From Maine to New Hampshire

Just over 20 years ago, we joined the Disney Vacation Club.  One aspect of DVC membership is the ability to exchange your DVC points into other timeshare/resorts through groups like RCI or, in the old days, Interval International.  One day I was just browsing through the options available and saw a really cute resort in Ogunquit, Maine, right on the Maine coastline.  It looked like a great place to have a northern seashore vacation.  But we weren’t going to Maine any time soon and didn’t want to make a trip just to go to Ogunquit all the way from Florida, so I put it aside in my mind.

But when we started planning our Northeast Road Trip and I saw Ogunquit on the map, it reminded me that I really wanted to go check it out, so we added it to the itinerary as a pass through, stop and look around a minute place on the way from Portland, Maine, to where my uncle and his family live in southern New Hampshire.

This day was a rainy, drizzly kind of day, so I’m glad we didn’t plan much for Ogunquit.  In fact, the weather actually put us ahead of schedule so we had to scrap our lunch plans and find something else to do so we wouldn’t be too early for our planned visit with the relatives.

The one thing I wanted to do was walk along the Marginal Way.  This is a 1.25 mile paved footpath that goes along the rugged coastline of Ogunquit allowing you to walk safely but feel like you’re on the edge of the cliffs and rocks.  It provides wonderful views of the Maine coastline.  It's a good place for a stroll, but it's not like a boardwalk like we saw in Virginia Beach.

About halfway, there’s the Lobster Point Lighthouse which is so cute – and I’m almost as tall as it, haha!  We just walked from the northern end of the Marginal Way to the lighthouse and back as we only paid for an hour of parking.  Here are a few pictures from our walk and the lighthouse.

Speaking of parking, when we left from Burlington, Vermont, I had removed the ParkMobile app from my phone, thinking we were done with it.  But that’s the same app they use for Ogunquit parking, so I had to get it set back up for the hour we parked there.

If it hadn’t been raining, we would have enjoyed browsing some of the shops and cafes, but even with the rain, there were lines out the door and wrapped around the buildings and down the sidewalks of some of the more popular spots.

From Ogunquit, we headed towards New Hampshire, ending our week’s stay in Maine.  We saw quite a bit of DH’s 50th state while we were there.  We did stop at the Maine Visitor Information Center on the way out, and at that point we figured we had been to five of their seven locations.

We planned to eat lunch in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, at a restaurant called 110 Grill that gets lots of good reviews, especially related to their gluten-free options and handling.  But while we were driving that way, I realized that this location was in downtown Portsmouth and it required parking at a parking garage.  No thank you!  It was already going to be a bit earlier to eat lunch than we wanted, and I was so done with paying to park!  I mean, I get that’s how it is in some cities and more congested areas, but wow, I never set up a “parking” fund!

So instead, we drove on to North Hampton, New Hampshire, to visit the Fuller Gardens.  This wasn’t originally on our itinerary but I had seen it on the American Horticultural Society’s reciprocal network map.  This is a small garden on the property of former Massachusetts Governor Fuller (1924).  It is right along the coastline among beautiful homes (mansions, really).  The Fuller mansion has been demolished, but the gardens were saved.  Because it was a drizzly day, there were only a few other people there, so that made it nice to stroll around and pretend like the gardens were my yard.  Their dahlias were also in full bloom like the ones at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden where we were a few days before.  Here are a few pictures from our visit there along with a couple of the beautiful houses along the way.

We still hadn’t figured out lunch so I was trying to find something on the fly using my Find Me Gluten Free app and the Google.  I could see that we were about to be headed into no services land on the way to my uncle’s place, so I had DH pull over so we could sort it out rather than passing by all the options.  I found a BBQ place that seemed like a good option, so when I put it into Google maps, it said “you have arrived.”  We were right across the street from it, and neither one of us had even noticed!  The food and service were good, too.

We made it to where my uncle lives mid-afternoon and we had a lovely visit for about 2 ½ hours with my uncle, aunt, and cousin.  We haven’t seen them since 2013.  My cousin also is gluten-free, so she had made a delicious gluten-free apple cake for the visit.  It was so delicious, and it was so great to not have to worry about it because she is as vigilant as I am.

From there, we headed to Merrimack, New Hampshire, where we spent the night.  When we arrived, we found that we had been upgraded to a suite, so it was nice to have the extra space in the room.  The next two travel days were about getting to Hershey, Pennsylvania, but we also found a few things to do along the way!

~ Cindy D.

