Sunday 10/12/08

Northern New England

Today is another driving day. It is mid-morning by the time we get packed up and leave Bar Harbor on our trip west. The Princess needs to be dragged off the island so we must have had a couple great days here. We are going to spend most of the day traveling on US Hwy 2 which we pick up just west of Bangor.

It is already lunch time so we stop at Tim Hortons, an ever-present chain in Canada, to see what it's all about. They have combo meals like all the other fast food places, but their combo is a soup, sandwich and doughnut. What a concept! John has a chicken club and Mary has a chicken salad that are both so-so and we skipped the doughnuts. Apparently we missed the best part. We fill up our gas tank at $2.90 a gallon which is nice.

During the afternoon we dally through little Maine towns, along rivers and across little mountain passes always surrounded by a sun-shiny palette of fall colors. As we cross into New Hampshire we wiggle through the White Mountains and the Mount Washington Valley. It is a short hop into Vermont at St. Johnsbury where we catch I91 south. As much as we like the backroads, this is a beautiful stretch of highway swaying to and fro between the mountains with great valley and river views. The late afternoon sun adds a lot of drama to the scene with New Hampshire always just to our left.

We exit at White River Junction and if we turn left we hit Hanover New Hampshire (Dartmouth College) but we turn right on Hwy 4 heading into the Vermont central mountains. We get to Woodstock, VT, our destination, and drive right to The Village Inn where we will be for the next couple nights. This is a Victorian house built in 1899 with nine guest rooms and, strangely enough, a little bar. Our hosts David and Evelyn make all the right moves as we check in with introductions and a friendly and thorough tour. Our room is on the third floor with narrow stairways and halls so dragging the luggage to our room gets all the blood moving after the long drive.

Our mission for tonight is a burger and beer and David recommends Bentley’s in the town square. It is a nice 10-minute walk into town and we are reminded of the charm of these arch-typical New England villages. There are very few people on the streets, obviously because they are all in Bentley’s. The place is packed and Mary powers to an open bar stool while we wait for a table. The solo bartender had a large full bar and is also pouring for the dining room so he is suicidal. We do get a couple beers and get seated within the promised time. There are four other tables around us that also get seated when we do, all with one server. Ouch. John’s chili-cheeseburger and Mary’s bleu cheese burger turn out to be pretty good so the whole thing turns out better than it could have.

A pleasant walk back to our very-cute room and we boost each other into our tall bed where we nestle into our 107 pillows. That’s what it feels like anyway.

Saturday 10.11.08

Acadia National Park

If yesterday was our best weather day ever, this one is better. We are going to spend the day in Acadia National Park which takes up a large portion of Mt. Desert (spelled like the hot sandy place, but usually pronounced like pie or cake) Island. In the days when people traveled by ship the big hitters from New York used to sail up to Bar Harbor for the summer to stay at their cottages on the island and race their yachts. Little by little the wealthy property owners started to acquire land around the island and eventually donated the whole thing to the federal government. They in turn made it the first national park in the eastern U.S. John D. Rockefeller Jr. then built 40 miles of carriage roads throughout the park which are wonderfully wooded and dotted with granite block bridges. His only stipulation was that they not be used for motorcars and today they are filled with hikers and bikers.

We start at the visitors center for a 15-minute film on the history and layout of the park. Then we pop the 12 bucks for an audio CD which leads us through a 27 mile route in the park and another 28 miles around the island. Every stop is a painting with harbor views, island views, garden settings, orange-red-yellow hillsides, and ocean vistas all backdropped by bright blue skies and white wispy clouds. Before we left town this morning we stopped at a little deli for lunch to go, and now we found a bench in the woods next to a little creek where John ate his lobster roll and Mary had a tuna sandwich.

One of our last stops in the park was the top of Cadillac Mountain. It is “only” 1530 feet high but is the highest point on the east coast of the country. Since its also one of the most eastern points in the country, there are a lot of folks who like to show up here at dawn to be the first to welcome the new day to America. Looking due east is the south of France, and looking due south is Venezuela. We find two things up here: 1) breathtaking views, and; 2) cell phone service. It is almost a 360 view from up here and we know that none of our pictures will do it justice.

Our out-of-park tour segment takes us along one of the glacial fjords to Northeast Harbor, a real live working fishing village. There are a couple boats unloading totes of lobsters at the docks for our entertainment (maybe not). They each have 5 or 6 totes that each seem to weigh about 50 or more pounds so we calculate 300 pounds of lobster at the “dock rate” of $2.60 for a total of $750. For that they have a couple guys working hard all day and the operating expenses of the boat so nobody is getting rich but it’s a living. With the market the way it is, we are considering all options.

It is late afternoon and we hate to give up on our perfect day so we re-enter the park and stop at Bubbles Pond where we couldn’t find a parking place earlier. This is a beautiful piece of water with peak-color hills on all sides and one of the carriage roads along the shore. We dedicate our last half hour to a walk around the pond just as the sun is dipping below the surrounding hills. Perfect!!

We’re walking to dinner tonight at Jack Russell’s next door to our motel. It is a steak place that specializes in Maple New York Strips and Smoked Ribeyes. They are out of the Maple Strips (someone needs to be fired) so John has the smoked prime rib that is mediocre. Mary is reluctant to give up on the lobster so has one sautéed tonight, and that is mediocre too. A perfect dinner would have been too much for one day. At least it’s an easy walk back to bed.

