Maine Day 7: The mini golf index

We had the best breakfast of the week today

(Cafe This Way—check it out!)

Before packing up the van

And heading out of town.

Our flight isn’t until this evening

So Mom suggested we stop by Pirate’s Cove,

This crazy looking mini golf course

Outside of town.

It was a really cool course

With waterfalls and caves

Some holes with secret tunnels that get you hole-in-ones

Funny places to perch

And more crazy tunnels that lead to hole-in-ones

Now this was a lot of fun.

We’ve played mini golf on a few different vacations,

Which made Jack propose the Mini Golf Index.

The MGI helps you rate the overall fun of the trip.

Simply, the more fun the mini golf is,

Reflectively, the less fun the trip must be.

Mini golf in Bar Harbor—maybe a 3 out of 10?

It was fun, but we did much more fun things.

Mini golf in Sedona—probably more of a 7.

We gotta repeat that trip and set things straight.

We decided to take the scenic route south

And stopped to stretch our legs

Harborside in Belfast.

It was a pretty low-key day after all of our adventures.

But it gave us time to sit back and think about all our favorites of the week:

The Beehive was the favorite hike, followed by Beech.

MDI has the best ice cream.

Cafe this Way has the best breakfast.

Side Street has the best lobster.

And Bob’s Burgers is our new favorite bedtime show.

We walked/hiked 64 miles,

Biked 40 miles,

And paddled 7 miles.

That’s how you do Acadia and Bar Harbor!

 

Maine Day 6: All the stairs and ladders of Acadia

One last day on Mount Desert Island—

We’re going to make the most of it!

We have 2 major hikes today

And the first is Dorr Mountain.

It’s known for it’s stairs.

Lots and lots of stairs

The entire first 3/4 mile is one giant staircase

There were some fun slots and squeezes 

And 3 ladders and rungs too

And then,

More stairs

But with lots and lots of climbing

Comes better and better views

Where are Dad and Tuck you ask?

Coming.

It was not Tucker’s favorite hike so far

(And notice—more stairs)

But the top

Was so worth the climb

Hello Dorr Mountain summit—

Elevation 1270 feet

(And we started from 19 feet)

It really was breathtaking

And what’s that behind us you ask?

Cadillac Mountain!

Hard to see zoomed out

But there are a TON of people on that mountain

And only about 10 on ours

Wow.

The good part about going UP mountains

Means you also get to go down…

Does it look like we are clinging for dear life?

(We aren’t—although it is a bit steep)

We headed down Schiff Path

Which had some cool cliffs

And more stairs

(At least we’re headed down!)

Then we got to loop around The Tarn

Which was filled with tadpoles and polywogs

It was really pretty

Only 2.9 miles long

But definitely our steepest hike yet!

But hold up—

We’re got one more on the docket.

Remember the extremely foggy Echo Lake?

We’re back!

This afternoon,

We’re tackling Beech Cliff Ladder trail

And throwing in the Canada Cliffs just for fun

(Well, Mom and Dad think that will be fun)

There’s more stairs?!?!

Ok, we do love some ladders

And there were some CRAZY ladders

See???

Whew!

Similar to Dorr,

We hit our summit of 630 feet in only about 0.5 miles of hiking

We needed some lunch

And some trail beers

And a bit of resting and reflecting

Another great view

We meandered down another crazy trail

Full of tunnels and tight squeezes

Before popping out in this forest

And eventually landing at Echo Lake beach

For a well-deserved rest

We were glad to have a warm beach day

Our last night in Bar Harbor

Called for some fancy shirts

And a big night out.

We started at Blaze for our drinks and apps

Before heading to Geddy’s,

A Bar Harbor staple for lobster

It was good,

But not our favorite restaurant of the week.

The green stuff that leaked out of the lobster

Kinda freaked Weston out.

Our 3rd ice cream stop of the trip was at Ben and Bill’s—

The had actual lobster ice cream.

Yikes.

We didn’t try it.

Our ice cream was good, but of the 3,

It was probably last on our list

Did we mention CJ’s?

That was the ice cream last night—

It was great.

Weston really liked the blueberry soft serve.

A strong #2 on our list

(MDI is definitely the best)

We wandered to the shore with our ice cream

To watch the ships and the stars

Before walking to our 

Funny little quaint house

That has kind of grown on us this week.

We had some Bob’s Burgers to watch.

It’s been a great week.

Thanks Bar Harbor!

Maine Day 5: Acadia by Water

Today was a bit foggy,

A bit rainy,

And a bit cool

So we slept in a bit before heading in to get our first popovers

At The Stadium.

We left with some of their blueberry jam

And maple butter.

Sooooo good.

Bellies full,

We set out with our SUPs

Strapped to the van

(They said they could set anyone up to roll!)

And headed to Echo Lake…

Where it was also very foggy,

A bit rainy,

And a bit cool

With wetsuits on,

We headed out for adventure

It was only about a 1/4 mile across

(Which we didn’t know at the time),

But we couldn’t see ANYTHING

Which was both creepy and exciting

We decided the safest path would be to paddle the circumference

(Again, since we had no idea what the lake looked like)

We were surprised to find a beach at one end

It made a nice place to stop

Before heading back up the other shoreline

We set off again,

Keeping the shore in sight

Dad and Tuck were cold

And decided to pull out for lunch.

The rest of us powered on

We made it all the way to the other end,

Battling through a lot of wind and even some rain

4.1 miles of paddling was a bit of work

And we were a little disappointed that the fog never lifted

But it made for a pretty cool experience

We had a second adventure planned for today.

We fueled up at this cool Irish brewery 

In Ellsworth

And then made our way to Castine Bay

We’re off on a night kayaking excursion

You might be wondering why we drove all the way out here,

Went through an hour safety briefing,

And were excited to see fog and clouds

For this kayaking trip.

For the bioluminescence.

It was so dark with the clouds and fog,

We had to maneuver our kayaks

Based solely on the sound of the waves on the cliffs beside us.

But the darkness was perfect.

About a mile away from our port

Where Castine Harbor meets Penobscot Bay,

The water began to sparkle.

At first it looked like a few random specks of glitter,

And then like light reflecting in ripples off the water,

Until it exploded into billions of stars twinkling in the water.

We tried to capture a picture or a video,

But no luck.

But it was nothing short of awesome.

We could stop smacking our paddled,

Running our hands through the water, 

And smiling like a bunch of fools.

Mom and Dad said it was one of the coolest things they’d ever seen.

We agree.

Our guides said the darkness made it one of the best nights

They’d ever had.

But then…

The fog lifted just a bit

And the clouds cleared

And then it was nothing but stars above us

And stars below us.

It was so. COOL!

We were able to catch a few pictures of the paddling teams—

Dad and Tuck

Mom and Beck

And Jack and Wes

But then, 

One last surprise.

Back at the harbor,

We discovered the plankton were heavily concentrated 

under the dock in the seaweed.

One slap on the water

And it lit up like a scene out of Avatar.

We could have stayed there all night watching the sparkle.

Between the disorientingly foggy SUPs on Echo,

The jaw-dropping sparkle of the plankton,

And the billions of Maine deer we passed on our way home,

It was an absolutely memorable day.