We ended up spending most of Mark’s week off by taking an impromptu trip up to Bar Harbor. We left on Wednesday morning about 7 a.m. and got back late Friday, and we had a wonderful time. It was great fun to see the Maine countryside, and the campground in Acadia was gorgeous. Mark really knows how to do car camping in style. We had kebabs roasted over an open fire, fresh tossed salad, and Absolut martinis complete with olives for the first night’s dinner.
We had eggs and potatoes and veggies for breakfast, quesadillas, freshly brewed coffee from ground coffee beans, and lots of other goodies for our meals. And the best part is that Mark spent 22 years in the restaurant industry, most of those as a professional chef, so we had taste and style and presentation, and he cooked it all! We are now totally spoiled for camping with our little camp stove!
We got to spend a whole day sightseeing around Acadia – Chelsea and I rode our bikes around and Mark got some good photos of us – and then we spent time doing the tourist thing in downtown Bar Harbor. I couldn’t believe how beautiful and fun it was. We hadn’t realized that it is a cruise ship destination, but once there, we could sure see why. It reminded us very, very much of Alaska and some of the ports we saw in our Alaska cruise in 2005. We wanted to spend a week up there!
On our way back we got to stop in Freeport Maine and see the original LL Bean store. I was delighted, having been a customer of theirs for many years, and being really curious about what the main store would look like. Chelsea has a much-loved LL Bean high-visibility baseball style hat (for water sports) that broke in the high winds in Bogue Sound, so she got to get that replaced, and we got to look at the Specialized TriCross bikes. We also got the name of the public relations people at the main store from one of the sales clerks who was fascinated and delighted with what we are doing. We haven’t followed up yet, but we will. All in all it was a very useful stop.
We got home really tired, but happy. I keep thinking about wanting to get back up there and stay longer.
Signing off from Dover, NH