Late in the night Sarah awoke to mysterious sounds outside.  We got out of the tent and noticed our bag of Doritos got dragged to the edge of camp.  We put the chips back on the picnic table and went back to sleep.  In the morning as we had breakfast we noticed little paw marks on the picnic table, indicitave of a racoon.  The trash bag was torn open too so looks like a raccoon wanted to share in our bounty.  We spent the morning cleaning up the camp and packing everything into the truck.  We left for Boston around 1030.

Paul was designated driver since he slept more than anyone else.  He made it the whole 4 hours to Boston where we checked into a Hilton just outside the city.  It was a pretty nice room and we relaxed/showered for a few hours before we met up with Jae for dinner.  Since we had skipped lunch I improvised some egg and cheese sandwiches in the microwave using our left over Egg Beaters.  hmmmmm yummmy.

We drove into Boston, which was horrible, around 1730.   The Chinese restaurant was quite good and Sam stole the check from Jae.  Jae felt bad and took us out to Cambridge Brewing Company.  We ordered their sampler and settled on two choices.  Overall the beers weren’t very good, but they salvaged it a bit with their Cambridge Amber.  Paul had to go back to New Haven that night so Sarah and Sunny drove him to the train station while I hung out with Sam, Jae, and Mike (one of Sam’s classmates from UVA) and his wife.  I think she felt a little out of place so she took off early.  By the time Sarah and Sunny got back we had pretty much finished two pitchers, although I think I drank most of it.  We dropped everyone off at their respective locations and went back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.  All in all, just a travel day and some good company.

Now, not to get too sidetracked but what defines a pond?  This “pond” was really big, and seemed to be more lake size than pond.   I’m not sure if this nice EPA definition really helps much, but maybe Seal Cove Pond is really shallow.  Still it’s an awfully long walk around, and by the time we had hiked about 30 minutes we had barely made it more than a quarter way around.  After finishing our short hike we went back to camp for lunch. On they way we stopped by at an old farmer’s stand and picked up a quart of blueberries and some corn.  Those blueberries were fabulous.  Nothing like fresh fruit.

We ate the left over bulgogi and began perusing the KOA’s activities guide for stuff to do.  Turns out there is a small brewery in Bar Harbor , and they offered tours everyday from 1500-1700.  It was almost 1500 so we cleaned up quickly and made our way over.  The brewery is really small and basically consisted of this couple’s basement.  What really stood out was that during the tasting we were offered samples of five of their beers and a sample of one of their soda syrups.  Their Harbor Lighthouse Ale and Cadillac Mountain Stout were fabulours.  The rootbeer and blueberry syrups were great too.  We ended up buying a few bottles of syrup, a Cadillac Mountain Stout, and a Peach Ale for the road.  If you are ever in the area you have to stop by for a taste.

On our way out of Bar Harbor we decided to go play mini-golf. We had a coupon in the book for a $1.50 off admission so it was a good time.  Sunny and I both had hole-in-one’s  and we won a free game for it.  Overall Sunny and Sarah kicked the boy’s butts.  Now that we were nice and hungry we tried to go to Poor Boy’s Gourmet , but the wait was too long.  We ended up at a very forgettable pub/restaurant.  While my fish and chips was ok as was the baked brie, nothing else was really that exciting.  We walked around on Main street some and saw the harbor.  After getting back to camp Paul collapsed into the tent and went right to sleep.  The rest of us stayed up a bit longer and roasted some corn in the camp fire.

For a day that was suppose to be relaxing, we ended up doing quite a bit!

I think I woke up first this morning.  I ambled my way to the restroom to cleanup and lit the citronella candles on the way out.  As I come back to the tent the rest of the party is gently rising from the tent, hungry.  We broke out some eggs, bacon, sausage, onions, mushrroms, and peppers.  While we ate we decided that we wanted to go kayaking.  We called one place and they said they were all booked up.  Now here’s the thing, instead of hanging up, he asked us to hold and CALLED the other kayaking companies around the island and found us a slot for 7!

