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I currently get only 5 days paid leave a year and so when a public holiday like Memorial Day comes along, we pack our cases! We booked a room at the ‘Harborside Hotel and Marina’ on Friday and left for Bar Harbor on Saturday. We were actually only seconds away from cancelling the trip after I came down with a fever of 101.5F on Friday night. Luckily I was feeling a little better in the morning and got progressively better as the weekend went on.

The journey to Bar Harbor took us a around four and a half hours with one stop off at a rest area on the way. Upon arrival we checked in early and dumped our bags. The hotel room was massive! We got a pool view room which was more like two bedrooms in one. We had two marble bathrooms, walk in shower, two baths, a living room and two TV’s. It was a lot more than we expected for the price we paid! We had lobster rolls for lunch at the restaurant next door to the hotel and set about exploring the town. Bar Harbor has plenty of shops and restaurants so we spent some time walking around and taking in the lovely seaside setting.

Across the water from our hotel was an island called ‘Bar Island’. During low tide you can walk across from our hotel to the island but during high tide the water came right up to the hotel. It was quite a sight when we first saw the water at low tide as there were people walking and driving their cars across to an island which a few hours earlier was surrounded by the Atlantic waters!

The following morning we went to Mount Cadillac. The mountain is located in Acadia National Park which occupies ‘Mount Desert Island’. Bar Harbor is on the eastern shore of the island. The visibility was not great but the mountain views still didn’t disappoint. The first of the pictures below shows the ‘Porcupine Islands’ from the top of the mountain.

In the afternoon/evening we took another walk around Bar Harbor. We also walked the ‘Shore Path’ which offers some really nice views of the harbor.

After our walk we returned to the hotel and had a swim in the heated pool.

The following morning was an early start! We got up at 3:30am to return to Mount Cadillac to see the Memorial Day sunrise. Mount Cadillac is the highest mountain on the coast of the U.S. and therefore sees sunrise before any other place in America. The view of the sunrise was spectacular and a “must do” for visitors to Bar Harbor.

After our early morning at Mount Cadillac we returned to the hotel to finish our sleep. Here are a couple of pictures taken from the hotel on Memorial Day.

After breakfast at 9am we went for a drive around the 27 mile ‘Park Loop Road’ to take in some more of Acadia National Park before we returned home to New Hampshire seacoast. The Sand Beach below found just off the loop, is a lovely cove which was created 15,000 years ago by glacial ice. Swimming in the water is only for the hardy as water temperatures peak at only 50F (10C).

Our final stop before going home was to ‘Jordan Pond’. The pond has a shoreline of 3.6 miles and is another part of Acadia which was formed by the glaciers. The water at Jordan Pond is very clean and visibility is often at 46ft. Afternoon tea is served from the teahouse lawn overlooking the Pond. The signature item on the menu are Popovers however we had our signature item of Lobster Rolls! I also had a lovely blueberry smoothie.

After lunch we returned home down I-95 and luckily managed to avoid all the holiday traffic! A perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Here is a video clip of some of the highlights:

Last weekend Meghan treated me to a trip to the North of the state to spot a New Hampshire icon… the moose!

As we travelled up Route 16 towards Errol, NH the big yellow signs at the side of the road warning us of moose collisions got more and more frequent. By the time we reached our B&B we knew we were deep in moose territory!

Our moose spotting took us mainly to a section of Route 3 called “Moose Alley”, so called for it’s frequent moose sightings. This section of road runs from the northern most New Hampshire town of Pittburg all the way up to the Canadian border. We drove as far as the border and then turned in the road at the border entry point and headed back down towards Pittsburg.

We only saw 1 of our total 6 moose sightings on this road! And here he is (you can tell he is male by the bumps on his head where his rack grows):

The remainder of our moose sightings were slightly south of Errol on Route 16.

Moose spotting strategy is fairly easy, you just crawl along at 15-20mph while checking the sides of the roads for signs of moose (like the mud tracks in the picture below).

Moose sighting are more frequent in the early daylight hours and just before dusk when they move about to search for food. We were told by the lady of the house at our B&B that once you have lived there for a while you get “an eye for them”.

All in all we had a fantastic weekend and I am thrilled to have seen my first moose!

Here are a couple of other pictures I took. The first is a hummingbird on the feeder at the B&B.

Here is a short video montage of our moose searching!

Just wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone for the birthday cards, money and gifts. This weekend we are headed north to Moose Alley! I will post again next week with some pictures from the trip… and hopefully of moose!

Here is a picture of the wonderful cake from Harvey’s Bakery in Dover. A lovely surprise from Meghan, especially as it’s a carrot cake… my favourite! The plate is from L.A. Burdicks.

This last weekend we went for a walk to Royalston Falls. We entered the trail from the Massachusetts side of the NH-MA border on route 32. The walk took us on a 3/4 mile hike along the Tully trail following the yellow markers. Here are some of the pictures along the trail and even though we did not actually see the 50ft fall it was a very picturesque walk through the woods.

The temperature rose a fair bit while on the walk and so did the number of bugs! Also…. you guessed it, I fell over again and almost broke my camera!