This was another day that was mostly driving–the smaller roads in the
northeast take a while, but we also had quite a bit of Interstate travel.
We drove from Rutland through Vermont and New Hampshire to the coast of Maine, gradually driving out of the rain, and stopped in Portland for a walk through the old harbor area (pretty, but in a touristy kind of way) and
lunch–I had a very yummy seafood chowder and mark a pretty unexciting
chicken sandwich, and we both had lovely hand-churned ice cream afterwards. We went a little further on the interstate, but near Brunswick turned east to go along the coast on highway 1, through all the little coastal towns. Since it was still drizzly, we didn’t stop anywhere, but they are cute–lot so Victorian downtowns and B&Bs. We saw one place we’ll return to–about an hour from here in Bar Harbor, maybe–but it was after 4 pm and we were eager to get off the road. So we drove on to Bar Harbor and started looking for a hotel, since we wanted to see the views and options first rather than booking on line. We eventually settled on a cheap revamped 50s hotel
without much of a view, because it is just a mile from downtown but pretty
quiet and charming in its 50s sort of way. We checked in and walked to the
touristy downtown area, which also features access to a sandbank “bridge” to an island that emerges only when the tide is low, and walked over and back (two hours later we checked again, and it had disappeared–always
fascinating, especially since we heard that some tourists just don’t get it
and regularly get stuck on the island). We found ourselves a mediocre pizza
restaurant and walked around town a bit–I needed a rain jacket because we
actually managed to forget mine, and we found a tide-me-over. Then we met up with our friend Richard Loutzenheiser from Hastings, who has a house here and who is here this week with his wife and a family friend. He gave us a bunch of travel tips and we’ll meet up with them all on Wednesday. We walked home and were in bed by 10 pm again!