Maine Day 1: A Foggy Sea Cost

So with it being summer and everyone here at home and now having some free time, we all decided it was time to get away from Maryland for a bit and head off on a short vacation.  After some deliberation, we decided to spend the week in Maine, a familiar destination, but one which we haven’t been back to in a few years.

Unfortunately, the drive from Maryland to Maine can be a long and tedious one, but that tends to be how things go (or at least this is the case when you’re starting out in the mid-Atlantic region).  We drove up to Portland, and spent our first night there.  As was customary, we went to L.L. Bean (in the closeby town of Freeport) in the middle of that first night, since they are in fact open 24/7.  One of the upsides of visiting L.L. Bean in the middle of the night is that you don’t have to deal with all the people and insanity of Freeport during the day, although we were sure to get hit by that during the next day.

The next morning, we woke up and went to get some coffee at the Arabica Coffee Co in Portland, which to our great surprise served up one of the better espressos I’ve had in the US.  Afterwards we went to get our shop on in Freeport.  Of course we didn’t really shop much, however I am willing to admit that I am a great fan of the Patagonia outlet store there (my biggest draw to the otherwise somewhat obnoxiously busy town of Freeport).  Anyways, after spending too much time wondering about in Freeport, we needed to get moving.  But before we could really get away, we needed some lunch, so we drove down to the South Freeport waterfront and got lobster rolls at the Harraseeket Lobster pound.  It’s always delicious, and hey, when you’re in Maine, you might as well eat some lobster…  After the delicious lunch we finally got back on the road, heading towards our first real destination of the trip, Mt Desert Island and Acadia Natl Park.  However, instead of staying on the island, as we always have in the past, we decided to camp at Lamoine St Park, right across Frenchman’s Bay.  Although I wasn’t expecting much, the campground was actually quite nice and rather quiet.

The next day we woke up to grey skies and foggy seashores, so we dove around a little bit, walked a little bit, and just generally enjoyed the still (?!) somewhat quiet Mt. Desert Island.  I guess tourism season doesn’t quite start until July 4th, as late as that may seem.  Anyways, I think I’ve written more than enough, so let’s see some pictures.

The foggy, rocky seashore of Acadia.

I think Martha Stewart has a house somewhere on that other side.

After driving around a bit, we walked out onto a small and not terribly well known beach.  It’s really beautiful there.  Here’s my mother and Moose enjoying the waves crashing onto the shore.

Moose wasn’t too fond of the big waves, and he got off this rock right after I snapped this pic.

The water was cold, as one might expect the Northern Atlantic to be.

I managed to get Moose out on the rock again, once more, when the waves calmed down a bit.

The tannic waters of a small stream running into the ocean.

After hanging out on that beach for a while, we went to take a walk to Wonderland, a place that my brother and I have always loved to walk around.  There’s so much cool stuff around there, especially at low tide.  On our way we stopped by here.

And saw this beaver swimming around.

And then after a short walk, we were in Wonderland!

Moose wandering about the wonder of Wonderland…

What a nice little path we had to get out there.

Hopefully tomorrow the weather will clear up a bit and we’ll be able to get out on a more extended hike.  That being said, there’s something truly wonderful and greatly appealing about these cool and foggy Maine coast days.