Window to Tim's mind: Down East Vacation, Day 4 and 5

We manage to hit the road at 5am and I drive. Upstate NY is pretty and the drive is uneventful. A little rain in a construction zone but not too bad. But then I have to give up just before Albany and Michelle takes over. She gets construction, Albany traffic, and rain. I sleep.

She gets us mostly through Massachusetts and I take over just south of the New Hampshire border. I drive us all the way to our hotel at Bar Harbor. We check in and take a look at the grounds. Then we go get something to eat. I had the Seafood Scampi, with fresh shrimp, scallops, and lobster. Michelle has the fresh grilled scallops. Yum! Then we drive on in to Bar Harbor to get a feel of the place. Go to bed.

Biking, that’s our plan. Acadia National Park has these Carriage Roads that are wide and crushed gravel for bike riding, horses, and hiking. We get to the park and ask the kid behind the desk where to go. He tells us to go to the end of the parking lot and catch the trail there. There’s a hill there but then it’ll be ok. There was a hill there. A steep one. I was out of breath at the top. But once up that hill, nothing but smooth sailing.

Tip. When taking a trail called “Around the Mountain”, remember that “Mountain” is in the name. Wow! Long long steep hill. Went for miles. It was pretty brutal. I am usually faster than Michelle on the climbs so I got near the top before here. When I saw her, she was coming up the last cutback. She walked her bike up it. There was a bit more hill to go from there, too. Exhausting. View was pretty spectacular, tho.

On the ride down, I realized that fast speeds and sharp curves don’t mix. I almost lost the bike on one curve, but held it. Scary going fast down gravel curvy trails.

We got to the bottom and went on. And on. The hills just kept coming, altho not as steep or long as that first one. By the time we were finished, we had gone 23 miles of hilly gravel trails. We got back to our car pretty exhausted. And I was hungry.

We decided we had to have lobster rolls. We had heard of them, so we had to have one. So we went back to the same restaurant and got a couple. They were good, but not very big and very expensive. We have to get out to the “Lobster Pounds” off-island to get what we really want, and more fresh and cheaper.

Anyway, we got back and relaxed by the pool reading. It got kinda cool, tho so I went to get a long sleeve shirt and my pipe. I relaxed in front of the harbor smoking and reading and having a beer.

Once done, we decided to go for a drive. We went to North East Harbor and had dinner – me clam chowder, Michelle crabcakes. And I tried some Blueberry Mead, which was a little like Koolaid. North East Harbor would have been Terry Burge Heaven. Lots of sailboats, some VERY large.

Then we drove on to South West Harbor, which as a village was more quaint. Michelle got some ice cream. Since we had a 4-hour hilly bike ride that day, we were tired. We went back to our room and went to bed.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to rain and we're supposed to hike.