Rain in Maine and lobster BLT's

Well, really, has it been over two months since I posted the last installment about our Maine trip? Work and tax season do get in the way of blogging. Or maybe I am just trying to make the trip last longer. At any rate, our second day in Maine was forecast for rain, at least in the morning, so we put off the sailing until Saturday and did a little exploring in Rockland and Belfast.

 

Rockland has a lighthouse museum, (and I think some of my five readers know that I love lighthouses), so our thought was, what better place to go when it's raining. I think we must have gotten there soon after opening as we were the only patrons when we arrived. The docent was a friendly sort and upon finding out we are from Michigan, she immediately told me that we have the most lighthouses of all the states. Which I wasn't surprised to hear, but I wouldn't have said it myself, not knowing for sure if it was true. My head is full of useless trivia, but that little fact was not one of them. Ah, but it is now.



   

We spent a wonderful couple of hours perusing all the lighthouse artifacts, the Fresnel lenses, and the miscellaneous histories of lighthouses and lifesaving stations. The histories of the life saving crews are especially arresting when you read  about the conditions that they necessarily had to work in and the primitive (to our modern thinking) equipment they used. I was a bit surprised to see an old picture of the Charlevoix lifesaving station, which is very near our home, and I believe still in use by the Coast Guard. Funny that I had to go to Maine to find this out.

 

On our way out, we did our bit to support the museum by buying a couple of books and a linen calendar towel in the gift shop. I still remember my grandmother sending one of these to Mom each year; after the year was up, it would be put to use drying dishes, linen being the best thing for that job. So you could say that was a bit of a sentimental purchase. Or just an impulse buy. It does look nice in my kitchen though.



The museum is housed in the same building as the Chamber of Commerce.  We spoke to the lady manning the desk about eating establishments, it being lunchtime. She gave us a few recommendations, but one sounded irresistable, The Brass Compass.  According to her, the owner had competed in a throw down with Bobby Flay and won the contest, with her signature lobster BLT. Well, how could we not go check that out. Plus it was only a block away, so we just walked over.





There was a big banner out front proclaiming her victory over Mr. Flay, so of course it was crowded, with people lined up in the cramped entry way waiting for a table. Finally the owner walked over to one large table (obviously full of people she knew, and they were done with their meal) and nicely kicked them out as she had paying customers lined up waiting to buy lunch! It being a large table, and just the two of us, the waitress asked if we minded sharing with the two behind us in line. Not a problem, so down we all sat, happy to be that much closer to lunch. Rob ordered the sandwich (of course he did, it has bacon on it) and I got the crab cakes. Well you can't have lobster every meal. I tried the sandwich and it was pretty amazing, but truthfully I liked the crab cakes better.

   

After this fine meal, we drove back up the coast, or down east as they say there, to Belfast. There were some carvings there that a friend had photographed on her trip there that I wanted to see. It is an old town, being settled before the Revolutionary War so it has many architecturally interesting buildings, a photographer's paradise! We wandered in and out of some of the shops, but mainly just walked around. With me taking pics of course.

 

   

A lady stopped to talk while I was photographing one building, she noticed that the top of the building had a celtic cross, and told me all about a celtic cross in a gift shop down the street that I just had to see. We did walk down there, and the shop did have some interesting items for sale, but the best thing was this chair situated near the front door for those not so interested in the interesting items for sale.

 

    

We had eaten our dinner in Belfast the night before so we headed back south towards the inn, stopping in Camden for supper at Cappy's, where Rob and the waiter had a fine time discussing the merits of the myriad beers served there. Attempting to eat a light dinner, we both ordered the clam chowder. It was delicious and unbelievably filling, but we persevered and ordered the Maine blueberry pie. Now if you have ever tasted my mother's blueberry (or huckleberry as we have always mistakenly called it) pie, you would understand that the bar is set pretty high for me when it comes to that dish, and sadly, this restaurant's pie did not measure up. So I left somewhat disappointed, but really, it was never a fair contest.

   

Tomorrow... we go sailing.

Mt. Desert Island

It would be difficult I think, to visit coastal Maine and not visit Acadia National Park. Our first full day in Maine was forecast to be good weather, so that became the plan and off we went.



Our inn was between Camden and Rockland, so we had about an hour's drive back up the coast to get to the park. We stopped at the small Thompson Island Information Center to get our passes, and quizzed the ranger there on good walking trails, not too steep, please. We decided to bypass the main visitor center (we are not see-the-movie-first types) and continued on into the park.

Acadia is located mainly on Mt. Desert Island, which is the area of the park we were visiting. Despite the name, it is most certainly not desert-like.



The island was named Isles des Monts Desert by Samuel Champlain in 1604 and means island of barren mountains, which it does have in abundance. This one is called the Beehive.





Taking the ranger's advice, we avoided Bar Harbor (we would have at any rate), and drove south on the Park Loop Rd, stopping for photos when something of interest showed itself. We could see the ferry at one stop, and Beaver Dam Pond was peaceful and pretty in the morning light.



 

The walk she had suggested started at the parking lot near Sand Beach, the only such in the park according to the literature.

 





After leaving the beach, the trail led back up and ran parallel to the road and right next to it, so we took every opportunity to leave the main trail and walk out on the rocks along the coastline.





 



There were others doing the same, it really was a much nicer place to be than right next to the road. You could almost think at times that you were alone rather than in a crowded national park.  At intervals the rocks would drop away steeply, and the only safe way around was to return to the trail for a bit.

We spent a lot of time exploring the rocks, and I taking photos, so it took us a long time to get even halfway down the trail.



 

At that point, there was a parking lot and huge amounts of people and traffic, as there was a spot called Thunder Hole. There is an inlet here, with a small cavern where the waves come into the rocks, the water shoots up, and stairs going down for people to see it close up.





 

It was too crowded for us, so we retraced our steps and went back to the car, driving on and finding another spot to explore farther south at Otter Point and Otter Cove.

 







We saw loons there, which is always exciting, but I had (again!) forgotten to charge the camera battery the night before, and it had died earlier, even before we reached Thunder Hole. Sigh...

I did get pics of some eider ducks before it quit on me.






It was mid-afternoon by this time, but still there was time to drive up Cadillac Mountain to see the view from the top. Again, lots of cars and buses, but the view was magnificent and worth the drive. Plenty of viewing spots along the way up to see other smaller mountains to the west.

 

And sometime on our walk, we saw these small rock sculptures that someone took the time to make.  I was intrigued, since I had seen these same type of rock piles on Mackinac Island earlier in the month.