The Beauty and Wonders of Acadia

I guess it is a good thing when you are on vacation that you are enjoying yourself too much to take the time to blog.  Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park are packed full of things to do, but it is also a peaceful place for sitting on the porch, and just relaxing and enjoy the surroundings. 

We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain one day, which had amazing views. 

                                                                     Ted on top

                                                                      Thomas chillin'            

                                                                         The hikers

                                               You can see the town of Bar Harbor below

                                             Jane loved the eco-friendly "water in a box"



After that we went to a place called Thunder Hole.  http://www.acadiamagic.com/ThunderHole.html  The wonders of nature are always what bring us back to the National Parks!

                             The water crashes into the rocks here and makes a thunderous crash

                                                   My protector and his walking stick



The peak of Cadillac Mountain is the first place that the sun hits the United States when it rises, so we woke the troops at 4:00 a.m. and drove to the top.  It was AMAZING!!  I have never seen a sunrise like that.

                                                  Still below the horizon, about 4:45 a.m.

                                          It was cold up there before the sun showed itself!

                                                                     It's almost up.....

                                                              Ahhhhhhhhhhh......................

                                                   It's too early for not getting along

                                                         They are all a bit slap happy

A new adventure

Today we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take full advantage of it and go sea kayaking.



When we arrived at our launching area, it was very windy and a bit intimidating, but there was no going back at that point, so off we went!  Tandem kayaks with Jane and Rose, Thomas and Mark and Ted and I.  Mark got to sit back and relax while Thomas did all of the work.  It was really fun and we got to see some beautiful scenery. 

 

 

                                                                       Girl power

                                                          Our terrific guide, Shandi

                                                               Me and my co-pilot

                                                                      Mark's captain

                                                                       Our house

 

 

                                                  We really can get him to do anything.....

 

 

                                                                

                                                          

                                                                 Treats...too many treats.

 

                                                                      The harbor

                                                                      

                                                                           Lobstermen

Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Today brought our first full day in Bar Harbor.  The house that we rented is in a great location just off the Shore Path to the ocean and a quick three minute walk to the main street where there are many shops and restaurants.  After all of our driving, we can now walk most everywhere we want to go.

 

  I had to start the trip off with a lobster roll and it was delicious, of course.  I may try to eat lobster every day this trip!  Yummmmm...

In the afternoon, we went to Acadia, which is about 10 minutes from our house.  We found the one sand beach in the entire park and spent some time there enjoying the sun and the FREEZING cold water!

                                                                             Jane

                                                           Rose's new seaweed dress

                                                                         Beach selfie

                                                      Cold water doesn't bother him!

                                                             Sibling fun in the sun!

Ahhhhhhhhhh....we made it.

We drove through hours of rain and arrived in Beverly, MA to the Wheatley's house.  Tim, Laura, Emily and Katie were very gracious hosts and we so appreciated it after a long day of driving.

We left Saturday morning to go to Cambridge, MA to visit Harvard.  What a beautiful campus.   I think all of the kids have plans to attend in the future, so if we win the lottery, maybe we can make that dream come true!

 

We stopped in Rockport to have lunch and ice cream in one of our favorite cities!  The weather was beautiful and everything was just as we remembered.

From there we drove north through New Hampshire and into Maine.

Rose had to add in a few gang symbols for this one....


 Bar Harbor is a lonnnggggg way from Boston!  We arrived late in the evening, so we just settled into our house and went to sleep!

Arthur decided to think Independently

The plan for today was drive from Rochester, NY to Boston for the "biggest fireworks display in America", but Hurricane Arthur had a different plan!  After finding out last night that the fireworks had been cancelled due to the storm, we made a little alteration.

 We are now a couple hours away from our family friends, The Wheatley's house, (in Beverly, MA), who so graciously invited us for the night. 

For the most part, today has just been another day of driving east, so pretty uneventful. I did lose my front seat passenger spot to Jane, so now all I see is this....

We drove through one new state for our list, Vermont. Upstate New York and the border with Vermont is beautiful.