Maine Vacation 2009

As I mentioned in my previous post, the annual family vacation up to Maine is one of the truly enjoyable events that make my Augusts super busy!
We all stay at my uncles "cabin" on William's Pond in Bucksport, ME. Bucksport itself is a charming town with a little movie theater:

And the locally famous Gifford's ice cream shop:

Which truly does have yummy, yummy ice cream...

It also has easy access to Fort Knox, which I forgot to take a picture of but you can see in the top right corner of this picture of the "new" bridge:

See it there hiding behind the lamp post? Oy... How about now?

Incidentally, that paper posted on that lamp post also highlights one of the great features of this area: fresh seafood! That's a posting about catch size requirements and limits. We had a pretty spectacular lobster/scallop/shrimp dinner for Hubby and my birthday (mine's the 17th and his is the 18th.)

Don't they look like they're having fun? Well, the lobster eaters were.
Those that are terrified of lobsters (me... I know, I know- there's no logic in this!) were made great fun of.
Al- the professional chef of our group and the man responsible for the Wild Woman of the North photo at the bottom of my page- decided I needed a new Maine adventure picture. So in honor of my 30th birthday he dared me to put a lobster in the pot. Well, I'll spare you the full internal debate that went on and get right on to the photographic evidence:

Can you see my tonsils there? I was SCREAMING. Someone had untied one of the lobster's claws and it went from being perfectly docile in my mother's hands to flapping, flopping and clacking in mine!
Anyhoo...

Bucksport also happens to be just a little over an hour away from Acadia National Park. Our family tradition is to take any new guests over to Jordan Pond House for tea and popovers.


Happily I don't think a summer has passed in my memory that we haven't had guests of one sort or another to use an excuse for popovers!
If you don't make reservations it will likely be more than an hour wait for a table on the lawn, but you can always pick blueberries in the field:

or walk around the lake and count frogs to pass the time.

And if you're wondering, the answer is yes, we do always look that bedraggled while dining on the lawn. Tea (or lunch) is generally preceded by a three hour hike somewhere in the park. The great thing about hiking in this area is that with just an hour's effort gets you some pretty incredible views:

This is a great hike- you start by walking the first half of the Jordan Pond Nature Hike, then head up Sargeant Mtn. This is the view from the top of Sargeant (and that's a trail marker, not a grave marker!)

Then you follow signs for the Penobscot summit which takes you along this rolling expanse of exposed rock that connects the two summits. When you hike back down the other side of Penobscot Mountain you end up just minutes from Jordan Pond House!

Another favorite is on the other half of the island by Echo Lake.

I forget the name of the trail itself, but it's very short- 1 mile, maybe even only .5- and straight up!


In places there are ladders bolted into the rock so us laymen can enjoy the view along with the pros! But the whole thing only takes about an hour- talk about bang for your buck!

If you do go for this hike, then bring your bathing suit because that beach down there is lovely!
The sitting space is somewhat limited, but the water is crystal clear and there is a very slow grade into it.

Most of those people in the water are standing!

All in all it was a fantastic mini-vacation, as usual!