Maine, Bar Harbor - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - Bar Harbor

The weather hasn’t been cooperating – it’s been rainy and overcast since we were last out on Saturday.  Temps are in the mid-70’s today but the wind is still pretty brisk.  It is supposed to be nice through the weekend so we have extended our stay here for a couple more days, we’ll be leaving here Sunday morning.  Then we’ll be heading south to York, Maine to meet up with Robyn, Jason and Maddie for a week.

Bar Harbor (that is pronounced bah ha bah if you are a local) was our destination for today.  Tourist season doesn’t officially begin here until July 4 but evidently all of the locals were out for one last hurrah before that since the weather was nice.  Our waiter at lunch told us that the locals don’t come out during tourist season J.  Since we are from Indiana I can relate this to being in Nashville, IN in the Fall trying to find a parking space at lunchtime – only worse.  This place is packed!!  We did manage to snag a prime parking spot but it had a 2 hour limit.

Since I had four days to review Bar Harbor literature, I had time to pick out a few sights I wanted to see.  Lunch was first on the list.  We cut through a small alley, not sure why no one else is in here, it is packed everywhere else.

 

 

Stewman’s Lobster Pound was our choice for lunch today.

Even though it was windy we chose to sit outside on the upstairs balcony.

This was the view from our table.  See that balcony off to the right in the second picture?  I’d love to sit up there in a rocking chair or porch swing wrapped up in a blanket and watch the storms come in.  Those picnic tables are another part of the restaurant, I think that is a little too up close to the water for a relaxing lunch.

 

 

My choice was a half ladle of lobster bisque, Greg chose clam chowder but I didn’t try to get a picture of his, he was already enjoying it.

We both chose Lobster Cobb Salads – I would highly recommend it.

The hotel across the street from the restaurant is bound to have some pretty spectacular views of Frenchman Bay.

There was supposed to be a cruise ship into the pier this morning according to a newsletter I was reading but it was nowhere to be seen, don’t know if it was late or the newsletter was wrong.  Our waiter said they were expecting 400 ships to come in during the summer season – he said it is really congested then.  We did see a couple of schooners.  I think these are the ones that take you on tours but they must not be running yet because there was no dock out to them.

And beautiful Bar Harbor Inn is right on the Bay.

During low tide there is a sand bar that runs from Bar Harbor to Bar Island, you can walk across but be sure to be back before high tide or you are spending the night on the beach or in the woods.

A view of some of the downtown shops.  Do you see the moose?

 

 

I’ll bet he is more obvious at night.

Another view of Main Street looking down toward the Bay.

One of the shops I wanted to visit was the Christmas Spirit shop.  We got a Christmas ornament to remind us of the good times we have had in Maine.

Our last stop was the Acadia Country Store – lots of blueberry stuff here.  Blueberry season is mid-July into August according to the lady in the office here at the campground.  They have fresh blueberries in the campground store during the season, that’s something we haven’t seen anywhere else.  Fudge (lots of it) was just before you go out the door.  We couldn’t resist.  We brought home a small piece of dark chocolate caramel toffee – yum.

Time to head back to the bike, our two hours is probably more than over.  Tomorrow we plan to be getting on one of these at 1:00 to go whale watching