Bar Harbor, Maine (Part 1) August 22-29

We selected to stop in Bar Harbor, Maine primarily to visit Acadia National Park.  With so much to do and see in the park Acadia is covered in Part II as an update all by itself!

Driving down every road you can't miss the proliferation of Moose Warnings and we especially loved the Moose sculpture in front of this hotel.

During our week, we took time off and went Whale Watching on a jet boat catamaran.  We were scheduled to go the day before but the swells were over 6 feet. The day we went had 4 foot swells (normal is 1-2).   If we had waited Hurricane Irene was scheduled to come in so we toughed it out on the rough seas.  It is hard to take good photos when you are rocking & rolling. We saw finback and humpback whales.  Top right is after a whale came up (Spy Hopping)  and bottom right you can see the last part of a fin flop.  The center is a pod floating close to the surface.  I didn't get the tail fluke shot - I almost fell over trying to take it and all I got was the horizon.

We did a wine tasting at Bar Harbor Cellars.  We could not resist visiting the Atlantic Brewing Company with a beer tasting bar and a brewery tour.  Mark loved the Bar Harbor Real Ale, the best seller on the island. We bought a variety pack of beer and one that we know that our Palm Creek neighbor Frank is going to love.  It is called S.O.B. (Special Old Bitter Ale)!!!  We're lookin' forward to seeing Frank at our first happy hour back at Palm Creek.

We spent some time just walking the quaint shops in Downtown Bar Harbor, ate lunch one day at the Route 66 restaurant which is a museum unto itself (top left), and just marveled at the view of the Bar Harbor Inn (bottom right) situated right on the shoreline.

We had a neat surprise.  I sent out an email notification to let everyone know the website was updated and added that we were at Acadia National Park.  An email came back from Skip and Bev Nirenberg (tennis friends from Palm Creek). They were at Hadley's Point campground and wanted to know where we were and if we were still in the area to call them.  I called them right away to let them know we were both parked in the same campground!!  And, of course, we got together for a Palm Creek Style Happy Hour. 

The rest of our week we spent inside Acadia so that's the next update!