Rainy Day in Maine

We both were up before the alarm again this morning, but felt like we had better quality sleep. We had wanted to get up for sunrise to go to the Port Head Lighthouse, but we could hear that it was still raining so we just got ready and headed to the second floor for breakfast. Breakfast consisted of hard boiled eggs, fresh fruit, croissants, bagels, bumble berry pie, yogurt and juice. It was just enough to start the day. We conversed with the other people staying at the B&B and got some tips on where to eat and what to see. One of the couples (average age of the three couples in the room not including us was probably about 65) asked us if we were on our honeymoon. I asked if it was our youthful glow or my shiny ring (that is actually quite dirty) that made them ask. They said it was our youthfulness. 🙂

We decided to start the day at the Port Head Lighthouse and was happy that it stopped raining long enough for us to take some pictures and walk a short distance along the cliff walk. It was super windy, but thankfully the temperature was 63 degrees, so it didn’t feel too cold. We got some pictures and headed back to the car. As we walked to the car I pulled up the geocaching app and found there were 2 a relatively short distance away. Tom was quite happy to sit in the car and take a cat nap while I went out and cached. It didn’t take me long and I was soon logging the oldest cache in Maine! Shortly after I was done logging the cache it started to rain, but there was another cache close by so I decided to go for it. I found the second cache with no problem and with the rain really coming down, I made my way back to the car with my jeans getting pretty wet and happy that I was wearing a rain coat. We stopped at one more cache on the way out of the park. It was a 4.5 star difficulty and after searching for 10 or so minutes and Tom being told that the car couldn’t be parked where we had it, it was time to go without coming up with the find.

We next drove down Two Lights Road to the end to get a view of two other lighthouses. It was still raining and Tom didn’t want to get out of the car, so I got out and snapped some pictures, experienced a great amount of wind, and got back in the car.

Next stop on our quick tour of Portland was to the Allagash Brewing Company. Tom ordered a cider beer and I had the House Pale Ale. All of their seating was outside, but at least we were under a roof. The rain really started to come down heavy while we drank our beer. What a crummy weather day! By the time we finished our beer the rain had slowed down and we were off to our next stop.

At the B&B they had fliers with directions with things to see and do on the way to Bar Harbor. I noticed that in Freeport, ME they had a McDonald’s that is atypical, being that is is in an 1800’s yellow clapboard and gingerbread historic home with carpeting and period furniture in the dining room. This sounded interesting to me so we set it as our destination in the GPS and figured we would pay a visit to the home of L.L. Bean while we were there as well. Tom’s previous boss at NGB is originally from Maine and had given him some recommendations and said the best lobster roll was across the street from L.L. Beans at Linda Bean’s Maine Kitchen & Topside Tavern.

The first stop was the McDonald’s, but when we got to the door there was a sign on it that said that only drive-through service was available today and the dining room wasn’t open. Bummer! First the rain and now McDonald’s! We had a hard time getting cell service so we couldn’t pull up Linda Bean’s in the GPS but it was right on the main drag and we found it right away. There was a 35 minute wait, so we put in our name and gave them my phone number to text when the table was ready and headed across the street to L.L. Bean. Back when were in Iceland, Tom took a picture of our friend Kristin on a glacier where we told her she looked like a model for L.L. Bean. With her being deployed and us having electronic flat Kristin, of course this was the perfect place to get a picture with her. We wondered the ginormous store took some pictures, found a couple more spots outside the store that were good photo ops, and headed back across the street to wait for our table. Within 5 minutes our name was called and we were seated.

Based on the recommendation of Tom’s boss we once again ordered a lobster roll, but also order fried calamari. I will say the lobster roll was better than the one we had yesterday, but I still felt pretty underwhelmed by it. The fried calamari was quite good and it was nice to sit and be out of the rain for a bit. Before we left the restaurant I checked the geocaching app for any nearby caches and found a virtual cache back at the L.L. Bean store across the street. Wouldn’t you know, there was an even more perfect place to take the picture with Flat Kristin then what we had originally done. Thanks geocaching for taking us to where we should have started!!

I decided I wanted to stop at the L.L. Bean outlet store to see if there were any good deals since we had just spent so much time in L.L. Bean world and felt that I should buy something. I did find a super soft hoodie that I liked, so I did not walk away from the store empty handed. Tom had seen a little Ben and Jerry’s hut and wanted ice cream, and I did not, so I made him a deal. I went off to find a geocache while he went off to get some ice cream. Of course as I was approaching the cache it started to really pour. My GPS coordinates were off and after looking in the wrong area for 5 minutes I expanded my search and made the find. I made my way back to the Ben and Jerry’s and found Tom on the last two bites of his ice cream. I was once again pretty darn wet from my geocaching side trip so it was definitely time to get in the car to start heading North to Bar Harbor.

About 8 miles North of Freeport I saw the turn-off for Reid State Park. I had read about the park in my America’s Best Road Trip book and also in the little flier from the B&B so I decided to make the turn and head down to the park. It took longer than I thought to get there (about 20 minutes) and the park was pretty much deserted. We stopped and took some pictures at the two beach locations and basically turned around and drove the 20 minutes back to the main road. This entire time I hadn’t been able to get my phone re-connected to the car to have the GPS up in front of us to let us know how far away we were from our lodging in Bar Harbor. Back on the main road I re-started my phone and got it re-connected to the car to find out we were 2 1/2 hours away!! Shoot! I guess I wish I would have known that before I made the impulsive turn to the State Park. The GPS said our estimated time of arrival to our lodging was 7:45p.m.! I’m not a big fan of driving in the dark on roads I’m not familiar with, but we chugged along and made it.

Our lodging for 2 nights in Bar Harbor is a little cabin. It’s the perfect size for the two of us. We dumped our stuff in the room and headed into downtown Bar Harbor to grab dinner before everything closed at 9:00. We ate at a place called Thirsty Whale Tavern. I had a fish taco wrap and Tom had a Cuban. They were both good, but the most interesting part of the meal for me was the blueberry soda I had. Kind of like grape soda, yet very different. Not bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to hunt it down to drink again.

All in all, we had a good day despite it being extremely rainy and dreary. The forecast shows rain until about 11:00a.m. tomorrow. Hopefully it clears up quicker then that because we have hiking to do in Acadia National Park tomorrow!!

Stats of the Day:

Geocaches Attempted: 5
Geocaches Found: 4
Number of times we saw the sun: 0
Steps Walked: 10,492