I got up early on Saturday morning, packed my bags, loaded up the car, checked out of my motel, and headed to downtown Bar Harbor. I had breakfast at a place called Cafe This Way. It's down an alley, and there is a sign on the street that says "Cafe This Way", so that is how it got it's name.
As I walked down the alley, I took some time to enjoy the spring flowers... beautiful tulips and lovely lilacs that were everywhere in the area.
I had a 9:30 boat trip scheduled that was suppose to last for several hours, so I had a big breakfast since it was going to have to hold me over until afternoon. Of course, blueberry pancakes again! I made it a point while in Maine to have blueberries or lobster as often as possible.
Once I was done with breakfast, I made my way to the harbor for my boat trip. I was early, and then they opened late, so I ended up killing about an hour.
Once they finally opened, they informed me that the tour was cancelled because of fog. I knew it was a foggy when I woke up, but as the day was going on, it was burning off pretty good. Apparently, the fog wasn't burning off out on the bay, and they were out on boats and reported that you couldn't see anything. I was totally bummed about this. It was one of the vacation events I was most looking forward to. The tour was suppose to be a tour of that went around Acadia on water, showed us all of the lighthouses in the area, and even some of the famous large homes, including Martha Stewart's Skylands (as seen HERE in this month's Architectural Digest).
I took some pics of downtown Bar Harbor before I got back into my car.
I was kind of at a loss for a few minutes about what to do. This boat tour was suppose to take up until about 2:00, then I was going to make the 3 hour trek to Freeport, Maine, where I had reservations for the night. I was frustrated because I wouldn't have necessarily planned to stay in Freeport if I known I would be heading out of Bar Harbor at 9:00 a.m., but I had reservations that couldn't be cancelled, so it was time to buck up and make the best of it.
I started my drive and decided I would figure it all out on the way...
The drive was pretty and very green. Of course, when I drove into Bar Harbor, it was pitch black out, so I couldn't see a thing.
First stop in Freeport was the LL Bean Campus. Yes, it is a campus. Multiple stores are spread out on the campus. I wanted to just move into their home store.
Located near the LL Bean campus, are outlet stores. I had a couple that I wanted to look at, and also had a British Store on my radar. I didn't buy anything at the outlets, but the same cannot be said for the British Store. Finding legitimate imported Dairy Milk bars and some bitter lemon Schweppes did wonders to turn my frown upside down!
Before I left downtown Freeport, I grabbed a quick Lobster BLT at a sandwich stand.
Next, I headed down to Portland since it was only about a 15-20 minute drive. On the way there, I decided that I was going to still see at least one lighthouse dang it! I decided to go to the Portland Head Lighthouse, and drove out to Cape Elizabeth where the light is located.
It was first lit in 1791, and is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
This water looks really cold, doesn't it? There was a plaque there that was honoring members of the Navy that died during World War II when German U-boats sunk a Navy ship 9 miles from this point. Of course I knew of the German U-boats operating off our shores, but was shocked that it happened so close.
It looks chilly, but in fact the weather was quite warm that day (just windy out there). I was generally melting because I had dressed warm for a cold day on the boat.
After I left Cape Elizabeth, I went to Portland's harbor area where there are lots of shops. I walked around for a while before heading back up to Freeport where I was spending the night. I was staying at the Freeport Inn which is a Best Western. I had thought it would only be a pit stop in the night really, so I didn't put much thought into it. I placed a bid on Priceline and that's what I got. This is looking out my hotel door. So needless to say, it was fairly quiet there, and I was only moderatley convinced that I was going to be kidnapped during the night.
I only took this one pic of the hotel room, because it was nothing to write home about. The only thing noteworthy was the bathroom...you could only open the door 1/3 of the way, because it hit the toilet!
After checking in, I did some reasearch to figure out where to eat dinner. After finding a Travel & Leisure article that talked about the best lobster pounds in Maine, I decided to try one that they noted in the article that was close. I went to Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster Company in South Freeport, Maine. This is a picture I took standing in the outdoor portion of the restaurant.
Here is a panorama shot I took just so you could see how close the ordering window was to the lobster boats parked in the harbor. I don't think you can get lobster fresher than this!
My dinner of Lobster, potatoes, and corn. It was very yummy.
On the way back to the hotel, I drove past the big Indian. I have no idead why they have a big Indian, but I got his picture!
I was ready to call it a day. It didn't go quite as planned, but I got to see some interesting sights anyway, eat some good food, and make it a lot closer to Boston, which was my destination for Day Four of my vacation. Stay tuned....
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