Road Trip Through Maine: Acadia and Bar Harbor post #1
We had a totally awesome road trip this year! We headed from Chicago through Michigan and to Niagara Falls. Then we went through Canada to Quebec City. Next, we drove through Maine to Acadia National Park and down along the coast. Finally, we spent a day in Boston. I’m happy to share today about our road trip through Maine, part 1. I had never been there before; I love Maine!!!
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We entered Maine from Canada. It was our 4th time to go through the border crossing. My husband and I have passports and earlier this year we got passport cards for the kids. It made the crossings very simple. They just asked a few questions and then looked at each person’s face matching it with the card or passport. At this crossing, the border patrolman said he wishes he would be blessed with 8 kids like we are, but it’s “not in His plan.” I have since prayed often for that young man. Will you pray for him, too?
He also warned us to be careful of moose crossing for the next 100 miles. I so wanted to see a moose! But we didn’t. The scenery was gorgeous.
We stopped at a road-side diner and had a nice dinner before heading to Ellsworth where we planned to stay the next 3 nights. I made a huge mistake with that hotel choice. No pool! But it did have free breakfast, which we hadn’t had in Niagara Falls or Quebec City.
The next morning we drove across to Mount Desert Island, much of which is Acadia National Park. After a quick stop at the visitor center, we started on the scenic drive around the island.
One of the stops was Sand Beach. The kids didn’t have swim suits (of course!) but didn’t get too wet. We did, thankfully, have beach towels in the car.
This one is my favorite!
The kids had fun getting to walk around the rocks.
After the morning drive, we headed into the cutesy, touristy town of Bar Harbor for lunch. The oldest males had some lobster. Then we walked around the town (I got a lighthouse souvenir ornament.) We went to the harbor to see if we could get on a boat ride that afternoon, but they weren’t running until the next morning. (It ended up being rainy the next morning, so we postponed it for the day after that.) We decided to drive around the island some more and go see one of the lighthouses- the Bass Harbor light.
I loved the beautiful lupine that we saw all over.
We went back to the hotel and found that it was right next store to the L.L. Bean outlet store, so the girls and I went shopping! We got take-in sub sandwiches and watched the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup!
Since it was so rainy the next morning, we decided to go to an oceanarium and lobster hatchery that was on Mount Desert Island. It turned out to be a very cool adventure, very fun and educational.
This is a blue lobster, which occurs in about one in every million!
This was a real lobster boat that was in the building.
My daughter is sitting on a chair made of a lobster trap.
We absolutely loved the presentation by this gentleman, who had been a lobster fisherman. All 3 presenters made references to God and his creation, which was so refreshing! There was also Scripture on the wall in one of the rooms. This first man taught us all about lobster fishing.
The next room was the lobster hatchery. The man in there told us about their mission. They get these pregnant lobsters from fishermen who catch them by accident. See the thousands of black eggs on her?
They hatch the eggs and keep the lobsters through their first 4 stages of development. When they are about 1/2 an inch long, they go out on one of the lobster boats and put the baby lobsters back in the ocean.
The final room had a touch tank where the kids got to touch quite a few ocean creatures: sea squirt, sea cucumber, horseshoe crab, sea star, and moon snail.
It was still very foggy, but we decided to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. We headed back to the hotel and my oldest went to the next-store music store because he was having guitar-playing withdrawal. Then, we drove to the town of Castine to see a second lighthouse: Dyce (or Dice) Head light.
When we drove around Maine, we totally enjoyed the beautiful churches and other buildings.
That evening my husband took the older boys out for a lobster dinner. I wasn’t interested. 🙂
Join us next time for Part 2 of the Maine adventure–out on the boat in the harbor and down the coast, including a visit to Pemaquid Lighthouse!
It looks like you had a great start to your Maine adventure! I have lived in this great state my entire life. 🙂 I wanted to drop by and say “hello!” I recognize the little store you stopped at. I lived only one town away (across the river) for 8 years and frequented that store often! I drove Route 201 often as well as that was the route into Skowhegan where I did all of my grocery shopping. We have now moved further south (for job purposes) but really enjoyed living in that part of the state.
Oh, how fun! I almost didn’t keep that picture in the post. I’m glad I did. 🙂
Oh what a great looking trip you guys had!! We love road trippin!
So do we. 🙂
–Gena
Looks like a fun trip! We’d love to get here someday! 🙂
Isn’t Maine the best place ever? Love, love, love it there!!! I recognize some of the sights from your pictures. I totally hope we get to go back someday. What was it like getting passports for the kids? When we traveled there were no such requirements for crossing the border. Seems weird to live in a border town and not be able to cross freely anymore. None of us have passports…yet.
Here is what I did for getting the kids passport cards.
1. Get official birth certificates for each (at the city hall where they were born).
2 Get official passport pictures taken (at Walgreens)
3. Download the passport application from the US Passport website and fill them out (takes a long time because they ask lots of questions).
4. Make an appointment to apply (I did my passport at a post office but did the kids at a library because the timing worked better). Both parents have to go to the kids’ passport application appointment.
Hope that helps!