Southwest Harbor Maine

Acadia National Park

Jordan Pond

Jordan Pond

Atop Cadillac Mountain

Well, it's 6:30 and I have gotten Evie a couple of cups of coffee and I am sitting downstairs in the living room of our Bed and Breakfast, the Inn at Southwest Harbor Maine.  We have over an hour until our breakfast, so we will spend it on our computers, writing my blog.  We may have some sun today but a northeaster is moving in some time Tuesday, bringing as much as three inches of rain. Perfect!

We left the Armontrouts at Thompson Lake around 8:15, knowing we would have a sunny day and a three and a half hour ride to Acadia National Park.  We were on the peninsula by 11:45 and wended our way down narrow roads to our first hike, around Jordan Pond, a hike my sister Ellen highly recommended.  We were on the trail by 12:30, returned to our car about two hours later.  It is a magnificent hike around the pond, just about a four mile loop.

Hiking Shore Line of Jordan Pond

We walked counter clock wise and the east side of the pond was easy going, a trail with few rocks, mostly wooded down to the lake, with two huge round mountains at the north end called the north and south Bubbles.  We picnicked at the north end, cheese and apples, just right and then started back on the west side which, to our amazement, was a board walk for much of the way, protecting the wetlands beneath it.  At first, however, we climbed over huge boulders and rocks, an amazing assortment of sizes, with a trail between them.

Boardwalk Along Jordan Pond

The boardwalks, however, demanded your attention, so that we could not spend much time admiring the surroundings.  And if hikers came from the opposite direction, some one would have to give way, usually us.

Love the Blues

Starting Our Hike

After our hike, we stopped at the restaurant but there was an hour wait so we decided to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain, about twenty minutes away. Obviously, it has great 360º view of Desert Island, with a half mile path around the summit.  It was crowded with visitors because it's such a spectacular sight but we were able to find a parking spot and enjoy the views, without much wind and fairly mild temperatures.

Popovers

On our way down, Evie called the Jordan Pond restaurant and they saved a table for us.  So we relaxed there for an hour, ordered the specialty, a pot of tea and two popovers, with loads of butter and jam.  A great way to end our hiking and our day.

Bates Motel, Miss Vickie?

We then drove to Southwest Harbor, only to sit outside the town, about a mile from our Bed and Breakfast for at least twenty minutes because they were digging up the road.  Nice.  We finally made it to the Inn at Southwest Harbor which seemed nice.  The owner, a young guy, was very enthusiastic, told us about all their amenities, breakfast, coffee always available, cider in the afternoons with cookies, things like that.  When we asked about places to eat, we found that just about every restaurant, in fact all of the spots my sister recommended were CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.  Only one was open, the Dry Dock, because they discovered all the other restaurants were closed and there were still a few naive tourists like us expecting things to be open.

We relaxed in our room till about 7:00 and walked virtually next  door to the Dry Dock, sat at at the bar and waited at least five minutes for the bartender to appear, not a good start.  But from then on, things got better. We struck up a conversation with a young kid sitting next to us, and found he was a local but worked as an engineer on oil barges going up the Delaware River.  He was just at the end of his three weeks off, and was heading back to Delaware for a three week job.  He was fun to talk with, because he was a local, grew up in Southwest Harbor.  We also became friendly with the bartender who was very friendly and outgoing.  In five days, he was heading south to Fort Lauderdale to work at a bar for the winter.  When we asked about places to eat in Bar Harbor, a couple standing next to us, a waitress, and the bartender all made suggestions, even writing out names of places we ought to go like Thirsty Whale, Side Street (whose lobster mac n cheese was rated the 9th best in the US), and Mama DiMatteo's, a local Italian place. .

New Best Friends At Dry Dock Restaurant

More Best Friends, Lobster Man and Girl Friend, Waitress and Bar Tender

How cool of them to be so helpful.  O, yea, we had a couple of beers and ordered lobster rolls, twice as good as the ones we had in Portland.  Each was stuffed with an entire lobster.  With fries, a beer, we were in heaven.  We stayed until 8:30 and went back to our room to read on our iPads or computers.  Thanks to the gang at the Dry Dock we ended our day on a perfect note.

Living Room at Inn at Southwest Harbor