Bar Harbor 2
Jul. 14, 2019 - Jul. 20, 2019
Sunday we goofed off and enjoyed the rain. It was a great day to catch-up on an new series "Yellowstone", its like Longmire but without ANY moral compass. Great drama. Also a LOT of time wasted on Facebook.
Monday we did part of Drive #80, Maine Coast. This drive is going to have to be broken into several segments it is so long. We drove to Bangor first to pick up some things and then headed to the small town of Bucksport, Maine. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory...WOW! It is a cable stayed bridge and they built an observatory in one of the support towers. It offers a 360 degree view from 447 feet above the river and has an elevator to the top. It overlooks Fort Knox (not the gold storage) a civil war fort built between 1849 and 1869. Beautiful views. Next we drove down US Highway 1 to South Thomaston Maine to McLoons Lobster Shanty. It was recommended by two people we've met along the way and they did not lead us astray. We had the lobster roll and the crab roll, both were very good. We tried their Blueberry soda..meh, but the view was beautiful. It over looks a small harbor and we watched two lobster men come in with their catch. There was a steady stream of customers showing up for a snack. We started back and stopped at 2 lighthouses. The first was Owls Head Lighthouse just south of Rockland. It was built in 1852 and has a fourth order Fresnel lens that dates back to 1856. Elard says the heat being thrown off the light was serious. The second light house was the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. It sits one mile out in the Rockland harbor and is connected to the shore by a stone breakwater that you walk out on. The lady at the Owl Head Lighthouse told us that sometime the seals will put their pups on the breakwater while they go hunt. Alas, we did not see any pups but we did see the seals hunting. As we were walking out to the light house we heard this noise behind us. When we turned around we saw a school of fish jumping out of the water. There were at least two seals herding the fish toward the breakwater...nature at work. Elard actually caught the fish jumping. Our last stop of the day was at Mt. Battie Tower in the Camden Hills State Park. It was this hilltop view that inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Renascence" (no relation Ha). We drove back over the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and on back to Home Sweet Home (for now) Timberland Acres RV Park.
Tuesday was a personal care day..no TMI I promise. We both got hair cuts, I got a pedicure, and we made a Home Deport run. Wednesday was a home repair/cleaning day. I won't bore you with the details except to introduce you to a new member of the family...Floyd (Pink Floyd) the Flamingo. We rescued him from Home Depot. We had time to search out a light house, the Prospect Harbor Lighthouse. Beautiful little harbor and neighbors with a sense of humor...check out the mosquito yard art!
Thursday we decided to go watch the tide level changes on the Bay of Fundy. At the north end of the bay the tide change from High to low tide is 40 ft...40 ft! But that was a 6 hour drive from here, not an attractive option. So I picked a town closer but with a significant change in levels. Saint John, New Brunswick was my choice because they had this place called Reversing Falls and a 20 ft tide. It had two parks and a restaurant...sold. It was a 3 hour drive but so worth it. We arrived there at around 1:30 and had "lunch". We were right over the "falls" and were watched the tide coming in, high tide was at about 2:50. We watched several seals playing/hunting where the water was swirling. We went down to one of the parks which over looks the rapids on the St. John river (humm, I wonder if this was where St. John Paper company started there is a large paper mill across the river). You could definitely see the line in the water where the sea water meets the river water. We watched this line moving for awhile and the drove around the town exploring until time for the shift to occur. We visited Swift Point Lighthouse up river and Fort Howe which overlooks the city. Back in the mid-1770's there was a large population of Loyalists who settled here to wait out the Revolutionary War. Around 3:50 we went back down to the river and watched the flow of water shift. I thought it was really cool to watch...Elard thought it was like watching paint dry! He is so good to me, he didn't complain once. We visited Carleton Martello Tower National Historic Site built for the War of 1812 it was the heart of the city defense thru 1944. Then we drove "home". I will say that the boarder agent who checked us back into the US was awesome. He gave us a couple of good recommendations near the boarder for later. It was a long drive but I enjoyed it.
Friday, we went back to Drive #80, Maine Coast. This time we started with Dyce Head Lighthouse in the town of Castine. This little town was the site of the last stand of the British during the war of 1812. One of the residents in the 1920's was geologist Dr. John Howard Wilson. He and his wife were collectors and there is now a great museum in Castine developed from their collection. It is quite impressive. We continued on to Holbrook Island Sanctuary, Little Deer Island, and Deer Island. We returned home and decided to try the local Chinese restaurant. It wasn't that great but we wanted something besides lobster and haven't had Chinese in a long time.
Saturday we decided to just hang out. I spent a little time outside working on my Daisy Do quilt but it was way too hot. We cooked a big rack of ribs for Lupper (Lunch/supper), and Elard is watching UFC. Life is good!
Make Life an Adventure!