We weren’t scheduled to kayak until 1530 that afternoon so we went back out to Cadillac Mountain to hike an easier trail up.  It was still a pretty difficult climb for us, and Jae/Jae turned back about a quarter way up.  As I moved further up my heels became blistered and by the time we were at a good halfwy point I pretty much couldn’t keep going.  We took a number of pictures along the way and turned back.  By then it was around noon and we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain (nature beat us twice, so we figured we needed an assist) and had sandwiches up top.  We took a great relaxing rest up top then proceeded to Maine State Kayak .

The tour was great.  We got in our shoes and put some stuff in the dry bags. They gave us a quick explanation of rowing and had us get into the tandem kayaks.  The rowing was farely easy, but many of the ladies would take breaks along the way.  Sarah was kind enough to keep her oars out of the water while she rested so I wasn’t rowing against the extra drag.  The landscape in the area is absolutely beautiful.  I can totally see getting lost just staring at the landscape.  We’re totally coming back with the kids in the future.  The tour was about 4 hours total, and we took a rest on a private island beach about halfway through.  Despite explicit instructions to urinate in the ocean, a few in our party decided to try and go in the bushes.  They got a little scolding from the guide.

Jane, our guide, is a Chicago native, who came out to Maine for the last few years.  She’s moving to Indiana to finish her education degree and will eventually be a middle school teacher.  Good luck Jane, it was a great tour.

It was pretty late and Jae/Jae had to get back.  She had a citizenship interview the next morning in Boston, so they had to leave that night.  While we prepped dinner, they built a fire to make S’mores.  Jae’s never had S’mores before so we insisted that they stay at least long enough for that.  We made rice and bulgogi for dinner and rested through the night.  It was a really busy day and we were all pretty exhausted.

So we’re back in Maryland now.  It’s good to be home, back to civilization.   The trip overall was great.  Good to be away from TV and computers for awhile and spend time with family and friends.  I think I’ll break up my posts so that each covers a day.  Hopefully this gets me in the habit of posting every day or so. 

It was decided that we would leave bright and early Monday morning.  My mom suggested that Sunny and Sam stay over at her place so that we didn’t have to loop into Manhattan to pick them up.  We all got up around 0300 and probably got on the road by 0400.  In the pitch black morning we fired up the GPS , and headed out towards New Haven to pick up Paul.  It was a really quick trip and got to New Haven around 0530 and proceeded our way up to Boston to meet up with a couple of Sam’s friends, Jae and Jae. (husband and wife, I can’t spell their actual names )

We met at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast at 0800. I had a giant breakfast of Country Fried Steak, white gravy, eggs, biscuts, and grits, plus enough coffee to drown a horse.  I got to sleep in the back on our way out and swapped halfway through at our next gas stop.  We borrowed my dad’s 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser .  We got an amazing 12 MPG out of it.  We got to the KOA around 1430, checked in, pitched our tent and made cheesesteaks for lunch.  The mosquitos were brutal and the bug spray didn’t seem to help out at all.  Within 20 minutes I had a dozen bites on my legs, and Sam had this giant bite on his forehead.

Around 1600 we headed out to the park to pay our fees (only $20 per vehicle!) and just survey the area. We wanted to climb a trail up Cadillac Mountain, but about 50 meters in I smashed my head on a rock and we decided it was too dangerous, given how dark it was about to become.  Besides, Sarah’s steel toe boots were not workinig real well for her.  We walked an easy trail for another hour and then headed out to find an LLBean outlet store we had seen on our way through Ellsworth.  We lucked upon a pair of boots which fit Sarah well.  We even got a great recommendation to a nice lobster house for the night.  What we weren’t ready for was that everything closes by 2100 in the area, so with only 10 minutes to spare we raced over for dinner at Union River Lobster Pot .  The meal was indeed satisfying, we all had lobster, and mussels, clams, and New England Clam Chowder.  They had a 4.5 pound lobster in the tank, and one of the wranglers even “hypnotized” it for us.

We made our way back to camp and settled in for the night.  At that point we had been up for quite awhile   A few of us took showers in the remarkably clean shower facility in the center of camp, soothing our sore bodies and relieving some of the itching.  We had made a quick stop by the Walmart on our way back and picked up some citronella candles, but it just seemd that the mosquitoes for the rest of the trip were just not nearly as bad.

I’ll have pictures up soon.  I’ve just been really busy catching up at work.  Good to be back!