Baa Haa Baa (Bar Harbor), Maine

We are so glad that we decided to make the trip to Bar Harbor! It's been one of the highlights on our trip so far. Based upon the amount of time we spent in New England, we almost decided to skip Bar Harbor. So glad we didn't. We are already talking about returning sometime shortly after our trip.

So we left Alton, NH Saturday shortly before noon and had to stop at the Verizon store as I was having issues with my phone. After an hour or so we got everything straightened out and headed 3.5 hours north to Bar Harbor. The drive was gorgeous!! Hills, trees, mountains... everything we don't have in FL.

We arrived around 4pm, checked into the campground and asked for recommendations on where to get "lobsta" the size of a small child. Everyone was super nice and our spot at the campground was on the side of the hill just over crest, looking over the water. Beautiful view!!

We took their recommendation and went to the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound for dinner. So much fun! You get to pick out your lobsters and they cook them outside near the road right in front of you. The girls had PBJ and clam chowda and Cathy and I had lobstas! After that we made a quick trip through Bar Harbor to scout it out for the next couple of days. We stopped in a small pub for ice cream and drinks and Cathy had her first Mead. Not impressed. We went back, put the kids to bed and then got a late night call from Brittany.

Sunday we got up and walked down to the end of the RV park to "Mainely Meat" for breakfast which served almost nothing but meat dishes. We ended up eating there a couple of times as everyone loved the bacon.

For the rest of the morning the girls played on the playground, we did some laundry and Cathy and I took a walk down the hillside overlooking the water. We thought about leaving the girls, stealing a boat and sailing away forever but Cathy would miss her electric heaters.

The weather Sunday was absolutely gorgeous (65 and sunny) so we decided to spend the day outside at Acadia National Park. OMG!! What a huge, gorgeous park. It takes an hour or two just to drive through it.

We spent an hour or so at Sand Beach and let the girls run around the beach (literally) while Cathy and I took a stroll. It was a lovely beach nestled in quaint bay but a little windy for us (I mean Cathy). I imagine the beach is beautiful during the summer. We contemplated coming out the next day while the girls did their school work, unfortunately we discovered our Verizon signal was nearly non-existent.

Our next stop was a few miles down the road at Thunder Hole. Apparently the water comes shooting out of the hole above and makes a "thunderous" noise. Unfortunately the tide was out when we got there but we had a great time walking around the rocks and looking at the (awesome) water.

Our next adventure was the highlight of our day: Gorham Mountain. It was a one mile hike to the top of the mountain (approximately 500ft above sea level) and should have only taken us 15-20 minutes to do the entire round trip. However, given the speed at which the girls climb mountains, it ended up being over an hour long. But! Everyone agreed that the view from the top was well worth the effort.

Kira had some issues at first with the rocks, uneven surfaces and climbing in general but she soon gained some confidence and was hopping around some rocks by the end of the trip. Hali and Lexi were billy goats. We had to tell them to wait up for us a couple of times as they would disappear.

Everyone was exhaused and hungry when we got back into the Jeep so we headed into Bar Harbor for some grub. We finally settled on Paddy's Irish Pub which was pretty good. We capped the night off with some ice cream and then headed back to the RV for bed.

Monday was school and work again but we were looking forward to the evening. We had driven three hours to Bar Harbor because our friend Tanya told us she could find us a babysitter. We hadn't had a night out by outselves in over 100 days! I have to admit that Tanya's our awesomest friend now as she came through and hooked us up a babysitter that made "RV calls".

We ordered pizza for the girls and took off as fast as we could after she arrived. Our goal was to hit Bar Harbor to do some bar hopping and eat and drink in as many places as possible. I think in total we stopped in 6 or so different "establishments". What an awesome time! We met so many people from Sarasota in little Bar Harbor! We eventually found out that a number of businesses is the city also own restaurants and hotels in Sarasota (Longboat Beach Club for instance) and their employees simply move back and forth during seasons. Apparently Bar Harbor is only open for six months out of the year. Apparently no one wants to vacation there in January.

Tuesday was our last day in Maine and the weather had gone from beautiful to cold, cloudy and dreary. After the girls finished school I took the rest of the day off and we headed back to Mainely Meat for lunch before taking off for Acadia National Park again. Our goal for the day was to drive up to Cadillac Mountain to see the sights but the weather didn't cooperate. By the time we got to the top it was too foggy to see anything. So we bought a carton of water (yes, a carton of water) and headed back into town. Bummer.

We grabbed dinner at Geddy's, bought some souvineers and then headed back to the RV. We would miss Maine. A lot.

Dates: September 27 - October 1
RV Park: Bar Harbor Campground, Bar Harbor, NH