My new reality

Our first evening in Bar Harbor, ME, sitting in a brewery, we watched as one retired couple after another paraded past.  Christina, who was with us, identified the uniform: sneakers, jeans, athleisure shirt, rainjacket.  I looked down. Eek! That’s me!!!

Yes, it seems ridiculous that we, who live in paradise in the Adirondacks, should need a vacation.  Geographically, our latitude on the lake is nearly the same as Bar Harbor (44.2 vs. 44.4) yet it is a 9 hour drive directly across northern NY, VT, NH, and ME or 10.5 down through Boston and back up.  Christina, however, did need a break so we swung down Boston-way.  We had a great dinner in the very popular North End at Prezza before our departure for Maine on Sunday morning.  We made the mandatory stop in Freeport at the LLBean mecca and supplemented my own retirement uniform at Patagonia.  After enjoying our first lobster roll we headed up Rt. 1, the alleged scenic route to Bar Harbor on Mt. Desert Island, about 5 hours total drivetime from Boston. 

We checked into the Bar Harbor Regency Holiday Inn on the coast.  Our room had a great view, 2 clean queen beds, and breakfast was included.   As mentioned previously, we dined the first evening at Atlantic Brewery and then strolled Bar Harbor with the other geriatric visitors.  It was raining.  An occasional young family or couple would break the routine but we definitely felt like we were in an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ oops, I mean ‘Black Mirror’.  I can’t help dating myself!  The next morning we saw a spectacular sunrise from our room AND A CRUISE SHIP full of retiree clones disembarking.  Seriously, this is getting weird. 

You know when you find out something obscure suddenly becomes the center of the universe?  In this case we decided about a month ago to visit Bar Harbor and then found out at least 5 or 6 other people we know were visiting recently!  They weren’t necessarily retirees but maybe there’s something attracting people besides the amazing views and natural wonder. Not to mention the bus loads of seniors arriving daily. Hmmm.  I should look for empty pods laying about…

Anyway, our first full day was sunny so we hit the park with information gathered from our prescient friends.  Thanks to you all but we still got lost driving around Acadia National Park. Eventually the code word “clockwise” made sense.  Before we caught on, however, we discovered Northeast Harbor and Otter’s Point and a few multi-10’s of million dollar houses.  Once we got our bearings we drove up Cadillac Mountain for our reservation and hiked around the top.  We had planned on hiking Cadillac for sunrise but decided to drive up to check it out.  Maybe we’ll try the sunrise hike later in the week? (No surprise, we didn’t).  We did hike up the Beehive trail to Gorham Mt, looping back to Thunder Hole and Sand Beach.  I’m happy to say I managed to make it up the steep Beehive trail, crawling up iron rungs from narrow ledge to narrower ledge.  I’m also happy to say I won’t do it again.  Surprisingly they allow just anyone to make that climb!  We took the 4.5 mile loop with rock scrambling, stair climbing, and boulder hopping.  Thunder Hole was a bust; perhaps the tide was too low.  We met many friendly people on the trail.  Dinner started with oysters and drinks at The Barnacle, a cute oyster bar and later we rested our tired legs at Geddy’s for dinner- more lobster, cocktails, and beer from this local landmark.  And we got to watch the Bills play and win!

Tuesday dawned rainy and grey.  Christina and I enjoyed morning massages while Greg started a new ‘Jack Reacher’ book.  The afternoon, while dry, was still grey and windy.  We visited the La Rochelle historic Gilded Age house, learning about Bar Harbor history.  To wit: Gilded Age barons built impressive summer homes here, the park was created, and Bar Harbor suffered a huge fire after a drought-suffered summer.  The La Rochelle house was originally built by the grandson of the founder of Bowdoin college.  Afterward, we walked on the ‘bar’ of ‘Bar Harbor’ fame.  Although a little too late to cross the sandbar with dry feet ourselves, we watched with amusement as those on the Bar Island side returned as the tide came in, tiptoeing to no avail and ending up with wet feet.  Instead, we soaked a bit in the hotel hot tub, meeting other guests from all over the States.  Apparently the siren call to seniors spreads far and wide. Had they formed mini-Cadillac mountain replicas out of mashed potatoes before arriving?  For dinner, we started early at the Project Social Kitchen, an eclectic, trendy bar.  It was so good we spent the entire evening there enjoying cocktails and tasty tapas and discussing life.

