New England ~ 4th year Anniversary

Matt and I celebrated our 4th year Anniversary with a trip to New England. 

It was a quickie as work has been unusually busy for Matt. We were lucky to be able to slip away for almost a week. Of course we packed in as much as possible and had an amazing time making the most of our days in the North East!

We left early, Wednesday (10/16) and returned late last night (10/21). 

2 nights in Portland, Maine

2 nights in Bar Harbor, Maine

1 night in Keene, New Hampshire

On our drive home last night, tired and ready to give both Newt and ourselves a rest, Matt suggested that we buy each other gifts for our Anniversary next year. We've always agreed that time spent traveling together is by far the best gift so I found this proposal somewhat surprising. Okay, maybe I'm simply more suspicious that he has already exceeded BOTH his Christmas and Birthday wishlists and is now desperate for other "gift occasions". I'm on to you Foringer ... but I'll play along.

Having time to review both "Traditional and Modern" Anniversary Themed gifts I now know why he's suggesting gifts for next year - the 5th year Anniversary "Traditional" theme is WOOD. Well played Mr. Woodworker, well played. I'll see your challenge and raise you a trip to California to visit Big Sur and then the Redwood Forest.

Taking a look at this years 4th Year Anniversary Markers let's see how we did - 

Suggestions for: Traditional Theme: Fruits, Flowers

Modern Theme: Appliances, Linen, Silk, Nylon, Blue Topaz

Our Results:

Traditional Theme - We ate plenty of fruit and saw many flowers

Modern Theme: Took a bazillion pictures with multiple cameras (appliances), went through plenty of clothing (linen), wore a (silk) dress for our anniversary dinner,  (nylon) winter coat to watch the sun rise on top of Cadillac Mountain and enjoyed the ocean (blue topaz) views from multiple areas along the coast.

~~Not too shabby!~~

With exception to our drive the first day we had the most amazing weather! Mid-60's to low 70's with beautiful puffy clouds and sunshine everyday once we made it to Portland. It rained a good part of our drive the first day but stopped enough for us to enjoy lunch in Beacon, New York just past the bridge over the Hudson River.

Cloudy view of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge over the Hudson River

The first of many - "Matt, turn around" pictures

Artwork in a tiny little park off of Main Street in Beacon

Beacon, NY was the "hat capital" of the world in the 1800's. Today - they just have very interesting and unusual art and murals decorating their main street. Oh, and Big Foot (please reference Big Foot a few pictures below).

A wheat paste mural in Beacon, NY

Tito Santana - Mexican Restaurant
Amazing Tofu Tacos - thank you Yelp!

Quote on the ceiling: "One of the most amazing things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating."

When giant sugar skulls attack

Matt's pretty thrilled about having corn on the cob with his tacos! 

An amusing "Wash your hands!" sign in the restroom that required a short walk past the dishwasher in the back.

Driving in to Beacon this huge image immediately jumps out at you as you make your left onto Main Street. Plastered on the side of a coffee shop the text on the image says, "Beacon Little Big Foot ALIVE - more than a monkey". We failed to ask our waiter about this but knew google would come through eventually. Turns out, Beacon NY claims to have had many sightings of Big Foot over the past 6-months. There's actually a "Beacon Big Foot blog" dedicated to this. Pretty silly but hey, it's been a few centuries since this city has had a claim to fame - cut them some slack!

School of Jellyfish. I loved the name and let's be honest - also saw the word "Chocolate" written on the window. Further googling tells me it's a "Design House for the advancement of sustainable living and renewable energy". Keep up the good work (Chocolate) Jellyfish! 

Dreary picture of the Piscataqua River Bridge connecting New Hampshire to MAINE!

10 hour + drive later we were so happy to be at our hotel and even happier to visit a very popular restaurant "Duckfat" just a block from the hotel. 

Yep! The fries were just that good. 

