We are posting today's blog early purely for selfish reasons. We want to go swimming tonight after dark in the beautiful hotel pool with the underwater lighting all while the stars are out and the moon is shining. With the blog written and a photo added from today's outing, we can stay in the pool (and the hot tub) until it closes at 11 pm - much too late to take care of business like that AFTER we climb out of the pool.
Today, with plans to travel the 27-mile Park Loop Road (PLR) in Acadia National Park (ANP), but unable to enter the park until it opened at 8 am, we started with breakfast at 7 at the Morning Glory Bakery in downtown Bar Harbor. I had an egg & bagel sandwich and they actually cooked the egg fresh while I waited. No pre-cooked eggs here like Dunkin' Donuts. Very good bagels - New York style with a nice chewy outside and a soft inside. They did not have fresh hand-squeezed orange juice. :( I had to settle for Nantucket Nectars apple juice. It was still a good breakfast. We watched all the worker bees come in in their Monday through Friday work clothes to get their coffee and pastries to go before they headed out for the office or wherever they work. The regulars . . . those ladies at the bakery counter knew exactly what they wanted before the morning regulars even walked in the front door.
Just before 8 am, we headed out for the park; but, we had decided to stop first at an old stone arch bridge that when you look out through the arch, you see a beautiful view of the ocean. Ugh! My camera battery was dead (we determined the battery was the problem after swapping out my battery for Bev's - thank heaven we have near identical cameras). Like all good professional photographers, I had charged the battery before I went to bed last night. Still don't know for sure what the problem is, but the battery is already in the charger and we'll see what another charge does for it. Bev offered to share her camera with me for the day. That's okay, but she's not quite as generous as I would have liked her to be. Plus, my prize-winning photos of the day are now on her camera memory card and I'm not so sure I will ever get my hands back on them again!
We got lost on the Park Loop Road. We took a right when we should have taken a left. Not really our fault. On our way back out of the park this afternoon, we checked the signage from the opposite direction and it's definitely misleading. You don't have to be Polish to have made the mistake we made. Anyway, by the time we realized we were on the wrong road, we ended up at a beautiful little beach in Seal Harbor where Martha Stewart owns one of her summer homes. The fog was rolling in heavy off the ocean. The small harbor had lots of lobster boats anchored, and there were several beautiful forested islands not far off the beach, and it was another one of those fortuituous happenings. We LOVE fog photographs! I will be very excited to see how those photos come out. I think there may will be a Lambert Award for Excellence in Photography winner for this year's Plymouth Art Guild show. (Bev won the Lambert Award last year, and I am DETERMINED to win it this year!!! Am I a competitive older sister. Maybe just a little.)
We then turned around, got back on the Park Loop Road and started back from the beginning of the one-way section. And the fog came rolling in all the way up to where we were (much further inland and amongst some pretty high mountain peaks). We did get to stop at Thunder Hole, but it was almost exactly high tide and the hole was quiet. When we return tomorrow, when we are sure the fog will have lifted, we plan on getting to Thunder Hole about 3-hours before high tide - the ideal time for the loudest thunder sounds as the waves come crashing into the split rock chasm that makes for all the noise.
Not long after we left Thunder Hole, it started raining (never trust Accuweather's forecast - today Bar Harbor was suppose to be sunny with highs in the mid-70s). So we drove straight over to the Jordan Pond House and settled in at a table by the window that afforded us a beautiful view of Jordan Pond and The Bubbles (with some fog). We both ordered soup and one of their world-famous popovers. Oh, those popovers! Served with soft whipped butter and blueberry jam. To die for! Then we had green salads with curried chicken salad on top. Bill, a college kid and our waiter, was fabulous. He comes from Easton, one of the town's that borders Raynham. Talk about a small world. Then we shopped at the gift store and I did some serious credit card damage. Presents for you family members - they're very, very nice.
Now we're back at the hotel, and I'm writing the blog and Bev is downloading today's photos and I just know she's stealing my photos of the fog rolling in over at Seal Harbor. Later we're going to make a trip to the downtown Bar Harbor area where all the neat stores are and visit the Atlantic Brewing Company to buy some locally-brewed suds for our hubbies. Supper is going to be ice cream at another local ice cream maker we saw last night wandering around downtown Bar Harbor. Then back to the hotel and out to the pool. YEAH!
Tomorrow - back to the Park Loop Road to check out the section we got rained out of today. Then off to Seal Harbor to have lunch with Martha. Just kidding! But we do want to ride around Seal Harbor to look for some more photo ops. If we're lucky, like so many other days, fortuituous photo ops will come our way when we least expect to find them. Although, quite honestly, if we came home with just the photos we already have, we'd more than happy with this road trip. You just have to trust that the photos will find you and not look too hard for them on purpose.
We will be back tomorrow with tales of another day's adventures. Bev wants to make sure I not get your hopes up with this posting - we will not be posting any photos of us swimming in the pool tonight.
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