We woke early to another beautiful sunrise out of our hotel window and then after breakfast headed to the Schoodic Peninsula for the day. This area of Acadia had been recommended to us by many people as the more secluded area of the park...less crowds, further away and yet, still as beautiful. They were right!
We drove about an hour from our hotel to the Schoodic Peninsula...
After driving the loop, we enjoyed a 4th of July lunch at a spot in Winter Harbor, ME. Winter Harbor is the town right before entering the Schoodic Peninsula.
After lunch, we headed back to Mt, Desert Island and our hotel. We were excited about our Fireworks cruise and spending the rest of July 4th in Bar Harbor.
Much to our disappointment, our fireworks cruise was cancelled at the last minute due to technical issues with the boat. After my little pity party, we moved to plan B...
We had a nice dinner at the Chart Room...it was in the opposite direction from where the other 20,000 people were in downtown Bar Harbor for the festivities.
After dinner, we decided (Plan B) to walk into town to view the fireworks with the rest of the masses and see what it was all about. It was about a mile walk...the shuttle buses stopped running in the afternnoon because of all the crowds and street closures.
It was crowded, and parking lots were closed. Live music was playing and it was really pretty cool.
waiting for fireworks
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| Pre-fireworks view |
After we walked the mile back to our room with ALL of our closest, new friends :)...we realized that we had a great time and it wasn't that bad. We added another distant Fourth of July celebration to our list....Hawaii, Canada, Montana, Virginia, Utah, Belize, and now Maine!
Day 5:
We woke on our last morning in Maine and decided to venture out for breakfast to a highly recommended location. Jordan's Restaurant did not disappoint...blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins...delicious!
We then did a little last minute shopping, said goodbye to Bar Harbor and began the road trip back to Portland. Our flight was not until 7:30 pm, so we had lots of time to stop and appreciate.
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| a sign that Don enjoyed our whole time in Bar Harbor |
Our first stop on the way back was in Camden, Maine. It's a beautiful coastal town. We parked and wandered around for a while. It's got a very cute Main Street.
We then continued on to Portland. It's nice to know that the girls can be 17 and 19 and still appreciate the car nap!
Our final destination before the airport was a restaurant in Portland that Don has had on his bucket list for a while. When this trip was in the pre-planning stages a year ago...the first thing that was researched is where is the Great Lost Bear and can we make it work to stop there for a meal.
One of Don's favorite authors, John Connolly, writes a series of mystery/adventure novels that are set in the Portland area. The Great Lost Bear restaurant is a constant in many of the novels and the restaurant characters in the books are based on real employees of the restaurant.
We found it and had a great late lunch.
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| apparently these booths are where "it all goes down" in the books! :) |
We got to the airport a little earlier than we wanted to and therefore, had about 3 hours to sit and wait for our plane....which then was delayed an hour.
Oh well, after a great 5 days we arrived back in Purcellville at about midnight and fell into bed. :)
