enjoyed lobster stew with fresh just out of the oven popovers and a baked scallop entrée. Dessert was a little difficult to manage, but worth the effort. Paul had a popover filled with homemade blueberry ice cream. I had a popover filled with strawberry ice cream. They were both topped with a delicious homemade chocolate topping.
One of the places in the park that we particularly enjoyed was "Thunder Hole" where waves break in a cave and produce a very loud booming that can probably be heard for at least a mile. When this happens, you can feel the rocks vibrate.
Acadia National Park is definitely worth the time and effort. It was a long exhausting day with lots of in and out of the car and some serious step climbing. We were both exhausted by the time we got back to the unit.
It was early to bed again so that we can make the 10:00 cruise on Tuesday.
Tuesday, Day 5: Up bright and early to go on our cruise. The weather was not looking too good. It was raining pretty hard by the time we got to Bar Harbor. We changed our tickets for Wednesday, and decided if it was a "no go" on Wednesday we'd forget it.
Fortunately we went back to our unit. The dishwasher had been running for over 1 ½ hours and could not be stopped. The resort manager came to take a look at it and needed some convincing that a repair was needed. He told us their maintenance man had left for the day, and he would come tomorrow. We okayed him coming in if we were not there as we had no intention of wasting a day waiting around for that.
I did a quick load of laundry, and we had an early lunch while we were trying to figure out how to salvage the rest of the day. While we were deciding, the weather broke and it turned into a gorgeous day.
We headed for Winter Harbor which is supposed to be somewhat of an artists colony. There are exactly 4 galleries and a sea glass gallery. Everything except the sea glass gallery was closed. We stopped at a community art center and had the door unlocked for us so we could see their current very interesting art exhibit. They have many, many interesting classes available.
The woman that opened the center for us gave us a great tip for a beautiful, peaceful spot in Acadia National Park on the Schoodic Peninsula side. As she said, "The quiet part." It was just as she said, extraordinarily beautiful, very quiet with no one around. We sat on the rocks and watched the tide come in for quite a while.
While we were in the area we looked for a winery and a glass blowing studio that are listed in the guide books. We found neither. Nor did we find Grind Stone Neck also listed in the guidebooks as the site of some grand "summer cottages."
Back to the unit for dinner in.
Wednesday, Day 6: Back to Bar Harbor. Fortunately, we decided to stop in the office before going to the dock. The 10 o'clock cruise had been cancelled because of high winds. We did find out that they did go out on Tuesday and the weather turned nice there too. We asked for a refund which was not a problem, and said we'd see what we were doing around 2 o'clock when the afternoon cruise was scheduled. It became obvious that was also cancelled because of high winds. It would have been very cold out on the water because we wore our winter coats the entire day we were in Bar Harbor.
We spent the day walking around Bar Harbor looking at some the remaining summer "cottages" (most were destroyed in a terrible fire)., browsed the shops, bought some gifts, etc.
We had a lovely lunch at the Bar Harbor Inn. Apparently, this was the watering hole for "high society" at one time.
We were both exhausted so headed back to the unit for a nap and a light supper in.
Thursday, Day 7: This was another very early morning because we were going to be doing a lot of driving. We left at 8:15 and drove to Owl's Head. We visited the Transportation Museum there. There is a wide ranging exhibit with bicycles, cars, airplanes, sleighs and more. With very few exceptions, everything is in running order. Sometimes these kinds of places bore me—not this place.
From there we went to the Owl's Head Light House. Very scenic. Visitors are not allowed in the light house which is part of Homeland Security.
From there we drove into Rockland. We did not go to the museum that has Wyeth paintings because we live so close to the Brandywine River Museum and have seen much of Wyeth's work.
We were looking for a restaurant recommended in Fodors but never did find it. We had lunch at Brick which turned out to be better than we expected.
From there we walked a couple of blocks to the Light House Museum. It was semi-interesting. The docent there was really annoying. He kept asking us if we had any questions, when we said "no" he proceeded to tell us in great detail about his personal life. He finally got the hint when I kept on walking.
