Maine (Bar Harbor/Jackman) 10/5 - 10/7

Joel:

​On October 5th, we left the Brunswick/Topsham area and headed north. We got to Bar Harbor in the afternoon and spent the evening checking out the downtown area. The weather was once again perfect! Sunny and not too warm. People were laying out on the grass, watching the boats and cruise ships in the harbor - the place was packed! I guess that's a downside of Bar Harbor, and one reason why I've always preferred Boothbay Harbor. Boothbay is a little less crowded, and they have my favorite shop of all, Enchantments! 

W:  Every time we pass one of those big wooden pictures with the faces cut out I ask Joel to take a picture in it (see blog from our previous trip to Maine :-) ) and this time I couldn't get him to do that, but at least he was a good sport and sat for a picture with this lobster in Bar Harbor.  

J: Now, the Patriots played on Thursday night so one of the things we had to do was find a local bar to camp out at so we could watch the game. We found one and hunkered down. At the bar, I had some awesome Downeast Cider, which I plan on ordering once I get back to Arizona. We stayed through halftime, then decided to watch the rest of the game from the comfort of our hotel room. Better news this week - we won! Hurray. 

J: The next day, which sadly was the most gray day we've had, we drove up Cadillac Mountain. The views were awesome and we enjoyed our time on the mountain that is the first to see the sunrise in the United States! 

J: After coming down the mountain and driving around the island for a bit, we headed even more north. We were headed to Jackman, Maine, which is near the Canadian border, although not at very top of the state. Now here we saw some color! Beautiful reds, oranges, yellows, dark reds, purples, and greens were everywhere! This area wasn't quite at its peak, but it was pretty darn close. 

W:  We took so many pictures of the colors that we're going to make them their own blog post.  Stay tuned for that.

J: The night we arrived in Jackman we took a drive at dusk in search for a moose. In all my trips to Maine, I've never seen a moose in the wild. Sure, you see all the signs: "Moose Crossing!", "Break for Moose!" ... yeah, yeah, well I've never seen one so they don't exist! Finally, I was proven wrong. We were headed down the highway and we noticed a car pulled over. If a car is pulled over in New England, there's a good chance the car has stopped for deer or moose. We thought what the heck, we'll pull over too, and sure enough there was a female moose munching on a snack on the side of the road! We watched if for a few minutes, then I turned my head to the other side of the highway and there was a male moose eyeing the female moose! I'm told it is rutting season after all... We warned approaching drivers of the moose in the area until the male moose was able to safely cross the road to the female. They disappeared into the grass and we heard.......... moose sounds.......... I'm not gonna ask, we'll just keep driving...

So, yes, I can now confirm that moose do indeed reside in Maine. 

W:  Please forgive the video quality - it was dusk and that proved challenging for my cell phone camera.

J: The next morning we drove 35 miles east to Moosehead Lake/Greenville. The first thing we did when we got there was drive 8 miles down a dirt road to a B-52 memorial site. On January 24th, 1963 a B-52C bomber crashed. There were three people aboard, one was killed and the other two survived. At the memorial site, which was a .5 mile hike in the woods, we saw wreckage from the plane all over the place. They say that the wreckage was picked up but eventually returned to the site, so we weren't sure if the pieces in the trees and on the ground really landed there, or if they were scattered in the general area after the fact. In any case, it was still cool to see, and the 8 mile drive to the site had some of the best colors we've seen! 

W:  On our second night in Jackman we took another drive to see if we could find more moose.  We were so lucky on this trip!  First we saw two females (or a female and a young one, first two photos below), and then a bit further up the road we saw another bull moose.  He was practically right next to our car.  If that wasn't enough, we also saw a doe and a buck, and the doe (video below) was very curious about our car and approached very closely.  

​J: Tomorrow, we'll head south back to Brunswick. This time, we won't be staying in a hotel because we got a cabin between Brunswick and Freeport. Should be great!