Our vacation had three parts to it: Randy's cousin was getting married, our every other year trek to visit Randy's family, and some fun for ourselves in Bar Harbor. We were going anyway for the last two parts so when we received the wedding invitation to Melissa's wedding we changed the dates to include that.
Flying from here to New England is a journey in itself. The flight times are often 6 to 7 hours, the time change causes a loss of three hours, plus it's a 4-hour drive from a major airport to the family. We opted to take a red-eye Thursday night to arrive Friday before noon so we could drive 4 hours and get to the pre-wedding dinner. It was a good plan, except for the initial delay at Seatac, which caused us to miss our connecting flight to Boston. Eventually we arrived at Sugarloaf Resort in Maine just as everyone was sitting down to dinner. We were rumpled from traveling for 24 hours but no one seemed to mind. And the lobster rolls were delicious!
Hurricane Irene was due to arrive but thankfully waited until after the wedding. The wedding was at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday August 27. We spent the morning goofing around the resort, took the chair lift to a point where we could hike up to the top. Other visitors pointed out where Mt. Khatadin was in the distance.
The wedding was short, simple, and meaningful. The wedding party and guests enjoyed a pig roast afterward and I met more family members. There was dancing, plenty of alcohol, and good fun. Melissa's mom, Gail, made blueberry pies instead of having the traditional wedding cake. There were many personal touches about this wedding tha tmade it special.
Hurricane Irene arrived in the night. The rain was relentless, rain spilled out of gutters, ran down the road, soaked anyone without proper rain gear, serious rain gear. We caravanned out of Sugarloaf with Uncle George, Aunt Gail, Aunt Donna, Cousin Aaron his wife Joy and two kids. Safety in numbers in driving rain, high rivers, sliding hillsides. We made it to Milan, NH where the power promptly went out. We had eggs and bacon on the bbq for dinner.
The power was back on the next day and the sun came out. We heard on the news that shortly after we had left Sugarloaf the main bridge to the resort had washed out, trapping some of the wedding party, and stranding one family member who had left the resort briefly to run an errand in a nearby town. He had to stay in a motel in town. A day or two later a route was created through back roads and possibly jeep trails that allowed guests from Sugarloaf to leave. That's great but many flights were delayed due to the hurricane some of the wedding party got to spend the honeymoon with the new bride and groom until all flights were back to normal. What fun!
The weather was much nicer the next couple days. Randy and I went to North Conway a couple times to get hiking boots for Randy. We wanted to hike up Mt. Washington but Randy didn't want to bring his climbing boots, which is what he has at home. He found a pair of Merrills that fit in the store but then didin't fit at home so we went back the next day. What is a vacation but to fill up unscheduled time? We saw a moose on our way back to Milan from North Conway.
The Lancaster Fair was the next day so Uncle George, Aunt Gail, Aunt Donna, Randy, and I piled into Aunt Gail's car and went to a small fair. Not all the exhibits were set up but we learned what oxen are and watched a few teams compete in a pulling contest. Turns out oxen are any breed of working steers that are 4 years old or older. Did you know that?
On Thursday we went to Danville, VT to put flowers on the Pulk family headstone. Randy's dad, Brian, passed away in 1979 from brain cancer. Brian's father and mother followed many years later. Grammy Pulk passed most recently, in January 2010.
On Friday Aunt Donna was going back to Florida so we said our goodbyes, then Uncle George, Randy and I set out to hike Mt. Washington, the highest mountain at 6288' on the east coast. Given the mountains on the west coast, one might think that this hike would be easy. Ha. The Tuckerman Ravine Trail, which we skied a couple years ago, from bottom to top is a little more than 4000' of elevation gain in about 4 miles. The last .6 miles is 900' of gain. The trail is nice in the beginning. It follows an old road for a couple miles to the Hermit Hut. From there the trail gets very serious: granite steps all the way to the top. The trail crew did a nice job of carving out steps in granite. The yellow paint trail markers are easy to follow. The trail is treacherous in that it is so steep and rather slippery with trickling water and slippery moss. Later in the trip Randy finds out what happens when you step on wet granite.