Our next stop was Camden. We browsed through the shops and then went to the water front where there were many windjammers either docked or anchored. We had a good empathetic laugh watching a couple our age negotiating getting 2 dogs, a dog stroller and themselves into a dinghy.
We bought a glisse print of the Maine coastline as a memory of this trip from an art gallery on the waterfront.
At this time of year the lupines were in full bloom. We'd stopped to take some pictures, but the prettiest field we'd seen was just as we were leaving Ellsworth. When we passed it, Paul turned around and we went back so I could take some photos.
Dinner in the unit. We had filets mignon from Hannaford because we were both tired of fish. Tomorrow is to be another early day.
Friday, Day 8: Yet another early morning. Today was sunny and bright. The nicest day yet.
We head for Machias, home of the University of Maine. From Machais we decide to look for Jasper Beach. We drove for what seemed miles. Finally, I said I am setting the trip odometer for 5 miles, and if we haven't found it let's forget it. Two and a half miles later there was a large blue and white sign for Jasper Beach. As you pull in a dirt road, you see a huge hill of rocks. As you walk up the hill you can see that the entire beach is of rocks and pebbles all which white, yellow, green and red jasper. We've never seen anything quite like it. You are permitted to pick up rocks; of course, we brought a few home with us. From Jasper Beach we stopped at the sight where the U. S. Navy was founded.
We had lunch in Machias at Le Petite Artiste. The food was outstanding.
Our next stop was Columbia Falls. There is a beautiful small waterfall right in the middle of the town. (Apparently there is one in Machais as well, but we didn't see it). While there we took a tour of the Ruggles House.
We decided we were tired and would have dinner in. Filets from Hannaford again—can't get them like this at home.
Saturday, Day 9: Today we leave Ellsworth and start our trip home. We will once again be spending the night in Portsmouth with several stops along the way.
Our first stop was Booth Bay Harbor. Lunch was our first stop. The Lobster Dock was highly recommended by Fodors. We had a little difficulty finding it, but eventually stumbled across it. The lobster rolls here were available either hot or cold (Red's were cold). They were served with both the bread and the lobster already buttered. We thought these were the best we'd had. This is slightly more than a lobster shack in that there is some inside seating, restrooms, and multiple levels of decks for eating outside. There is a great view of Booth Bay Harbor from the decks.
After lunch we headed for Booth Bay Railroad Village. The railway part was somewhat disappointing. There is a narrow gauge train that runs through a mock railroad village, the building for the village and some work sheds. There is supposed to be a model train layout, but there was only one small layout and numerous plywood platforms. Obviously a work in progress.
What is really worth seeing here is the antique car museum. All of the cars are either one of kind or very rare. Several were out of the museum for shows. There are also a few antique trucks. While you are wandering around looking at all these gorgeous old cars, there is music from the 30's and 40's playing in the background. We spent quite a bit of time chatting with the security guard who reminded me of my grandfather in both looks and manner of speech. Much is made of the Railroad Village—but go for the car museum.
We had decided to make a stop in Kennebunk and Kennebunkport. We didn't find what were looking for in Kennebunk so went on to Kennebunk Port. It looks nice and like a place that we would like to spend some time, but we could not find a place to park. It was very congested and very busy. From Kennebunkport we headed for Portsmouth.
Sunday, Day 10: A long day on the road. Finally home.
Summary: In all this was a great trip, but exhausting, because we did so much. We put almost 500 miles on our car just doing day trips. We enjoyed each of our excursions, feasted on lobster and generally had a good time. The stereotype of the cantankerous New Englander is not alive and well. Everyone we met or dealt with was friendly, and helpful.
Ellsworth was a great central location for everything that we wanted to see and do. There were lilacs in bloom everywhere. I don't know when we've seen so many. The lupines were also at their peek. Coastal Maine is very rugged and there is great beauty in that ruggedness.
Sue
