Sunday, July 6, 2008

Day 5: Eastport, Maine to Bar Harbour, Maine

Eastport Maine Fisherman Statue
We spent the night in Eastport, Maine and by now were counting ourselves lucky that we opted out of camping. It has been more money to stay in hotels, but with all the traveling we've been doing, a hotel and a nice bed has been the saving grace in keeping us cheerful and happy along the way! Eastport if you ever chance to visit it, appears small and with little economy, but what I noticed very quickly was that their seems to be a slew of artists that live in this region - from writer's to painters. It's a small and interesting eclectic town.



Our first experience today was to go back to the famous West Quoddy Lighthouse and take some family photos. I am on the hunt for our perfect Christmas photo and thought this would be a good place to take it. This lighthouse the farthest east you can get in the US!

What do you think? -Is it Christmas card worthy?! We took some more with the all of the lighthouse in the background but it was very difficult to see us!


Their seemed to be a little compeition between the town of Lubec and the town of Eastport as to who is farthest east - Lubec is the farthest most eastern "town" and Lubec is the farthest and most eastern "city"! They both win in my book!

The East Quoddy Lighthouse is located on Campobello Island on it's northern tip. When we arrived we were told that you can only reach the lighthouse on lowtide and that we had about 20 minutes to get all the way out and back before the tide started back in. The girls were not very excited about the prospect of the tide coming in while we were hiking out to the lighthouse. It was a good lesson on trust, as their were lots of stairs, rocks, and people along the way reminding us of how much time we had to get back to the Island.


Once at the lighthouse I took a few minutes to capture the girls in these poses that I promise were very spontaneous. Cici had grabbed some wild flowers along the way and was looking at them for a few moments - so I took that moment to snap the photo above.
Nini was determined to put that little ball into the wood cup - a toy her grandmother picked up for her at a gift shop in Eastport. I didn't get the light quite right on this one and the others I tried to snap of her, but it's still cute!

Here's the lighthouse from a concrete pad they made for helicopters to land. It turned out to be a great photo of the girls and Craig.

Here is a photo of the hike back to the Island.

I mentioned that their was a community of artists in this area and I was lucky enough to talk to one of the artists while they were painting the lighthouse. He had a woman with him that was helping him mix colors and I talk to him about the painting - it was really inspiring. We stopped by his studio on the way out, but found his prices beyond what we could afford right now. It was fun to check it out though.

We finally visited Campobello and found it one of the most well kept historic homes we've been inside. It was a good history lesson for the girls!


On the way out of Eastport we stopped in to this old Mustard Mill where they had every flavor of mustard you could think of from beer to cranberry to maple. We picked some mustard up and headed out to Bar Harbour...



This was something we found odd, weird; but mainly a bit scary. The property and the home on this property were covered with these little "people"?? We don't quite know what inspired this artistic expression, but we were grateful to pass by it quickly.



Our last photo of the day was at this snack bar on route 1 before entering Acadia Park in Maine. It was completely packed! We took the motto that you should always find your restaurants by how many people in the restaurant ! We didn't eat here, but had some really great ice cream. They even had a park in the back with a playground - it was a great set-up. We got into our hotel and went directly to the pool, swam, and than headed into Bar Harbour for some late dinner.

Most spontaneous moment: Conversation with artist at East Quoddy Lighthouse.
Worst Moment: None.
Best food: sampling the mustard at the mill
Best View: West Quoddy Lighthouse.
Best planned moment: Swimming and shopping in Bar Harbour at night.
Most memorable conversation: Trust talk with girls on our hike to Bar Harbour
.

2 comments:

Staci said...

Looks like such a wonderful and fabulous vacation. I'm jealous.

Mish said...

Loved your pictures. My family and I vacationed in Eastport, Maine last month, for the first time. Wonderful trip! Beautiful area!! We also went to to Lubec. Both area are so beautiful!

Michele from Maryland