We made it to the summit in about 3 1/2 hours, which is a great travel time. There were many many other visitors at the top because you can actually drive to the top. There's a visitors center, gift shop, and food vendor. Unfortunately I was so distracted by all the people that I forgot to take in the view. Supposedly on a clear day you can see into New Brunswick. It wasn't that clear, I do remember a haze or fog, even though it was a nice, still day.
We decided to take a different route down. For one thing the Tuckerman Ravine Trail is probably the most popular trail on the mountain and the idea of having to wait through the many tricky sections while a train of people came up wasn't appealing. After looking at the map we opted for the Nelson Crag Trail. The trail vaguely follows the driving road down but first it meanders across fields of granite. I kept wondering when we were actually going to begin descending as the trail appeared to traverse endlessly.
We second-guessed ourselves and nearly took the Huntington Ravine Trail, which disappears over the edge of a cliff. A man and his son were coming up that way and told us that it is definitely not a down-route because there are class 3 sections to negotiate. Randy is not a scrambler so he made the decision for us, which was a good decision. We continued down/across Nelson Crag. Endless granite marked by huge cairns. Finally the trail descended. Each step down ranged from 6" to 4' (that is not a typo). By this time we were in the forest so the many branches and vines were handy as aids for downclimbing this route. The downclimb took hours. More hours than the upclimb.
We finally arrived at the traverse at the bottom of the route. George was very tired and opted to give Randy the keys and went left out to the auto road, which he thought would be easier than continuing on the trail. Randy and I beat feet the 1.6 miles out and got in George's truck to meet him at the bottom of the auto road. George found us shortly but unfortunately had come out of the woods at the 2 mile mark on the auto road. So he had 2 miles of pavement to hike. It probably wasn't easier than the traverse Randy and I took.
George sat in the back seat of his truck with his legs straight out so they wouldn't cramp. Randy couldn't feel the bottom of his feet very well so I ended up driving. We spent all of Saturday recovering. Thankfully it was raining so we didn't feel too bad about that. I did go for a short walk from the house to Milan to stretch my legs after the rain stopped. No one else took me up on the invitation to go with.
I forgot to mention that we shipped our road bikes to Milan via shipbikes.com. We packed our bikes in triangular-shaped boxes with the rear wheel in the point of the triangle. The seat and front wheel had to be removed and packed alongside the bike frame in the box. The fork attaches to a mount in the box and the handle bars are loosened and turned downward. Seal, print the shipping label and have FedX Ground pick up and deliver. The cost is at least half than an airline would charge and probably 2/3 less than shipping via FedX without going through shipbikes.com. It may be more cost effective to rent bikes but not by much.
Anyway, our bikes had arrived by then. Hurricane Irene had delayed arrival by a day or two but that wasn't a big deal. On Sunday we said goodbye to Uncle George and Aunt Gail, loaded our bikes, luggages, and folded shipping boxes into the Jeep Cherokee we had rented. Our plan was to stop in Harmony, Maine to put flowers on the Olson family headsones (maternal lineage) then stop in Bangor for a cookout and Melissa and Billy's "north" residence.
We didn't tell the folks in Harmony that we were coming, mostly because we hadn't really figured out how to spend time with them. However, we couldn't find the cemetary so we had to stop at the cousin's house. No one was home but there was a fair in town so we figured we'd find them there. Certainly we did and they were certainly surprised and delighted to see us. After talking with them we found the cemetary after circling around it once again and put flowers on Nana's and Aunt Maureen's headstones.
From there we went through Corinna, ME just for fun then went on to Bangor for the cookout. It was fun to hang out with the new bride and groom, play lawn games with the other guests. And then we were on our way to Bar Harbor, ME. Our lodging for the next several nights was at the Black Friar Inn B&B. We had a cool room with a spiral staircase leading to a second level. Bar Harbor is much busier and noisier than Milan, NH so I felt a little culture shock at first. We went for an evening beverage at a pub downtown, called The Finback. Town seemed to get quieter after that or maybe I adjusted to the pace.
Monday dawned clear so we got our bikes out and rode up to Acadia National Park where we found the carriage trails that were initially built by J Rockefeller, Jr. then later donated to the park. We rode those for a little while, got hungry for lunch so rode back to Bar Harbor and had lobster pizza with a newburg sauce instead of tomato sauce and mozzarella. Then we rode back to the park and picked up the carriage trails where we had left off. We rode around Eagle Lake before going back to town for the day.
