October 2017 – Fall in Love with Bar Harbor

Being from Mobile, Alabama, we don’t really experience a true change of seasons with all the beautiful colors.  If you see a couple of red or orange trees, it’s a real treat!  Over the past year of traveling all over the United States, I’ve become more and more in love with nature and all it has to offer, and Bar Harbor Maine and the Acadia National Park did not disappoint.

Unlike some of the other National Parks we visited this year, we found Acadia to have less of a wow factor and more of a warm, feel-good factor.  Glacier was breathtaking, Olympic was magical, Yellowstone was wonderfully bizarre, and Utah parks were like you were on another planet, and Acadia, well, it honestly felt like Fall.  That has a lot to do with the time of year we visited as the colors were becoming more and more vibrant, and the weather was becoming cold and crisp.   It was a spectacular time to be in Bar Harbor, and a great time to visit Acadia NP.

After spending 10 days in Bar Harbor with Eric’s brother and sister-in law, we would definitely recommend the location for anyone wanting to experience fall like never before.  In addition to the National Park, the town of Bar Harbor was absolutely delightful.  It was quaint, but busy; it was a stop for cruise ships, and there was one in the Bay almost daily.  With delicious seafood restaurants on every corner, any food lover would be in pure heaven.  We certainly were.  We ate lobster in some shape or form every one of the 10 days we were there.  We only visited one place twice, and had lobster 8 different ways:  steamed lobster, grilled lobster, lobster bisque, lobster cocktail, lobster omelet, lobster quesadilla, lobster macaroni and cheese, and our favorite..the lobster roll.  (Yes, I completely felt like Bubba Gump even writing that list.)

We took a boat trip one afternoon exploring Frenchman’s Bay on the Margaret Todd, the only 4 mast schooner in the Bay.  It was a peaceful way to see the coast, and worth every penny. Eric and Mike actually volunteered to help hoist one of the sails.  That may or may not have had to do with the young blonde who worked on the boat who was assisting them.  🙂  We saw a lobster boat hauling their catch in and a playful seal on our trip.

Another good adventure was our walk to Bar Island.  Normally a walk wouldn’t be that exciting, but Bar Island isn’t accessible except during one of the 2 low tides every day.  Tides in Bar Harbor are extreme with there being a 10-15 foot change from low to high tide twice daily.  You could visit the same location twice in one day and have a very different experience.  During low tide on our last day in the area, we made the walk to the island and up to the summit.  It was a short walk, but it was worth it to see the town from the top.  I did grab a rock from the path walking over since it was technically a rock found on the bottom of Frenchman’s Bay!

One of the highlights of the trip was the morning we watched the sunrise from Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain in Maine.  What wasn’t a highlight was having to get up at 4:30 in the morning to arrive in time.  Eric and I are not morning people, to say the least.  The most we do at 4:30 every morning is take a possible trip to the bathroom (thank you, old age) or flip over in bed to get another 5 hours of glorious sleep.  It was a cold morning on the mountain, but being that we were on the tallest point in the most northeastern state, it was fun to be the first people in the US to see the sun.

Nights around the fire hanging out are always fun, and being that our RV site was right on the water, we spent quite a few evenings just hanging out with Mike and Angie watching the sunset outside by the fire.  If anyone reading this was a fellow camper at the Oceanside KOA while we were there, I’d like to apologize if you had to witness the antics of Mike and Eric.  You forget you could have an audience when you are having fun with family!  You can take the boy out of Alabama, but you can’t take Alabama out of the boy!  Roll Tide!

We are now headed back to Mobile to see family for a few days, then we are headed to Tuscaloosa to take in a few Bama games.  As much as we are looking forward to see family again, we are not looking forward to the 85-90 degree days in Mobile.   Oh well, we will be back on the road to find beautiful weather again in a couple of months!