Wednesday was sunny but cool, perfect for biking.  We learned from our hot tub group about Island bike rentals across the park in Northeast Harbor.  We arrived at 10:00am, snagged 3 bikes and began the day biking, straight uphill.  The carriage trails in the park are perfect for biking: traffic-free and pothole-less, with wide paths and great views. There are 45 miles of carriage paths, built by wealthy Bar Harbor summer residents who later donated the land to form the park.  We never saw a carriage or a horse in our ride around the park but there were plenty of bike riders on the popular trails.  Electric bikes were favored by the geriatric set (and those few not so geriatric) we passed; I would recommend them for anyone (and would have preferred one myself).  We rode about 23 miles with 1300 feet elevation staying on the outer loop roads.  The views were outstanding.  There are many remote hiking trails that originated from the carriage paths that I would like to explore someday but riding the carriage path was enough for this day.  We returned the bikes, explored Northeast Harbor for 10 whole minutes, and had a late lunch at the Docksider (they ran out of lobster!)   Dinner was at Merchant and Frye in town (think trendy gnocchi or lobster pasta) and then we enjoyed after-dinner cocktails at the cute Cottage St. Pub. We finished with Jordan’s homemade ice cream for dessert.  I passed out again that night.

Our last full day was a rain soaked mess.  We decided to visit Southwest Harbor and see the Bass Harbor Lighthouse.  We hiked a few shoreline trails on the way. The few Maine lighthouses we’ve seen are small but very cute, especially Bass Harbor.  There was a tiny parking lot but cars were in and out quickly in the rain. Afterwards, we headed up to Ellsworth.  Their smaller LLBean outlet again yielded nothing of interest (I’m just not an LLBean girl) so we had lunch at the tiny English pub Airline Brewery, sharing an excellent beef pasty and chowder.  We also made a mandatory visit to Home Depot, well, because it was there and Greg needed to pay his respects (it was good to make him happy since he’s paying for all the cocktails).  The rain continued through the evening but we prevailed by enjoying happy hour cocktails at the chi-chi Bar Harbor Inn, followed by dinner at Galyn’s.  The Fishermen’s stew was very good, On this trip we learned if you don’t have reservations for dinner, send in your beautiful daughter and they’ll be sure to find a table.  

This was a lovely trip to Downeast Maine.  Summer seemed to have abruptly turned to fall while we were there (meteorologically and calendar-wise), as it did back home.  The vibe here is similar to our home: mountains, water, trees, tourists.  Our mountains are taller and less accessible, the water here is salty and vast.  People in Maine wear LLBean, at home it’s Patagonia or EMS.  There are many great restaurants in Bar Harbor and they all make great cocktails, but there are too many people for us (who look like us!) It was good to visit, let’s head home.

If you go:  Prezza in Boston’s North End order the the Raviolio de Uovolo, or the corn raviolini, or the tuna steaks.  Mangia! Delicioso!

We booked the Holiday Inn Bar Harbor Regency Expedia but once we got to town we saw many quaint Inns that would be worth investigating.  I don’t know how you’d find those?  We were happy with our hotel just outside of town (free parking, pool, hot tub, free laundry, and close to Acadia entrance. Dog friendly too, if that suits you).  Bar Harbor charges for parking, $1.50 to 2.00/hour depending on the location.  I can imagine in high season it would be a nightmare to find spots.  There is a shuttle to town and the park, also NPS shuttles within the park since parking anywhere within can be a nightmare as well.  Hit up the Bar Harbor Inn for 1/2 price drinks at happy hour. It’s a small bar (the Reading Room) within the restaurant that currently only serves hotel guests, so get there early for a seat. Christina liked the lattes at Mt. Dessert Bakery; their croissants were excellent too!  The Cottage St. Bar is a fun little place too, with great cocktails and you can sit in front and watch the tourists stroll by.

Within Acadia there are shuttles that provide transportation via various loops depending on your destination view or hike.  We never took a shuttle but for late risers or in a busier season it would be necessary.  Even the large parking lot at Jordan house was full in the off season and the small roadside lots were completely full at all times.  Maine has thousands of acres of open space and yet charges for parking everywhere.  Code word “clockwise” indicates catching the park loop at the top of the park as it goes one way only.  Island Bikes in Northeast harbor has less expensive rentals and parking is free, but there is a very long uphill ride to the Brown Mt. entrance near Halcott Pond.  Be sure to follow the numbers on the map and from signpost to signpost; maps are basically useless.  Thankfully Greg has the Alltrails Pro app or we’d still be there.  Certainly Acadia and Bar Harbor would be more swamped with tourists in the high season, which I’m glad we avoided.  Maybe the spaceship was full and we missed our ride.  I guess we’ll have to head home by car- see Part II: Camden and Portland.