Maine Trip Re-cap Part 3 & Final

Finally!!  I have taken my good, ole, sweet time getting these trip posts finished, and now I'm so far behind in posting about everything else going on!  Is it really September, what happened to August?!  Anyway, here are the last few days...

Thursday

This was Grandpa and Grandma's last full day and Grandma requested we do a bike ride again that morning.  We stuck with the same plan of having everything ready to leave the night before, so all we needed to do in the morning was eat and get dressed.  

Let's go Daddy!

We started out at the Jordan Pond house and thankfully beat the crowd again.  This time Scott mapped out a different route, so we started out in the opposite direction.  This new route was a. lot. harder.  The roads were pretty much non-stop winding climbs.  You would get to the top of the hill and think you made it, only to see that the hill kept climbing up around the bend - ughh!  

We still had a good time, but we were wiped out by the time we made it back.  That included Carys.  We had about 1 mile left and she went into full meltdown.  I told Scott just to book it back to the parking lot.  He took off and I stayed behind to let Grandma and Grandpa catch up to make sure we all knew the way to get back.  When we pulled off the carriage road and onto the main road, I see Scott walking his bike with one arm and holding Carys in the other.  She was all smiles at that point, of course!

We had packed a lunch again, so I ran up to the gift shop to get some of that yummy blueberry soda and found these...

photo from here

A small box of chocolate whoopie pies from Cranberry Island Kitchen.  I figured after the ride we just finished we had earned a little dessert, so I grabbed a box.  Oh. my. word.  They were fabulous!  It was super rich, dense chocolate cake with filled with the best icing I've ever tasted.  I'm going to warn you now that if you love dessert (like me, obviously) don't click on the link above!  They have whoopie pies in a million different flavors and they ship them!  I may have to think of some special occasion to celebrate just so I can order the Tasty Pack - seriously, it's got my name all over it!!  Ok - enough about dessert.  After our ride, Alice suggested we drive up to the top of Cadillac mountain, and I'm so glad she remembered this was on our list of things to see.  It was beautiful.        

It was a perfectly clear day and we could see for miles.  It was amazing.  We stopped in at the ranger station and someone spied some shades and decided she had to try them on!

What do you think Mom? Do I look okay in orange?

Yeah, I think orange is my color!

 After the beautiful drive back down the mountain, we headed back to the Red House for few hours.  Carys napped while Mom and Dad got ready for their date night out, since Grandma and Grandpa had graciously offered to keep Carys.  I had mentioned earlier in the week about Scott and I possibly doing a sea kayaking trip, and I think Alice reminded me no less than 5 times to make reservations.  Do you think Grandma was anxious for some alone time with her granddaughter! ha!!

We signed up for the sunset cruise and were so happy we went!  We haven't had much alone time since Carys arrived, so it was nice to spend some time together.  I'm so thankful too that we did not have to worry one bit about Carys.  We knew that she was in great hands with Grandpa and Grandma!  

The coast of Maine is absolutely beautiful and kayaking gave us a chance to see it better and get up close and personal with some sea life.  I spotted a seal head peaking at us when we first left Seal Cove (appropriate) and later we all saw some porpoises.  There were quite a few surfacing around us, and it was pretty cool to hear them breathing out of their blow hole!  We stopped on an island (owned by the Rockefellers) to take a break, and the tide had left us snails, crabs, starfish and even a sea urchin to check out.  For a girl that's used to the Great Lakes, it was pretty exciting to discover some actual sea creatures!  

After our tour, we walked to the waterfront in Bar Harbor to have dinner at Stewmans Lobster Pound.  Grandma and Grandpa had dinner here the night before, and told us how good it was (it was also one of the spots the Obama's ate a few weeks earlier).  It was a little chilly, but we still decided to sit outside on the pier.  We both ordered the "Downeast Lobster Experience" and it was so good!  We started with some yummy clam chowder, then had a pot full of lobster, corn on the cob, potatoes and mussels, before ending with blueberry pie!  It's a good thing we worked so hard on the bikes that morning!  

Scott loves when I take food pictures!  

I was pretty excited and took a few bites as soon as this arrived!  

We had a great night out, but after dinner we were more than ready to get home and crawl in bed!

