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.