To Acadia

I woke up too early Friday morning (so tired...) and had probably the best breakfast I had enjoyed on the trip thus far. I'm not sure if it was really that good or I was just so tired anything tasted awesome. I was able to make it Portland, ME in time to pick up Melanie from the airport and we took the long way around to Bar Harbor.

The first stop was at the Delorme store where we checked out the world's largest globe, Eartha. Turns out this store was started in some guy's garage and is now the largest supplier of map data in the world!

After that we grabbed a quick lunch because we worth both ravenous. We stopped at something called a lobster pound which is basically a road side diner where you can get fresh lobster and crab. I had a lobster roll and Melanie had a crab roll. To be honest, it was hard to tell them apart. Most of the Lobster I've had was pretty bland and sort of fishy. This was a really sweet meat and it really tasted a lot like crab. Either way it was delicious.

The next stop was a quick drop by the L.L. Bean original store in Greenwood, ME. They had a huge boot there that we took pictures with and other than that we just drove on. Along the route we kept getting distracted by various mansions and other amazing structures so we did a lot of stopping. We hit the Owl's Head lighthouse and the Rockland-Breakwater along the way. Both of them were neat to see but we couldn't go into either of them :(.

We were behind so we sort of hoofed it the rest of the distance to Acadia and didn't do much in the way of stopping. When we got to the Hostel we were greeted by Erin and Nova, both of whom were very gracious hosts. Nova actually ended up 'wasting' a lot of our time by being so much fun to talk to. She recommended a good place for us to have dinner called 'Poor Boys'. Melanie got the crab cakes (way to be adventurous!) and I had a Lobster Feast which consisted of Clam chowder, a whole boiled lobster, and a dessert. I've never eaten the lobster so that was pretty fun. I ended up having to get some pointers from both the waitress and the couple sitting next to us. I think the lady might have been a cougar but... The dessert was a blueberry crumb cake thing. I was so lucky, I got my 2 favorite things in one meal! Plus, they had a really good blueberry beer. Since I had already been a little sleepy that day the beer just took me over the top and I passed out soon after we got back to the Hostel.

The next day we started the day off at a place called Cafe This Way which Nova had described as fun and funky. It was pretty fun, not really that funky, and super yummy! I had the blueberry pancakes (surprised?) and Melanie had the Monte Cristo. I've never seen a breakfast Monte Cristo before but it was pretty good. They use French Toast for the bread and didn't really fry it much. After breakfast we were walking back and happened upon the Man Store. The place had some fun 'guy' stuff but the best were these Life is Crap t-shirts which plays on the 'life is good' brand of clothing. I got this one for myself (t-shirt).

Following the breakfast and shopping we hopped in the car to goto the Acadia visitor's center. It's really not that impressive there and the gihft shop is pathetic. Not even a single shot glass! Melanie hit the jackpot with those national park pins though...they had 5 or 6 pins with different light houses on them. After that we just hit the road. I'll say it again, this is the perfect time to visit. The weather is a bit dodgey and some things aren't open but the traffic and overcrowding are non-existent. We could just stop wherever, take some pics, then drive on. The scenery was, of course, beautiful. One of the best things was that the leaves on the trees bud out in a variety of colors. Some look red, some yellow, some green. When it was cold/rainy you could almost believe it was fall and then when it was sunny you could definitely tell it was spring so we got the best of both worlds there. My favorite part of the day was finding out that Jordan Pond House was open! I'd heard this was a must see and Nova wasn't sure they had opened but they opened up the day we arrived. We didn't get to eat there because of some time issues but I was overjoyed all the same. Instead of tea and popovers, we went hiking up the South Bubble (there are 2 of them, south and north) which was a pretty easy hike. I think being from Utah makes it easier for us because this group from LA came up and they were crying out about how they had overcome the mountain! The view was really pretty up there. The thing about most of the trails in the park is that private land owner groups built them before they donated the land to the park service. It just really made me appreciate, again, their foresight and selfishness in preparing these trails for everyone.

That evening we came back and decided to try eating at the Real Pizza place which is sort of like Brewvies at home: a movie theatre with tables at your seat so you can have food and or a beverage. The pizza was alright (hard to taste the flavors) but the movie, Iron Man, was great. I wasn't really expecting much so maybe that helped but in the end I enjoyed it regardless.

Day 3 was similar to day one...more Cafe This Way (funky eggs benedict this time), more sight seeing, some Jordan Pond. The lobster stew was phenomenal at the Pond House and the popovers were great. Funny story...when the guy brought out the condiments (butter, blueberry spread, strawberry spread) I thought he had brought out two sets so I told Melanie I was going to use all of the blueberry in one popover and then all of the strawberry in the next. As I was proceeding to hork all of the blueberry she asked if she was going to get any. I then realized that there was only 1 thing of blueberry spread and 1 of strawberry! If I'd taken them both she wouldn't have gotten any! Needless to say I was a little embarrassed so I asked the waiter if he would bring some more blueberry out. This time he gave each of us our own bowls of it. After the food we went out and hiked around the lake. When we left it was warm'ish and sunny. By the time we got half way around the lake (a surprisingly long amount of time), the wind had kicked up and was bringing in some more cold air and rain storms. The walk back was not super enjoyable but the scenery was still nice. I don't think we stopped as much since it was so cold! After hopping in the car we drove on and came to Cadillac Mountain (named for Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac who was given the island by the King of France. He also founded Detroit ergo the car name). This is the highest point in the park and the views were very nice. It's also supposed to be the first place the light hits the US but if you want to see this you have to get up at 4:30 a.m. so, as you can guess, we did not make it up there for this event. We tried to eat dinner at a place called Geddy's but they were horribly understaffed and we almost left after the waitress didn't show up for 15 mins. We decided to just get a drink and an appetizer and then make our way up Wall st to look at the fancy mansions of yesteryear. I would have liked to have more information about their history but it was nice to see anyway.

Our last day started off at Cafe This Way, yet again (blueberry pancakes all around). Since it was a Monday there were far fewer people and it had a bit of a different feel. Kind of sad since there wasn't anyone around. Afterwards we hurridly did some shopping then headed off to Portland to get Melanie on her plane. As usual, we managed to hit a bunch of road construction and then the stupid GPS had us do a big loop around for a detour. I swear, sometimes I just want to throw 'Betty' (Garmin Nuvi 680) out the window. Luckily we were able to make it to the airport in time and Melanie got to sit and wait for her delayed flight ordeal through New York while I sped off for Boston where I was able to catch up on this blog a bit. All the pics for Maine are up so browse away!

Pictures for today
Mel's Pictures


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