Friday 10.10.08

Bar Harbor Village

Today is our town day. The village of Bar Harbor is about 8 blocks of cutesy shops and restaurants with names like “Bark Harbor,” “Carmen Verandah,” and “Village Hemporium.” This is more up the alley of the Princess so she catches an early free bus into town for a couple hours of poking around before lunch while her partner kicks back with some computer stuff. This is now the best weather day of the trip so far with bright blue skies, gentle winds and about 60-degrees.

John catches the late morning bus and meets Mary at the village green to find a place for lunch. We decide it is warm enough for outside so we grab a sidewalk-side table at Rupununi where John has a very good crab and corn quesadilla and Mary has an interesting salmon pastrami sandwich. After lunch we take a hike along the harborside hiking path. There are two big cruise ships in port now and a bunch of lobstermen out checking their traps. The colored buoys of the lobster traps dot the entire coast, thousands of them, as far as the eye can see. Each of these folks might have hundreds of traps and they have to check them at least every other day so it is a big job.

After our hike we do the parts of the village that Mary missed this morning and pick up a couple of doo-dads. Tomorrow is going to be our park day so we hit the Acadia National Park visitors center on the village green. It is $20 for a week-long pass and there are no day passes. But, if one of us would happen to be at least 62 years of age we could buy a lifetime pass for $10 that is good for every national park and includes anyone we bring with us. There aren’t many, but there are a few advantages to advancing age. We sit in the village green for a while, then catch the bus back to our motel.

We get the car gassed up and visit the Cleftstone Manor, the first B&B we attempted to buy in 1989. It is now surrounded by huge, tasteless motels, and we are still very lucky. Our last stop is at the College of the Atlantic that sits on a beautiful piece of shoreline overlooking the harbor. It is very small and specializes in Marine Biology and other maritime pursuits. Very lucky kids here.

After a bit of a rest we bop back into the village for dinner. We made reservations tonight at Poor Boys Gourmet, which we have been told is very popular. We can see why. We both have the Lobster Feast which is a cup of chowder or bisque, a whole lobster, baked potato or pasta, choice of veggie and a brownie ala mode for $21.95. We also picked a close-out bottle of wine for $15. And, it is all good—WOW! Bah Habah is a great place for a lobstah.

Another stroll around town and we can fall asleep watching the baseball game.

Thursday 10/9/08
Au Revoir Canada

Our two week tour of Eastern Canada is coming to a rapid close. We have been watching the weather all week and have seen the approaching storm that has been predicted to bring rain all day on Thursday. They we right on. We backtrack this morning heading north out of Halifax and back over the hogsback of the island. The views are probably just as dramatic as on the way down but we can’t see any of them. The lowlands around the eastern tip of Fundy are still wet but empty so we are hitting at low tide once again.

Our reversal of route extends all the way back to Moncton, NB and by sheer coincidence we take the same exit for lunch that we had a couple days ago. We break one of our cardinal rules here and grab a quick lunch at McDonalds. It is raining, Micky D’s is right here. And they have good bathrooms.

Mary takes the wheel as we turn southwest towards St. John, NB. She is usually good for an hour or so, but today she keeps on truckin’ for two and a half hours along the Bay of Fundy all the way to the St. Stephen on the Maine border. We later realize that she had an iced tea with lunch breaking her rule of no caffeine after noon.

We don’t think we can get across the border, especially if there are delays, without getting some gas. We put in a few dollars worth just to get us back to the U.S. We have been paying anywhere from $1.10 to $1.33 per liter while in Canada so basically between $4.00 and $5.00 per gallon. There is a fellow at the gas pumps with a big RV and a German accent who asked Mary if gas would be cheaper on the other side of the border and she assured him that it would. We stopped for a quick browse at the duty-free store and when we pulled out the fellow with the RV is right in front of us. He has pulled into the left entry station and as we pull into the right entry station about a dozen border agents come running out of their building, stop us, and surround the RV. We don’t know what he said but it is pretty tense for a few minutes and we wonder if that RV is going to blow sky high. Eventually it all settles down, they pull him into the search lane, and our guy returns to hustle us right through. Welcome to the United States.

We commented before about the nanny states of Australia and New Zealand, and Canada, while more familiar to us, is the same story. They have the government watching out for them from cradle to grave, and if there are problems they must be resolved by the government. They definitely consider themselves to have a superior culture and citizenry in comparison to their southern neighbors, although they take full advantage of our entertainment and vacation options. They pay about the same in taxes as we do with income, property and provincial sales taxes, but the big kicker is the GST, a national 5% sales tax on EVERYTHING. The interesting piece of this picture is that while 40% of Americans pay no federal taxes, the Canadian GST is paid by everyone. While that seems very inclusive to us, we would expect that there would be those in the States who would have a problem with it.

Our last hour and a half across rural Maine brings the sun back out and again the scenery is perfect with rolling wooded hills, craggy rivers, and upland lakes. When we cross the border we could actually see Cadillac Mountain about, 70 miles away, our destination. We made these reservations late, and while Bar Harbor is dotted with cutesy little B&Bs we could only find a room at the Bar Harbor Motel. Many of the local businesses close after this weekend and, with a Columbus Day holiday, this is a last gasp for northern New England tourism.

We were last here 20 years ago and of course everything is busier and denser. The one thing that may not have changed is a lobster dinner. We take our host’s recommendation and hit Gaylen’s tonight and we both have the whole boiled lobster with sides. Mary’s regular size is $19.95 and John’s monster is $25.00. More about this later.

We take a walk around the village after dinner and get back to bed by 10:00. The next week will be in New England and we’re excited.