Trip to Maine - Part 2

After I spent 2 nights seeing my brother, father, aunt and cousins in Rockport, Massachusetts, and getting a lot of good work and planning done, I drove back to Maine to finish my vacation there. It was a pain to interrupt my vacation, but ultimately it was worth it. Rockport is a beautiful spot too, and we need to do everything we can to keep the house in the family. Some photos from that trip - the first is a sunset over the Folly Cove Lobster Pound where we had dinner, and the second is the view from my aunt's house on the water:



The other cool thing is that my rental car was a Mustang! It was fun driving that back and forth - about a total of 12 hours of driving in 3 days.

Anyway, let me show you a bunch of other pictures from the photo journal of our Maine vacation.

These photos are from a hike up Day Mountain that I did with Will & Ally (Annika wasn't feeling well, so Tom took her home). It was a pretty easy hike, with wonderful views as a payoff. Also there were lots of ripe blueberries along the way! You are looking at the Cranberry Islands in the pictures.




On July 14th I turned the ripe old age of 44. Usually I have my birthday before I get up to Maine, so it was a treat to be celebrating while we were there. My in-laws treated us to dinner (which unfortunately was at a restaurant that had gone severely downhill since the previous year), and we had a celebration. Some photos of the festivities, including some of my mother and father-in-law:





And since I have included photos of sunsets in Arizona and Rockport, here is an example from Southwest Harbor from my birthday evening:


We went on another, longer hike with everyone in the family on Parkman Mountain and Bald Peak. We had done this hike one time before, but while we were hiking a bank of fog blew in, followed by a rainstorm (this hike is actually famous in our family lore!). We hiked down in the rain, and we could not see the view from the top since we were surrounded by fog. So we definitely wanted to try this hike again!

The view of Somes Sound from the top of Parkman Mountain:


Our little picnic in the coll between the two peaks:


Yours truly at the top of Bald Peak. It was a hot day, so the breeze was really appreciated:


Finally, the absolutely extraordinary view from the top of Bald Peak. You can see Upper Hadlock Pond in the foreground, then Lower Hadlock Pond, and then the Cranberry Islands extending out past Northeast Harbor. We kept commenting on how the top of this mountain looked like Middle Earth (or at least like Peter Jackson's version of it).



Unfortunately, as we were hiking down some pretty treacherous sections, I slipped on some loose gravel and cut myself up and gave myself a nice bruise. I ended up missing some running during the next week since I was pretty bruised up. I can't believe that a few years ago we did that hike in the rain with a toddler!

We did one more sail the following day, but we ended up cutting it a bit short because of a huge fog bank that rolled in while we were on the water. Look at it - it looked like a mountain of fog.


This next set of photos is from a boat trip we took out from Bass Harbor. We have done fishing trips and whale watches - both of which we enjoyed - but I think this little nature cruise was the best boat trip we have taken on Mt. Desert. It is called Island Cruises, and the man that runs the boat is a lifelong resident of the area, and really knows his stuff.

We went on the boat with one of Tom's oldest friends who brought her kids and her niece and nephew. Here we all are looking at something:


The lovely Bass Harbor Lighthouse:


And SEALS - I have never seen so many seals in my life! In these pictures there are both harbor seals and gray seals (which are larger):




We also saw a loon, a beached humpback whale (I'll spare you my picture of that), and spent some time looking at a salmon farm. It was a very pleasant two hours!

At this point it was almost time for us to head home to Philadelphia. While we had come up to Maine in one day, we were taking two days to drive home. We spent the night at the very nice Comfort Suites in Sturbridge, Mass., and caught the final episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender there (which was very important to everyone - we're all big fans!). We then drove down to Hartford where we visited with Tom's sister, her husband and their son for a couple of hours. Usually we see them in Maine, but they did not make it up this year.

We left Hartford at 3pm, and made it home by 8:00 (after an unfortunate wrong turn onto the NY State Thruway!).

It was another terrific vacation in Maine. Next year we really hope to stay for 3-4 weeks, and get really relaxed!

Trip to Maine - Part 1

This is not going to be a real trip report, but I am going to post a bunch of photos from our visit this year. For us, a couple of weeks in Southwest Harbor, Maine (on Mt. Desert Island where Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park are) is an annual tradition. My husband Tom spent his summers here as he was growing up, and even though his parents have retired to Southern Maine they still trek up to Southwest Harbor every June and stay through September! In fact, most of his childhood friends from summers here return as well, now with their spouses and children.

So our trip to Maine each year is our chance to see Tom's parents (and usually his sister and her family), as well as visit with old friends, and relax in a familiar setting. For many years we were able to stay for 3 weeks, but for the past 2 years I could only leave my job for 2 weeks at a time, so that is the length of our trip this time. And I know I am INCREDIBLY lucky to be able to go to Maine for 2 weeks - but I have to admit that it still seems short to me!

Despite the fact that his parents have a large house, for the past 10 years we have rented our own house for everyone's sanity! Lately we have been staying in a cute house just around the corner from his parents. It has a lot of advantages - it is big enough that everyone gets their own bedroom, it is within walking distance from town, and his cousins and their children are across the street. It is a funny house (we call it a "hobbit house") full of old-fashioned furniture and tons of knick-knacks, but we are very comfortable there.

Here are two old photos (I didn't take any of the house this year):


So here is a quick visual tour of our trip.

This is us visiting at my in-law's "summer cottage." It is an absolutely beautiful house, right on the water with its own dock. This is really the only time each year that we spend time with Nana & OG, and we try to get some good visits in.





These next pictures are some nice photos that Hannah took when she went out on a walk. She was only able to be with us in Maine for 4 days this year since she was going to Spain, so we tried to fit in a lot of stuff while she was still there.





Aren't those photos nice? Hannah wants to be a journalist, but we keep telling her she should consider pursuing photography.

The 2 things at the top of Hannah's list were going to Jordan Pond House for tea and popovers, and going for a sail on our boat.

Here is Jordan Pond House. This is an annual tradition for our family - I can't imagine going to Maine and not eating here! The popovers are wonderful, and so is the seafood chowder. The view is also amazing:



The sailboat has been in Tom's family for about 60 years. It is a wooden day-sailer that was built on Mt. Desert Island in the 1920s or 30s. Only about 15 were ever built. It is beautiful condition, and Tom sails it beautifully! We did about a 2-hour sail, and the highlight was seeing a small pod of porpoises as we were sailing. It is always so relaxing and fun to be out on the boat.






The other 2 things Hannah wanted to do before I drove her down to Boston to fly off to Spain was swimming off the ledges on Long Pond:




and eating a lobster at Beal's Lobster Pier (highly recommended!):


I am going to break this photo journey through Maine into 2 separate posts so that this one doesn't get too long. It makes sense - it was after this that I drove down to Boston and put Hannah on an airplane to fly to Spain for 4 weeks.