New England At It's Best

Last spring my parents booked flights for a long weekend visit in the Fall. That just happened to be this weekend and lucky for us the kids had a five day school break, thanks to Yom Kippur and Columbus Day, with a teacher work day tucked in on Friday. Ever since we moved to New England, I have had a revolving mental list of places to explore. Acadia, Maine made it to the top of the list and everyone was game to go. Steve took Friday off, and we loaded hiking gear, swimming suits and warm coats, just in case, in the Sequoia, strapped our bikes on the back, and set off on a five hour drive to the Down East Region of Maine. 

Saturday morning we pulled open our shades and realized that our hotel was perched up on the shore of Bar Harbor. The blue waters of the Atlantic lapped the granite rocks below and brilliant reds, yellows and oranges set the trees ablaze on the islands dotting the sea. The leaves were at their peak, like nothing we had seen before. We had arrived after dark and so this was our introduction to our spectacular surroundings that would be the backdrop of our weekend of play. The air was crisp but the sun warmed us, even in the early morning. It would be a great day, we knew!

After a quick breakfast, we headed into the village of Bar Harbor to book a boat ride. Although we were tempted by a 3 1/2 hour whale watching excursion, we chose a shorter lobster and seal cruise, which was perfect for our family with varying attention spans. We hopped on Miss Samantha with Captain Ed and cruised out into the harbor. 

We stopped at five or six lobster buoys and watched Ed hook the line to the trap, sunk dozens of feet below, to a contraption on his boat that zipped the trap up to the surface. Each time the trap came into sight we anxiously awaited the creatures lurking in the corners of the trap. Ed pulled out multiple crabs, but it wasn't until the last trap that a lobster was waiting to greet us. The kids measured the lobster, to see if it was legal to keep, they banded its pinchers and then held it like the pet they wished they had.

Emilie, Jonathan, Annelise and even Sophia held the crabs too, with their pinchers flailing, for photos and meet your local sea creature time. 

We stopped at a light house in the bay for photos of seals sunning themselves. 

Just as Ezra became restless and began rubbing his eyes, we began our trip back to the dock, with a morning of hands on memories stored away. 

We grabbed chowder at a local lobster shack and ate it with oyster crackers on a hill overlooking the harbor. 

We then headed into Acadia National Park for an afternoon of bike riding on the 50 miles of carriage roads that were created by John Rockefeller for horse drawn carriages in the early 1900's. Steve, Emilie, Jonathan and Annelise raced on their bikes, Ezra rode in the stroller, with Sophia joining him when she wasn't collecting rocks and sticks, and my parents and I walked. We spent the afternoon exploring the trails all the way until Jonathan's chain fell off and Emilie's handlebars began to jiggle. Then we knew it was time to pack up the bikes and make our way back to Bar Harbor!

My parents treated us to a lobster dinner at Poor Boys Gourmet, the best sea food restaurant around, according to a local we ran into. The kids had shrimp and pasta off of the children's menu. I wondered if I could be a kid too until I spotted the lobster feast on the menu. All the adults ordered the feast and enjoyed clam chowder and lobster bisque, lobster meat served atop melted butter on a bed of broken crackers. We finished our feast with fresh blueberry pie. 

We ended the day with an evening of swimming at the hotel. (Before we left, Jonathan announced that the only way we could compensate for his missed soccer game was to swim at the hotel and find tide pools. Despite how tired I was, I was willingly dragged to the pool while Steve put Ezra to sleep.)

On Saturday morning, we headed out on the 27 mile loop around Acadia, immersed in the most spectacular fall scenery Steve and I had ever enjoyed. 

My parents followed, and in tandem we stopped at a nature center and Native American museum, Sand Beach, 

Thunder Hole, (which we hit at low tide and learned that it wasn't until high tide that the waves crash up through a crevasse leaving visitors soaked, exactly what our children were hoping for!), Bass Harbor Head Light House, where we had a picnic on a carpet of bright green moss, 

and a hike around Ship Harbor. This was where the tide pools were supposed to come in. We found the pools, but no sea creatures. I think that at this point, Jonathan had forgotten his stipulations and it was probably just as fun searching with his dad and grandpa for the urchin and star fish laden pool then actually finding it!

We raced back to another hike that I had read about that was to an island. It was only accessible during low tide, across a sand bar which was exposed for a couple hours when the tide was out. We were sure we had missed our opportunity, sacrificed by our search for the tide pools. We arrived to the spot and there was the sand bar, still connecting the island to the mainland. We leaped out of the car and made our way out to the island. On our way back, we mused over whether or not the sand bar really would disappear. It looked so dry and solid. We climbed in the car and as we backed out, we looked back to see the unforgiving ocean rushing across the middle of the sand bar. Had we been minutes later, we would have been wading through the ice cold water just like the hikers we were watching, with shoes in hand and pants rolled up. I guess they were lucky. Had it been much later, a boat would have been rescuing them.  

After wandering through a few shops in Bar Harbor, we stopped for ice cream and chose such flavors as Lobster Tracks and Maine Black Bear and then snuggled into the car for a drive to Portland Maine for our next day of vacation.

The next morning we rushed around our cramped hotel room, ironing Sunday clothes, tying bows in hair and finding lost shoes. We jumped in the car and headed to church on Cape Elizabeth. One thing that I love about going to church on vacation, is that you really get to meet the locals and be apart of the community for an hour or so. I have always wondered who chooses to live in Maine. I get it for the summer and fall, but the winter and muddy spring? I always picture lumberjacks and lobstermen, sea kayak instructors and snow plow operators with a few outlet sales people mixed in. After talking to several church goers, I found that our church in Maine is similar to any other one I have been a part of. 

After church we headed to Portland Head Light,  another light house. This light was the first one commisioned by the government, requested by George Washington himself!  

A beautiful park surrounded the light house with rolling grassy hills. Two Light Park not only showcased the well kept Portland light but also a rustic lighthouse out in the harbor.

We headed into town and after a quick exploration of Portland, we headed down the coast to Kennebunkport. I researched a little lobster shack on Cape Porpoise. We munched on $10 lobsters, lobster rolls, clam chowder, fried scallops and fish and chips as we sat on a picnic table over looking small boats bobbing in an inlet. 

A light house was off to one side with a panoramic view of pied foilage with a classic New England steeple poking above the leaves on the other side.

Little cottages lined the streets with adorandic chairs on the front lawn and pumpkins resting upon the door frames, above the doors, a New England Fall tradition that I immediately fell in love with on our first house hunting trip. Who gets to live in this perfect quentessiential American village, I wondered? On our way home we stopped in Kittery, Maine for a little shopping for kids clothes and then headed home to Sudbury. We had the perfect weekend and we couldn't have been more lucky to share it with Grandpa and Grandma.