Portland, Maine

Several years ago I had the opportunity to go to Portland, Maine, for a work conference.  While there, I did some sightseeing and I really liked the Old Port area.  So when we began planning a trip that would take us to Maine, I wanted to take DH to see Portland.

We drove into town on a Friday morning, arriving at 9:45 AM.  Our plan was to take a trolley tour around the city, and we found one that also went to the Portland Head Light.  This allowed us to see as much as we could without having to drive ourselves or figure out parking.  We parked down by Long Wharf and then walked to the trolley ticket window where we were able to get tickets for the 11 AM trolley tour.  That gave us some time to walk around and do some shopping in Old Port.

Before we made this trip, I had ordered a few new t-shirts from Life is Good that I really liked.  So when I saw a Life is Good shop, I had to go in.  We bought a couple of shirts.  We didn’t want to carry them all day, so we dropped them off at the car.  It was then that we noticed a shop on the corner – you’ll never guess what it was!

It was Ethan Allen!  If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll know that I was disappointed to learn that the Ethan Allen of Vermont fame was not, in fact, a furniture maker.  So of course we had to go in.  I took several pictures of the furniture arrangements to pretend that I was at Ethan Allen, of furniture fame’s, home, ha ha!

The trolley tour was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of the downtown Portland area and learn about the history of the area.  The best part was when we went to South Portland to the park where the famous Portland Head Light is situated.  If we didn’t do the trolley, we were going to drive out there the next day, but when we saw how the place was set up, we were glad we had front-door drop-off service with the trolley.  We had about a half hour to take pictures and such which we found was plenty of time.  On the way back to the end of the tour, we had some extra time, so the guide took us for a closer look at the lobstering boats and traps.

We got back to the car around 1 PM, ready for the next item on our itinerary.  I had been looking forward to visiting Maine Flavor, a gluten-free ice cream store where they make gluten-free waffle cones and cookies for ice cream sandwiches – as well as a variety of handmade ice cream flavors.  I had read about them several months ago and added them to the itinerary for our afternoon in downtown Portland.

When we put the address into the GPS, she told us that Maine Flavor may not be open yet as it was reported to open at 2 PM.  Bummer.  But wait!  Let me call them and find out if the hours are really true.  The lady who owns the place answered the phone and as we talked, she invited us to come on by anyway, that she’d open up for us since I’d come all the way from Florida!  Her name was Susan and she was so sweet and welcoming when we met her.  And let me tell you, it was so worth going by.  We got the oat waffle cones which were thick and sturdy and most of all, delicious!  And because we were still in Maine, I got the maple flavored ice cream.  It was so good!!!

From there, we headed over to the hotel in South Portland.  We were able to check in and get settled for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  The hotel had an indoor swimming pool that looked inviting, so I got ready to go for a swim.  Just as I was about to get in, the fire alarm went off, so we had to evacuate the building.  I’m so glad I hadn’t already gotten in!  It turned out that a staff person has bumped into the fire alarm and set it off.  I still got my pool time afterwards.  It was nice that they had good ventilation in the pool room because sometimes it’s not and it’s hard to stay in long.

We did have a few repairs we had to handle for the room.  When we first checked in, the thermostat indicated it had a low battery, so we got them to come fix that.  Then after my swim, I found out that the shower was a seriously slow drain AND that instead of putting body wash in the shower, they had put body lotion.  Thankfully I noticed before washing with lotion – yikes!  So we reported both issues and someone came up to unclog the drain.

I have been doing hotel reviews on TripAdvisor every day.  My common themes in the reviews are about water pressure, towels (fluffy or not fluffy), and whether we had to get things repaired in the rooms we were assigned.  I try to live by the concept of make things better than they were when you got there, and I realize that there are some things that the hotel staff won’t know about unless the guests tell them.  But it does seem that there should be some sort of routine maintenance checks on things like clogged drains and batteries that need to be replaced.  Whenever they ask me at checkout how things were, I do let them know of anything that needs to be repaired/replaced or if I’d had any other issues.  Sometimes they offer me extra points for the hotel loyalty program.  But I don’t do that for the points – I do that so that the next person staying in the room won’t have to.

The next day, we didn’t try to get out early as it was chilly and we didn’t have a lot on the itinerary for our second day in the Portland area.  We went out to Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse which is on the campus of Southern Maine Community College.  It was a cute lighthouse, but we couldn’t walk out to it because it was too treacherous for me.  There were people who did walk out, but they were younger and more sure-footed than we are.

Next we drove the short distance to Bug Light Park to see the Bug Light lighthouse.  This one we could walk out to, and there were quite a few other people there, too.  While we were there, a couple of tour groups from the cruises that were in port showed up.  So we were glad we were about ready to go when the crowds started coming.