After cleaning up we had a beer at Dog & Pony, which definitely has the local flavor. People seemed to know each other and were watching a sporting event on tv. I had a Dogfish on tap, which I've never seen available in our area. From there we migrated to a bar downtown and had a lobster epanada for an appetizer at Rupununi's before going for the full boiled lobster meal on the water at Stewman's. We naturally started with a lobster cocktail for an appetizer and enjoyed a bottle of New Zealand sauvignon blanc (Monkey Bay) with our 2 lb lobsters. For dessert we had that unique New England confection called a Whoopie Pie. It was surprisingly tasty. I always expected that the cream filling with sugar crystals would make my teeth hurt but it didn't.
The next morning we woke up to rain so decided to explore town. We had lobster benedict and lobster omelet at Two Cats down the street. The lobster benedict had a lovely light citrus sauce rather than traditonal yellow gooey hollandaise. It was delicious without being too rich. We walked around town, took pictures. At low tide we were able to walk across the beach to Bar Island, climb the trail to the summit (~400'). The sun came out after lunch and we should've got on our bikes but we expected the sun to last. We had a nice day around town and walked a trail along the water in front of some very expensive homes.
The next day we woke up to drizzle. The forecast said the sun would come out that afternoon. Just like yesterday we thought. We put on bike clothes, rain jackets and hiking shoes and drove to the park. The Loop Road is a one-way road that more or less starts near Sand Beach. We parked there, walked down to the beach then up the trail around Great Head, which is a rocking point jutting out into the water. Oregon has "heads" too.
The drizzle continued and Randy stepped on a steep wet granite slab. His feet whooshed out from underneath and down he went. I was sure he broke his tailbone on the granite then cracked his skull on the granite side wall when he bounced off his tailbone. Fortunately he landedon his butt cheek and missed the sidewall with his head. The worst part of his injury were scrapes on his hands. Whew. I had a few bandaids in my pack so even that was easily fixed.
We continued the drive to Thunder Hole. Incoming waves rattle rocks in a concave depression under the rock. At first you hear a whoosh, rattle, then a bit of thunder before the spray comes up. It was pretty cool. We spent some time trying to photograph the highest spray.
Our next stop was Otter Cliffs, where Randy's dad's ashes were spread some years ago. His dad passed away in 1979 from brain cancer. Randy was only 10 at the time but his parents were no longer married then and his dad had moved to New Zealand so he wasn't seeing much of him at that point. His dad has always been somewhat of an enignma. Randy looks and acts like his dad even though he wasn't raised by him. There are a couple benches overlooking Otter Cliffs so we planned a picnic there for later in the week when the sun was really supposed to come out.
The drizzle didn't stop at 1:00 p.m. as forecasted so we continued stopping and hiking. Our next stop was Jordan Pond. The Pond House is famous for popovers but we opted to save that experience for a a later sunny day too. Instead we hiked all the way around Jordan Pond. There were a few other hikers but for the most part it was just us. One side of the lake is almost entirely slippery boardwalk. But the end and opposite side are nice trail. After that we went to Southwest Bay, which is another fishing village, but much less touristy than Bar Harbor. We had lunch at an inn — lobster, of course. I had lobster stew, which is very similar to oyster stew. Delicious!
Later that evening we had a beer in the pub in our B&B. The bartender recommended dinner at a place in town called "Cafe This Way". We were lucky to get a table without a reservation but it helps that we always eat earlier than our peers. Often we're dining with the blue-haired crowd or those with small children. Our excuse is that the following day we're often trying to get an alpine start, which is before dawn, whether we're headed to the mountains or to work. Even on vacation we're often up at dawn. Anyway, I had a delicious tuna dish. By the way, nothing I ate on this trip was on my approved, non-allergy diet. I didn't suffer too much mostly because the days were stress free and we got a lot of sleep. However, the next day I really noticed that I didn't quite feel good and I was starting to get anxious and impatient. I knew it was the food reactions.
