The Day We Went to Bar Harbor

We spent a full day during our adventure in Maine exploring Bar Harbor, or as the locals call it “Ba HA Baa.”  We started our morning by exploring Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island.  The views are truly amazing and our weather was unreal.  It was sunny with blue skies and light breeze.  They had torrential rains the day before our visit and the day after, so we really lucked out. 

To tour the  park, we followed along the Park Loop road.  The girls loved seeing the Atlantic ocean and playing around on the rocks.  It was so beautiful and little did we know the best was yet to come.

Our next stop at Acadia, was Sand Beach and I was delighted to discover that was not a misnomer.  Surrounded by all these rocks and trees, is an outcropping in the park blanketed with perfect beach sand and crashing waves.  We were in heaven!

We played and enjoyed the sand and sun – it was definitely a trip highlight, so much so that we went back later that day.

 

Our next stop was Thunder Hole… again, not a misnomer.  It was spectacular and climbing all over the rocks was a lot a fun.

  

Next up was Otter Point… I think the name of that one actually means, “At some POINT, there were Otters here, but not anymore.”  It was still beautiful though and there was lots to explore.

Next we drove around the Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor in search of a good spot for lunch.  We ended up at a darling cafe in Southwest Harbor on Main Street which is where the Stephen King movie, “Storm of the Century” was filmed.  We had unbelievable crab cakes and homemade blueberry pie and a skillet cookie sundae that were to die for.  This is a shot of Katelyn and Grandma Carol enjoying our great lunch!

After lunch we drove to Sea Wall and Katelyn found her first seashell from the ocean.  Brooke was amazed at all the treasures there were to explore and grossed out by some of the seaweed.

Our final stop in Acadia National Park was the Lighthouse at Bass Harbor.  It was beautiful  but clearly had killer spiders residing there too.

After a quick break back at our hotel, we headed back to Sand Beach.  The girls had asked all day to go back there and since the weather was still beautiful we decided to go play at the beach before dinner.  Brooke was reluctant to get in the water at first, but once she discovered the fun of throwing wet sand, she warmed right up to the whole thing.

 

Kyle helped the girls construct “Brookie Lake” which evolved into Hansen Island and several various dams and waterways.

It was such a fun and relaxing day… and ended with an amazing Maine Lobster dinner.  We even had a chance to walk around the cute little town after dinner long enough to make room for fudge and ice cream.  There is something so special about hearing your kids laugh and play on a beach by the ocean.  Surround that kind of a day with good food and I am pretty sure it doesn’t get much better than that.