We needed to get gas, so we headed to the Costco that was just a few miles from the hotel.  We also wanted to check out the store and see what they had.  Gas was $4.12/gallon.  The store was sampling a lot of items, and every one of them that day were gluten-free!  That never happens at home, or at least not the days that I go to Costco!

We went back to the hotel for a while and decided to get our laundry done.  The weather was beginning to get cooler and we only brought two pairs of long pants / jeans with us, so we thought we’d better take advantage of the time we had to get reset again.

For our restaurant meal, we went to Docks Seafood in South Portland.  Several years ago, they converted their kitchen to have completely gluten-free fryers which meant I could have fried shrimp again!  I had really enjoyed it when we were in Virginia Beach, and while I had also enjoyed the fried haddock I had in Bar Harbor, my favorite seafood is shrimp.  And at Docks, they served a huge plate of fried popcorn shrimp – even better because I haven’t had popcorn shrimp in ages, either!  In addition to the shrimp (DH got his grilled), we shared an order of salt and vinegar fries.  These are hand-cut and soaked to get the extra starch out, and then brined with the vinegar before being fried.  I know all this because the server was also one of the cooks.  I told DH as we were eating that I wished we had gone to Docks the day before so we could have gone again, that’s how good it was to me!

So, overall thoughts about Portland.  DH wasn’t crazy about the crowds and narrow streets and parking.  He enjoyed the trolley tour, especially the stop at the Portland Head Light.  That was a highlight for him because he recognized the icon that it is.  I loved the Maine Flavor ice cream and the Docks Seafood.  And the Portland Head Light, especially without it being a hassle to get to it.  I also love my new shirts from Life is Good.  One of them says, “Play more, Worry less.”  I’m glad to be retired so I have the time to play more!  The downtown port area was pretty much as I had remembered it from when I was there before.

Portland is the last of the big cities we have on our itinerary, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with paid parking and crowds and narrow streets.  Tune in to our next entry to find out more!

~ Cindy D.

An observatory, a botanical garden, and a maritime museum

After three days at Bar Harbor, it was time to get back on the road.  We’re going home!  Or at least beginning to head south.  But don’t worry, there’s still plenty more that we found to do.

We did a total reset while at Bar Harbor, meaning we adjusted some of our packing and how we wanted things situated in the car for the next phase of travel.  We also needed to restock on a few things such as Diet Coke and salty snacks.  We had passed a Walmart in Ellsworth, Maine, on our way into Bar Harbor, so we stopped there on the morning we left.  We only bought a few things because I didn’t want to pay the deposit for drink bottles that I wouldn’t be able to recoup.  We did find a brand of potato chips (A Taste of Maine) that were really good.

Remember a few days ago when I told you that the front desk clerk at the Eastland Motel had made a recommendation of something to do?  Well this was the day we were going to see to it.  There is a fort in coastal Maine that is called Fort Knox.  It was the original fort, while the one in Kentucky is the second Fort Knox.  This fort held a lot of artillery for the Continental armies during the American Revolutionary war.

But also at the fort sight is access to the Penobscot Narrows Observatory.  This is an observatory in the top of a tower on the bridge that crosses the water right by Fort Knox.  You go up over 400 feet in the elevator and the views are pretty cool.  The story is that when the bridge was being replaced, the wife of the head of the Maine Department of Transportation told her husband that it seemed to her that there was room in the towers to add an observation area, so they did!  The observatory and the fort are run by the state.  There’s a nominal admission fee for both.

I thought the fort was pretty cool.  There were several areas where the walls were lined with red brick that I thought would make a great loft space.  And it was bigger than my parents’ apartment in their assisted living community!

Here are a few pictures from the observatory and of the fort.

We left from the fort headed to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.  This garden is part of the American Horticulture Society’s reciprocal gardens program, so it wasn’t going to cost us anything for entry, so it didn’t matter to me if we spent 10 minutes or 100.  We were watching our time because we had one more stop to make and the weather was beginning to turn drizzly, so we knew we might have to go pretty quickly.  We ended up spending about an hour there and definitely made up the cost of our AHS membership with this visit.

The best part was the dahlia garden was in full bloom, and boy, was she showing off!  The flowers were spectacular!  I think I found another happy spot – definitely another #flowersmakemehappy place!   I think I told every single bloom in the dahlia garden how beautiful she was.  I know I took a lot of photos and even made a video.

