Bar Harbor

Gosh, that train trip to San Francisco was fun!  It reminded me -- I really love to travel.

Back in 2008, I took the train from Seattle to Boston.  Two nights sleeping on the Empire Builder, and one night on the Lake Shore Limited.  Plus an unscheduled night at a Chicago hotel, on Amtrak's dime, because of a lengthy delay -- a problem with the track, not Amtrak's fault -- that caused me to miss the Lake Shore Limited connection.  

I met family in Boston, and we drove up to Maine.  Our ultimate goal was Monhegan Island, off the Maine coast, where one of my nephews was getting married.  After the wedding, I took off by myself (in a rented car) and explored further the Maine coast, before heading westward to New Hampshire and Vermont.  (While in Gorham, New Hampshire, I decided on the spur of the moment to climb Mt. Washington, but that's another story -- in fact it was a 2008 story in my blog.)  (Check it out.)

My first couple of nights after leaving the island were spent in Bar Harbor.  Bar Harbor may not be a destination that's well known to my West Coast readers, but it's a very picturesque coastal town, one that shares Mount Desert Island with Acadia National Park.

The whole New England adventure was fun.  I particularly enjoyed Bar Harbor and Acadia.  

You see where this is going, right?  I do have cats that I can't leave alone indefinitely -- three nights is my maximum -- so I'm not going to repeat (this year) my great railway adventure.  But on a Monday, three weeks from today, I will fly to Portland, Maine -- eight hours in transit (including a short layover in Newark), rather than four days and three nights by train.  I'll rent a car and, after a night's sleep, on Tuesday morning I'll drive the three hours or so to Bar Harbor.  Rather than stay in a motel some distance from the city, as I did in 2008, this time I've booked accommodations in advance in a traditional, New England-style hotel in the city center.  (I say "city" -- Bar Harbor has a population of about five or six thousand, but with all the tourists it seems larger.)

I plan to wander about the town, hike in the National Park, maybe explore surrounding areas by car.  Maybe sit on the hotel veranda, drinking tea (or maybe gin & tonic), enjoying the sun (or maybe the ocean fog), and thinking whatever nautical thoughts come to mind in a nautical setting.  I know it's a rush visit -- only one full day, Wednesday, in Bar Harbor.  On Thursday, I have to head back to Portland in time to catch a 3:30 p.m. flight.

A 3:30 p.m. flight to Charlotte, North Carolina.  "What?!" you exclaim.  I know, right?  I'm flying back to Seattle on American Airlines, and I guess Charlotte's their hub.  Such are the marvels of the U.S. airline system.

A train would be more fun.