Be sure to check out Part 2 – The Adirondacks and the Adirondacks photos. Of course, there’s Maine photos as well.

We had used our credit from last year’s canceled cruise to book a cruise around the Baltic sea from Copenhagen, Denmark. Of course, this was canceled. (Moved to next summer now.) Paul’s company announced in February that they’d be having another R&R week in August like last year. We wanted to do something again but weren’t sure what the situation would be during the summer so we decided to stay within driving distance. After looking at a number of potential spots, we decided on a week on the coast of Maine followed by a week back in the Adirondacks. Early in the summer, we thought maybe we should have looked further afield as things seem to be improving. However, as summer went on and things seemed to be moving in the wrong direction, we were glad to have stayed kind of nearby.

For our first week, we looked at a number of places all along the coast. Eventually, we settled on a renting the great 3-bedroom Spruce Cottage in Camden, Maine through AirBnB. This worked out great as Paul’s dad flew out from Arizona for the week so having a little extra space was perfect. The cottage itself was an old house with lots of space and only a 10-minute walk to downtown Camden. This was great as we could easily head down there without having to worry about parking. We were also less than 10 minutes from a supermarket.

Saturday was our day to drive up to Camden. It was a long drive, taking a total of about 9 hours due to traffic. That did include a stop for some great fried clams and scallops at The Sea Basket in Wiscasset. After check in, we settled in. Paul’s dad arrived in Bangor around 8pm and then at the cottage around 10pm. It was great to see him again.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at the cottage before having a wander through town. It’s not a huge place but there are some nice shops and a really nice little harbor. After lunch we headed out to Rockport, about a 15 minute drive. Here we wandered around their very small harbor for a bit. For dinner, it was back to Camden and to Sea Dog Brewing for some good beer and good seafood and ice cream at River Ducks. It was a very nice first day.

Next up on Monday was a drive down to Boothbay Harbor, about an hour down the coast from Camden. We wandered through town, got some snacks, and did some shopping. For lunch, we headed down to Robinson’s Wharf in Southport. Paul got his lobster while others got some great seafood. After getting some ice cream as well, we headed back up to Rockland, not to be confused with Rockport just up the road, and walked the Rockland Breakwater out to the lighthouse. This is a great walk but is almost two miles roundtrip. For dinner, we just grilled up some chicken at the cottage.

Tuesday was our planned day for Acadia National Park as we had prebooked a reservation for the Cadillac Mountain drive. Kyle wasn’t feeling well though so we decided to move the trip to Wednesday. (In fact, we got a better time on Wednesday.) Instead we just hung around Camden for most of the day. Suzanne, Paul, and Peter took the drive up Mt. Battie for some great views of Camden and the surrounding area. In the afternoon, we had booked a harbor tour on the Windjammer Schooner Appledore. Unfortunately, as we were heading out, they started having engine problems. We did get at least a little tour of the harbor and got some excitement as they struggled to get back to the pier. The crew did manage it so that was good. For dinner, we had planned to go to a pizza place/brewery but it was a long wait. Instead, we ended up at Cuzzy’s pub, which was still a fairly long wait but not as bad. (Many places were short staffed so several restaurants were closed some evenings and others could only handle so many people.) We had some good pizza here. This evening, ice cream was from Camden Cone.

Wednesday was now our day to make the two hour or so drive up to Acadia NP. We left Camden early and made it without problems. It was quite busy. Before our drive up Cadillac Mountain, we drove through the park but couldn’t find parking at the couple of places we tried. We did poke around Seal Harbor Beach before heading up the mountain. This was great with wonderful views of the Mount Desert Island, Bar Harbor, and the surrounding ocean. After spending a good 45-60 minutes at the summit, we drove back down. Parking was still tricky but we did find a (legal) spot on the loop road near Sand Beach. After grabbing lunch, which we had packed and this worked out great, on a rock, we headed down to Sand Beach. Then we did the roughly half-mile walk to Thunder Hole. While it was low tide, it was still cool to see. There were a ton of great spots for photos along the walk as well. Back at the car, we continued the loop drive, stopping next at Otter Cliff. We had thought they were further down the coast a bit so did an additional roughly 3/4-mile walk to Otter Point. This was still well worth it to see more of shore. After this, we finished out the loop road and headed into Bar Harbor for some wandering and shopping. Paul (with Peter) stopped for a quick flight at Atlantic Brewing Company. On the way back to Camden, we stopped at Union Lobster Pot in Ellsworth. More wonderful seafood was had including some yummy steamers and a great, and huge, lobster roll.

Thursday was our day to head to Freeport, about 90 minutes southwest from Camden. While we got a late start, we made it down there early afternoon. It did start to rain, fairly heavily, while we were there but it was great to wander through LL Bean. We even got a great deal on a rolling duffel bag which we had been looking for. For an early dinner, we got some great pizza and spectacular beer at Main Beer Company before Suzanne got to drive back in the steady rain.

Peter had a roughly noon-time flight on Friday. For a last thing, we had breakfast out at Marriner’s Restaurant. Afterward, Peter headed back to Bangor to fly home while we drove back up the coast. Our first stop was at the small but interesting Penobscot Maritime Museum in Searsport. After spending some time here, we continued up the coast to the historic Fort Knox and a visit to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory. The latter is an elevator to the top of one of the bridge piers, 420 feet in the air. There were some great views of the area. On the way back, we stopped in Belfast for another wonderful lobster roll at Must Be Nice Lobster on the harbor walk, some ice cream at Wild Cow Creamery, and some great beer at Marshall Wharf Brewing. Back in Camden, dinner was pretty good Chinese at Camden Island before packing up to leave the next morning to head to the Adirondacks in New York.