The next day, Thursday, was cloudy but not raining so we got on our bikes after breakfast and rode the carriage roads in case it started raining. We figured we'd be more sheltered on the carriage roads than out on the open park loop road. We road for a long time, based on a route a person who was at the wedding and who lived in Bar Harbor described for us. That was really the first day that I didn't feel so good. I was fine except perhaps not as chipper as usual. And I made the fatal error of not eating a snack because I thought lunch would be sooner than it was.
Not eating is a fatal error for two reasons: it's hard to stay warm when the energy reserves are gone and good-decision making, general well being goes out the window. The lesson is to eat then eat again. Ordinarily I don't have a hard time with those instructions but I wanted things to be different and they weren't but I pretended that they were. Doesn't work.
By the time we got to Northeast Harbor for lunch I was starving and getting very anxious. I was cold. We found a restaurant but seemed to have a hard time attracting the attention of the waitstaff despite that we were both wearing bright yellow jackets and shiny spandex. Normally we'd stand out in a crowd. Eventually we got seated and served. By then I was tired of paying for lobster so I ate haddock, which is a very good whitefish. Good humor was mostly restored, I was warmer but I didn't feel like wandering around the marina after lunch so waited while Randy took pictures.
We stopped at the Asticou Azalea Garden on our way back to the carriage roads. I'm sure I was still acting grumpy but I wasn't really. I was just trying to cope with not feeling great. The azaleas were not in bloom but the garden was beautifully laid out and groomed. After touring that for a half hour or so we rode back to the park and made our way back to town on the carriage roads.
That night was our last night in the Black Friar B&B. Our plans were loose so it took a little scrambling to find another motel but not too much. We found a room with a view of Hulls Cove just a couple miles out of Bar Harbor proper. And it was relatively inexpensive. The room was kind of industrial, due to its age, but the view was awesome.
The next morning we woke up to fog. It was our last day in Bar Harbor. Even before we were done with breakfast the sun was coming through. We bought a box lunch in town before taking our bikes to the park. We rode the one-way loop road, stopped at Sand Beach. The waves were higher than a few days before. Thunder Hole was actually closed at the road and the spray was impressive.
We rode on liesurely so we could take pictures of everything that we wanted to remember. The ride was relatively short in miles but took most of the day. We stopped at Otter Cliffs for the picnic and surprisingly we had it to ourselves until the very end of our lunch. It felt like a nice way to pay our respects.
The rest of the ride went even more slowly. I don't think either of us wanted it to end so we stopped to photograph every interesting wave, forest scene, granite, etc. Eventually we couldn't help but arrive at Jordan Pond House, where we had started that day. The wait for popovers outdoors was an hour and we signed up for the wait anyway. Maybe 40 minutes later we were paged and seated. A young Russian man took our order for iced tea and popover. Hot popover come with butter and raspberry jam. Delicious! We remembered to photograph the second one before devouring it.
Back in town we disassembled our bikes, packed them while parked in an empty restaurant lot across the street from the FedX office. We were a bit of a spectacle carrying heavy boxes across the street but the whole parking, packing, dropping off took all of 45 minutes. And then we were on our way to Portland, ME for the night.
I confess that I was feeling melancholy about the end of vacation coming the next day. After checking into our hotel in downtown Portland, we had a nightcap at a local watering hole. One man at the bar was very drunk, which made me feel anxious. That on top of melancholy made me rather poor company I'm afraid. The evening ended early even though the town was clearly starting to liven up. I've never been interested in the Saturday night bar scene although it would've been interested to explore the waterfront.
The next morning we met with a family friend whom Randy hadn't seen since they had left Maine some 30 years earlier. Needless to say the family friend was surprised at how tall Randy had grown. We visited for a couple hours before saying our good byes and leaving for our flight out of Boston.
The flights went smoothly. No head winds going back west so both flights were ahead of schedule. We arrived in Seattle that night and checked into a downtown hotel. Apparently summer in the northwest happened while we were on vacation. Sunday was gorgeous and then the following week was cloudy with sun breaks.
A week later I'm glad to be back and still have that vacation feeling about me, although it's a bit more effort to conjure. Still I feel more relaxed and have been paying extra attention to my diet. Both are worth the effort. What next? Save up money for a long time to be able to afford to go on vacation again!
Here are my pictures.