Another cool thing that the gardens has are the trolls!  There were two that were easily visited from the gardens while the others were out on the walking trails that we didn’t have time to visit.  They made me laugh and were so sweet… for trolls.

Next we headed to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine.  We had been told this was a “must do” while in this area of Maine, so we made our way from Boothbay to Bath.  This is a site where many ships have been built over the years and they have a lot of history and several exhibits about the ship building process.  The site has several original buildings from when it was an active shipyard.

One fun exhibit at the museum was based on the works of Maine author Chris Van Dusen who has written and illustrated several children's books.  I've place a hold on the ones that are available at our public library so when we get home, I can take a better look.

We had planned to walk to dinner just a few blocks from the hotel where we were staying in Brunswick, Maine, but it was pretty drizzly, so we asked the ladies at the information counter at the Maritime Museum for recommendations for dinner.  They gave us the printed list but then mentioned a favorite of theirs that wasn’t on the paper.  It was called Margaritas which is a chain in the northeast of Mexican food.  That made it an easy choice for us, so we went there after the museum and before checking into the Brunswick Hotel.  The food was good and so plentiful, we probably should have just shared!  I got the loaded nachos as they were able to make it with gluten-free chips. Oh my!

The hotel was nice and it was located in downtown Brunswick where it looked like there would have been things to walk around and see but the weather wasn’t conducive, so we pretty much just got things into the hotel and hung out for the night.  The next morning, we were headed to Portland, Maine, but before leaving Brunswick, I wanted to check out Wildflours Gluten-Free Bakery, a gluten-free bakery which we just don’t have in our area.  I picked up three different muffin flavors and a maple glazed donut.  So good!  It’s nearly a week later as I’m writing this and I just finished the last muffin.  They were so big that I had to cut them in half!

Next up: another day, another lighthouse, and ice cream for lunch.

~ Cindy D.

Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

When people would ask us where we were headed on vacation this year, more often than not we would tell them Acadia National Park.  And we were finally there – three nights spent in Bar Harbor along with two days in Acadia.

We stayed at the Bar Harbor Motel after it was recommended to us by friends who had been just recently before we began planning our trip.  This was one of the first lodgings that I reserved and then built the rest of the trip around it.  It’s a good thing we reserved early because many of the hotels and other accommodations in Bar Harbor had been fully booked for months before we were there.

The hotel is cute, very retro-themed.  The property has multiple bungalows, each with four rooms.  Ours was located towards the back of the property, not too far from the laundry room and ice machine.  It was a couple of minutes walk to the front of the property for breakfast or to catch the Island Explorer shuttle.  The room had a couple of chairs and small table on the porch, so we enjoyed sitting out in front of our room each afternoon.

The Island Explorer is a free shuttle bus service that has several routes that take you into Bar Harbor’s downtown, or around to multiple points of interest throughout Acadia National Park.  There was a stop directly in front of our motel, and there was one across the street.  We used the shuttle the first afternoon to figure it out as we had a schedule to keep the next morning and wanted to be sure we knew where to be and when to be there.  From the time we got to the motel until we left three days later, we did not move the car once!

During our time in Bar Harbor, we ate at two restaurants that I had identified as good gluten-free options:  Side Street Café and Geddys.  I was able to have fried fish at Geddys – it was so good!  We also got an ice cream one afternoon; I couldn’t decide on what flavor to get, so I had a scoop of maple walnut and a scoop of blueberry.

On the day we arrived in the area, we stopped at the Acadia Gateway Center which serves as a visitor center and a parking lot where you can catch the Island Explorer so you don't have to drive into Bar Harbor or find parking in the area.  This is where we got a tutorial on how the Island Explorer worked and were able to work out the timing for the places we wanted to go over the next two days.  I was also able to get my passport book stamped and pick up the souvenirs we wanted.

For our first full day at Acadia, I had booked a Carriage Ride for 11 AM.  The weather that morning was perfect.  We got the Island Explorer down to Village Green in downtown Bar Harbor where we then got on the shuttle that took us to Sand Beach which was on the way to the Wildwood Stables where we were to meet the carriage ride tour.  Because we were using the shuttle, we had to pay attention to the time, but we also wanted to make good use of our time.  That’s why we went to Sand Beach before heading to the stables.

Sand Beach is named that because it’s the largest place in Acadia where there is actually sand on the beach.  Although there are also a lot of rocks.  This isn’t really a place you’d go to the beach for a beach day (if you're from Florida), although I guess if you didn’t have any preconceived ideas about what a beach day might look like, you could probably make a nice day of it here.  It was pretty to look at.  Nearby is Beehive Mountain where a lot of people were hiking.

