Today was the best day weatherwise of our stay so far. I do believe that the visibility out over the ocean and across the mountains was the best it could possibly be. The air was crystal clear. The weather changed here so dramatically late yesterday afternoon that the temperature dropped from near 90 to 55 in less than an hour. We went from a land breeze to an ocean breeze, there were whitecaps out on Frenchmen's Bay in front of our hotel, and it felt like we were suddenly in a totally different world.
This morning when we left the hotel to head out for ANP, the sky was clear, a cool breeze was blowing, the air was extremely dry, and it was only in the low 50s. The only thing that changed over the day was the temperature which went up to near 70 degrees by late afternoon. It was a perfect day to finish driving the Park Loop Road. And we started at Thunder Hole a little over two hours before high tide. We were the only people there for about half an hour, so we could take photos without any people getting in the way. Us photographers love times like that.
After we finished driving the PLR, we headed out for Seal Harbor. And like the good detectives that we are, we found the entrance to Skylands, one of Martha Stewart's summer homes, in no time flat. It was even easier than last spring when we went to the North & South Forks of Long Island and found Lily Pond, her other summer home in the Hamptons, and took pictures of the beautiful gate at the end of her driveway and the roof of her house. Are we obsessed with Martha Stewart? Bevie would say that I am, and that I need to go for therapy, but she is not. I'm not so sure I would agree with that assessment.
Martha has signs everywhere at the end of her Skylands driveway telling us ... warning us, that it's private property and we are not to enter and disturb her. Perhaps our reputations preceded us. Did her signs scare us? Yes indeedie they did. What does this have to do with Salmon Falls Photography? Absolutely nothing. But we consider it quite a challenge to find Martha's houses and figure it's good clean harmless fun.
We traveled from the park to Seal Harbor to Southwest Harbor to Northeast Harbor, and then back over to Bass Harbor so Bev could take some photos of Bass Head Light. Earlier in the week, when we entered the lighthouse grounds illegally before 9 am, we didn't know there was another path on the far side of the lighthouse that provided an access all the way down to the bottom of the rocks on the ocean side of the lighthouse. The access allows for photos to be taken looking up at the lighthouse from the water's edge. Bev really wanted that photo so we drove all the way across Mount Desert Island to THAT lighthouse to get THAT photo taken from THAT view. A little aside here. The "Desert" in MDI is pronounced like the word "dessert", not "desert" - at least over in Seal Harbor where Martha lives.
We wanted to get going early this morning, but slept much later than usual because we were both exhausted - still are for that matter. By the time we did get out this morning, the park had already opened and we'd missed a lot of the early morning light. We cut outselves some slack and kept reiterating how incredibly gorgeous the day was and how extraordinary the visibility was and we just simply enjoyed being in the moment in such a beautiful place.
Not much to report in the restaurant review department. We never did eat breakfast or lunch today. We just got busy with business and forgot to think about meals. Finally, we decided it was time to get off the photo op road and head for downtown Bar Harbor for supper. We drove up and down a few streets looking at restaurants and finally, on a fluke, picked Mama DiMatteo's, an Italian place. It was a lucky choice. The food was excellent. And I was a very happy camper - the soup of the day was gazpacho, one of my all time favorites. We shared an order of crab-stuffed mushrooms. Bev had Mediterranean past for her main course and I had mac & cheese made with gorgonzola cheese. Oh, and a side of sauteed spinach and pine nuts. No dessert. We walked down to the center of the shops, wandered around some stores (why does Bar Harbor have two stores devoted entirely to dogs, but not a single one for cats???), and then into a different ice cream store from last night's that we decided needed checking out. Tonight I had a waffle cone withat a scoop each of butter crunch and Almond Joy ice cream. Very, very good. But then again, what ice cream isn't!
After we get today's blog online, we plan to do some reading. As my family well knows, one of my favorite travel things to do is to read the local newspaper. This week's issue of the "Mount Desert Islander" came out just today and I have a copy right on the bed here beside me. You just know what I'll be reading when I climb into bed.
Tomorrow morning we will be packing up to leave Bar Harbor and our next stop is Rockland, ME. We hope to spend the morning visiting the Wyeth Center at the Farnsworth Art Museum We are both big fans of all three Wyeths and we rarely get a chance to visit the Wyeth Center to check out new exhibits. This will be a treat for both of us. After our museum stop, lunch at the Brown Bag in downtown Rockland (a wonderful breakfast & lunch bakery/cafe that Bob and I discovered on our trip to Rockland & Camden to celebrate my 60th birthday), we then head home to Massachusetts.
We will post one final Bar Harbor trip blog tomorrow night. There's bound to be some photo ops between Bar Harbor and the Rockland/Camden area and who knows what other unexpected adventure might come out way. So tomorrow night, look for one final posting from our Bar Harbor trip before we settle back into everyday life with our families - we do miss our hubbies and our kitties.
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