It’s my retirement getaway

We are spending the week in Bar Harbor and visiting Acadia daily.  I thought I would be able to post the day’s adventures and a couple of photos each evening but I can see there is no way that will happen.  I started last night but my sciatica was screaming so I had to put the computer away.  Instead, I’ll do a quick catch-up later.

The weather so far has been beautiful, warm for this time of year and no rain (overnight, maybe).  Tomorrow, Campobello Island, New Brunswick.

Thanks for stopping by…

;o)

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Four days in paradise

It was another awesome trip to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.  This is one of our favorite places to spend time.  The weather was very cooperative, clear, sunny days.  It was cool when we got up on Wednesday morning but warmed up nicely by the time we went hiking.  It was quite cold and windy on Thursday so we packed up and headed home.  Every time we travel to Bar Harbor we pass the sign pointing to Lamoine State Park so this time we finally took a side trip to check it out.  The park is quite nice, with a boat launch, picnic tables, camping area, etc.  We didn’t spend much time but were glad to finally know what was at the end of the road.

We spent Tuesday biking the “Around the Mountain” trail.  Actually, it is a 12 mile trail around three mountains.  We stopped several times to admire the beautiful stone bridges that were built over small brooks along the trail. 

One of the sections was 1.8 miles uphill!  Whew, we made it in only 35 minutes and no, it wasn’t non-stop.  In fact, it was several stops to catch our breath and give our legs a short rest.  It is surprising how much better the legs feel after a couple of minutes rest.  We stopped at what we thought was the top for a nice leisurely lunch only to find out that .10 of a mile further there was a beautiful view.  Oh well, next time we will know. It was a nice, long downhill most of the way back to the Jordan Pond House.  Although there are regular items for lunch and dinner on the menu, we always stop there for tea and popovers…JPH blend tea today.

On Wednesday, we took the Asticou Trail which was a fairly wide, flat trail until we came to the granite stone steps.  That was a little more vertical and strenous.  The trail ended at a map house dedicated to Charles Eliot, one of the founders of Acadia.  From there we took the trail up and over Eliot Mountain.  This trail was not very well marked except for lime green flag tape tied around the trees.  The summit was disappointing because there was no view.  From the summit we connected with the Asticou Ridge Trail which took us back down to the intersection with the Asticou Trail at the top of the stone steps.  We retraced the trail returning to the Jordan Pond House for our usual…tea and popovers!  This time we tried the Earl Gray tea.

We traveled to the top of Cadillac Mountain one evening to watch the sunset and the rise of the full moon.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the time of the moonrise but thought it was about the same time as the sunset.  After watching the sun drop behind the mountains, we turned to walked to the summit only to find that the moon was already up.  DUH!  We convinced ourselves that it was too cloudy to actually have seen the moon rise anyway.  It was a beautiful Harvest Moon just the same and we were able to enjoy it from the chairs in front of our cabin as it was reflected in the water of Frenchman’s Bay.

While checking out we made our reservations for 9/21/09.  We are staying for SIX days (not 3 or 4) and will celebrate my RETIREMENT!  Yahoo.  (That is, of course, if the recent meltdown in the financial markets and Wall Street doesn’t totally mess up my plans.)  That reminds me, while we were here I celebrated my “one more year to retirement” date…9/17

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Bar Harbor, Acadia and the Porcupine Islands

Have you ever traveled to a location that holds a special place in your heart? A place where you could return over and over? A place that feels like “coming home”? For Bill and me, one of those places is Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The energy is good; it feeds our spirit.

Bill and I drove up on Monday and spent the next two days hiking one of our favorite areas. The weather was spectacular for a change. The sky was clear and the temps were in the 70’s for both of our hikes. We stayed at a new place, Llangolan Inn and Cottages on Route 3. Our cottage was small but clean and had everything we needed to fix breakfast.

We didn’t arrive until late afternoon so didn’t do any hiking. We took a drive through the park, picked up our annual pass which was $40, drove into town for dinner at a small place called The Portside Grill off the Main Street. When we returned to our cottage, Number 7, we watched the Home Run Derby part of the All-Star Game and went to bed.

On Tuesday Bill chose the Bear Brook Trail up Champlain Mtn. for our hike. We had done the same hike about 5 years ago. The name has been changed to Champlain Mtn. North Ridge Trail. It is not a difficult hike but quite steep about 2/3 of the way up. At one point we looked up and couldn’t believe we were going that much higher.

The trip up took us about 2 hours; however, we stopped a few times to catch our breath and wipe our brows. We had lunch on the summit, overlooking the ocean. I think that is what makes Acadia so spectacular; it’s the ocean views. There are any number of parks that have wonderful views but the addition of the ocean makes it all the better.

The hike down took us about 20 minutes less and we were able to make the trip to Jordan Pond House for their delightful popovers and a beverage. Generally, we are in Bar Harbor in September so our beverage has always been hot tea. However, it was a warm day so I had an iced tea and Bill tried the raspberry lemonade. We like to take our snack outside on the lawn with Jordan Pond and the Bubbles in the background.

It was still fairly early in the day but without enough time to do another hike we drove to Thuya Gardens in Northeast Harbor, a short trip by car. These are stunning perennial gardens that sit high up on a hill. They incorporate a reflection pool and two covered meditation areas. Although we had visited once before, we were too early and there wasn’t much to see. This time, however, they were in full bloom!

From there we went back into town, ordered a pizza, took it back to our cottage, sat outside and ate. We drove to the end of Hadley Point Road where we discovered a small beach area. We sat peacefully in the carand watched the beautiful sunset.

The next day dawned beautiful and clear once again. YEAH!! I didn’t want to get home too late in the day as I had to be up early the next day for work. After taking that into consideration, Bill again chose the day’s hike. We traveled along the Eagle Lake Trail, which was a new one for us. It was fairly level but we did discover once we reached the end that it was mostly uphill. The trail took us around the lake and the base of Connor’s Nubble. We had climbed the Nubble a couple of years ago when we had our bikes and we didn’t really have the time to hike the extra .8 mile so we had our lunch on the carriage trail and returned the way we had come. We took the time to have more popovers at the JPH before our drive home justifying this treat as our dinner.

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