We got to the stables about an hour earlier than we needed to, but it worked out great because we just really enjoyed hanging out in the quiet and the fresh air.  We met several people who came and went while we were there, so that was fun to talk with them.  It kinda reminded us of being on a cruise ship in the way people were easily engaging in conversation.

Our carriage ride was an hour-long trek on one of the Rockefeller Carriage Roads of Acadia.  There were about a dozen of us in the back of the wagon that was pulled by Max and Little Bill.  Although at first I thought our carriage driver said the horse’s name was Moon Blll… which I like better!  They were beautiful gray draft horses, and they were so strong.  During the ride, the guide gave us a lot of information along with some tall tales about the area; he really made it interesting and fun for the kids who were on the tour, too.

The next place we stopped at was Jordan Pond.  This place was so crowded, but to be fair, we were there around 12:30 and it is the only place along the Loop Road that you can get food.  There were a lot of people trying to park so we were glad we were on the shuttle.  But it was worth weaving through the crowd to get to the lawn to look at the pond and its nearby mountains known as the Bubbles.

We got the shuttle from Jordan Pond up to the Hulls Cove Visitor Center.  In hindsight, this was a waste of time because they didn’t have anything different there than they did at the Gateway Center (except the NPS stamp for Hulls Cove was there).

We went back to the Village Green to get the shuttle back to the motel.  While downtown, we got a late lunch and then wandered around the town a bit before heading back to the motel for the rest of the day.

The following morning we had an early start, too, as we were taking the ferry to Winter Harbor so we could get a look at Schoodic Point.  The Schoodic Peninsula is the only part of Acadia National Park that is on the mainland of the U.S.; the rest is over on Mount Desert Island and surrounding area.  The ferry left from near the Bar Harbor Inn on the waterfront.  There were two cruise ships coming in, so we knew town would be busy, so we were happy to be going over to Schoodic for the morning.

The ferry ride was on a smaller boat.  It was windy and cold, so we sat inside on the way over with the idea that we could sit outside when it was a little warmer on the return trip.  It took about 50 minutes to cross; driving over would have been well over an hour.  The Island Explorer runs a shuttle around Schoodic Peninsula that makes a loop six times during the day, so we had to figure out what we wanted to do so we wouldn’t miss the shuttle back to the ferry.  They work in conjunction with the ferry service so the arrival times at the ferry dock coincide with the ferry arrival and departure times.

We got off the shuttle at Schoodic Point which is the main attraction in this part of Acadia.  It’s right at the end of the peninsula and really shows off the ruggedness of Maine’s coastline.  There were large rocks that you could climb out on, and because they were dry, we went out a ways on them.  I wouldn’t have attempted it if they were wet or if there was ocean spray because they could easily be precarious.  We spent about 45 minutes there and then the shuttle came back.  We were supposed to take the 2:30 shuttle back to Bar Harbor, but we really didn’t want to see any of the rest of the area (as a stop, we enjoyed seeing it from the shuttle), so we called and rescheduled to the noon return.

The ferry ride back was, as predicted, better from a wind and temperature perspective, and the sun was pretty cooperative for some pictures.  I sat out back but had to keep my hood on over my head to stay warm.  DH stayed inside for most of the return trip.  It felt so refreshing with the sea air.

When we got back, we got some ice cream and went back to the motel where we did some laundry.  Later we made dinner in the room (microwaved mashed potatoes, turkey, tomatoes) and just enjoyed the cool weather and hanging out on the front porch.  There may have also been a nap or two involved!

Our observations about Acadia National Park:  it was too busy!  They were talking about how busy it has been all year, and they are considering what to implement to help with crowd control.  We wouldn’t be surprised to see timed-entry like they do at other national parks.  We also didn’t get any “money shots” with our photos, most likely because we didn’t ascend to any mountain tops.  This is definitely a hiker and climber national park.  If we were to ever come back, I would book a tour that takes me up to the top of Cadillac Mountain (rather than trying to drive or hike ourselves) so I could see it, but honestly, I’m just as content to look at other people’s pictures who have put the work into reaching the top themselves.  The shuttle service was dependable and we would recommend using it if what you want to do will work with their schedule.  We saw full parking lots and cars parked on the side of the roads around the whole Loop road.  Maybe it’s because of the time of year or because it had been rainy the day before we got there, but you certainly can’t look around if you’re driving.

We left Bar Harbor on Thursday morning, headed towards Portland with an overnight in Brunswick.  But that’s for another blog entry.

~ Cindy D.