Friday

Grandma and Grandpa had to hit the road early this morning to head home.  They had a really long drive and Grandpa had to get home to get organized for the UP State Fair.  He helps run the Lions Club refreshment stand for the week, and thanks to his hard work they raise a lot of money for charity.  After they left, we decided we would go for a hike after Carys woke up from her first nap.  We mapped out our hike using the map on the wall at the Red House, and took off for Southwest Harbor, also known as the 'quiet side' of the island.  We had planned on doing a fairly easy trail, but again things didn't go exactly according to plan.  

Lesson Learned #1:  Check the date of your map

 So, we started out on a trail that we thought linked up with with another 'easy' trail that would lead us in a leisurely loop up around Flying Mountain to overlook Somes Sound.

  

Well, that is what happened, but there were a lot of trails that linked up and the one we were looking for wasn't always marked. This lead to quite a bit of confusion over whether or not we were going the right way, and made our trek slightly longer than planned!  Turns out the map back at the house was made in 1980.  I guess they made some changes and added quite a few trails since then!

Lesson Learned #2: Always carry a trail guide 

Lesson Learned #3: When in doubt, take a break!

About an hour and a half into our hike, Carys started getting antsy and we came to a fork and weren't sure which way to go.  We decided to get Carys out and let her walk around for a bit, and thankfully another couple came by with the aforementioned trail map and Scott was able to get his bearings.  We were pretty much exactly halfway into our loop!  This meant we still had a long way to go!  Thankfully, Scott had packed extra water and snacks because we needed it!  

Yep, the Maine dirt tastes just like Michigan dirt.

 Carys was a little fussy when we first put her back in the pack, but singing some songs along the way helped keep her entertained.  When Scott and I ran out of songs, we grabbed the bag of Grandma's pretzels (she makes the best seasoned pretzels - they are awesome!) and she happily sucked on those for awhile.  Then when we were just about 20 minutes out, the Bug feel asleep (with pretzel in hand).  Poor thing, our 'easy' hike ended up being a 3 1/2 hour ordeal!  She was a trooper and so was Scott - carrying her on his back!  It wasn't an easy hike, it was really hot, and there were quite a few places that required using your hands and feet to climb up and down.  Coming back down the mountain, the trail followed the rocky coast and we had to climb across what seemed like an endless wall of giant boulders!  I think the people we passed were a little surprised to see Scott doing it with Carys on his back!  I will say though that she wasn't the only little person we saw, so either their parents weren't exactly prepared (like us), or they were just much braver than us!   

See that mountain - yeah, we climbed it!

An exhausted little Bug!

Carys was so funny when she woke up.  She was wet and I didn't pack a change of clothes, so we strapped her in with just a diaper on and after being hot for so long, she loved it! 

I love this sweet girl!

After surviving our hike, we made our way back to the Red House.  We decided to just hang out for the rest of the day and order pizza for dinner.  

This was some awesome pizza!

Carys had a blast walking all over the place, unpacking what we had just packed!  And yes, Carys officially began walking in Maine!  She had been taking steps regularly since her first few on the Fourth of July, and would walk across a room to get to something, but up until this week it had always been in a straight line and she preferred to be holding on to something or someone.  On Thursday night, she mastered turning while walking and decided she didn't want to hold on to anything.  Then on Friday after our hike - she was all over the place and has been ever since!

Saturday

Sorry - we have the roof of the van cutting through the bottom, but I still love this of the three of us!

Can you tell she wants to get down?!

      We wanted to hit the road early Saturday morning, since we had one less travel day than we did on the way out.  It was hard to say goodbye to the Red House - we had so much fun there and it was the perfect home for us!  I really can't believe our week went by so fast.  And looking back now, after making our reservations last December and looking forward to our trip all year, I still can't believe it's already over.  It was definitely one of the best trips we've taken, and we were so glad that Scott's mom and dad were able to join us.  It is so awesome that they love to do the same things we do and it's great to be able to share so many amazing memories with them!   Scott and I have already talked about hopefully going back again someday.  We have other places we want to visit, but it was so beautiful and I feel like there were so many things to do and see, and we just ran out of time!