Great little restaurant with a super friendly waitstaff. Our waiter (or at least one of our waiters ... everyone was so friendly we didn't know who was actually serving us) reminded me of my brother, Coal. We asked him for a suggestion of what to do in town on a Wednesday night. He told us to go to "The Big Easy" for open-mic rap night. We made sure that "old folk" would be welcomed and he insisted there was always a mixed crowd and the local rappers (ie, townies of all ages that think they have talent) are the best part of the show just for laughs. We took him up on this suggestion a few hours later just to realize there wasn't much of a crowd by 10pm. We told the bouncer we'd be back a little later. Yeah right, we turned in and hit our pillows at 10:30 - out cold!

But not before joining the Red Spoon Society @ Gelato Fiasco @! I had a crazy mixture of 1-scoop Strawberry Balsamic and 1-scoop Chocolate Peanut Butter. Whoa.

Van Gogh's  "Red Spoon - Starry Night" 

Elevator snap

Thank goodness. I definitely would have slept on the floor had I not seen the sticky note first!

Woke up early to get a quick run in. Matt and I discovered a little path along the coast the night before and I headed out to explore a little more.

A foggy/drizzled morning hours later opened to an amazingly warm / sunny day! 

Home for sale along the Easter Promenade. Matt keeps talking about buying a " fixer-upper " ....

Time for breakfast wraps at a little cafe. There were license plates from all states that lined the walls just below the ceiling. The table we chose actually had a Grove City, PA plate right above it. Failed to snap a pic before we left as my food came just as I had discovered it. 

They do?

We headed down to Casco Bay off Commercial Street to snap a few pictures before our scheduled tour of Portland.

Love Padlocks. We first experienced these locks on bridges in Paris, France in 2010. Apparently these have been " a thing" since the early 2000's. 

I asked Matt if we should buy a lock to put on the fence, his response,
"We already bought locks, they're called rings". Touché. 

Our tourguide, Chris, was a really nice kid that had only lived in Portland for about 3-months. He had lived upstate before then and had been to China twice, but barely anywhere else in the states.

Sunny Views from the lawns of the Eastern Promenade

The tripod mast from the USS Portland (one of the highest decorated ships from WWII)
preserved at Fort Allen Park 

The Portland Observatory

On to the Portland Head Lighthouse:

Matt and I headed out to an abandoned mansion and park for some pictures before heading to the main lighthouse.

Matt charging through the greenery wondering why we had to take a 360 degree tour of this dilapidated mansion that I can't remember the name or significance of. 

Jimmy wanna-Buffett playing to a lonely crowd of 0

The locals from Cape Elizabeth maintain the lands of this park. Nice, however -  judging from
the homes in this area I wouldn't be surprised to learn these same locals pay other
workers to maintain their own homes. Just a hunch. 

I could never get enough of this scenery! THIS is my preferred Coastal viewing. Forget the sandy beaches with thousands of people. Give me crashing waves and terrifying rocks!

Realizing I will have to photoshop all of the water bottles out of my pictures. 

"Portland Head Light" 

"In 1787, while Maine was still part of the state of Massachusetts, George Washington engaged two masons from the town of Portland  Jonathan Bryant and John Nichols, and instructed them to take charge of the construction of a lighthouse on Portland Head."

We had a great little tour of the city with another couple from Illinois ("not Chicago - everyone associates Illinois with Chicago"). They gave us several recommendations for our visit to Bar Harbor as they had just visited there.

A walk downtown in search of lunch!

City Lighthouse

I just love Halloween!

Good ol' Rex Goliath.

Birds

And more birds! (My husband will want credit for the brilliance of these pictures - and there it is).

COOKIE! I think were both fairly delirious at this point in the day. Hot sun and little water = give me sugar!!

Sugar and hard cider. Yum!

"Sprouts" Restaurant had a Map of where the food comes from. Love it! 

I was WAY overdue for a mound of greens (esp. after the monster cookie)

After lunch we tried to find our way back to the hotel, hot from the sun and exhausted from the day! Good thing Matt "had a shortcut". Enough said.

1 hour (or day) later we found the hotel and took the best snooze ever. Yep. That's right. SNOOZE! There's nothing like an afternoon nap after a long morning/insanely hot walk!

We woke up, got dressed, hit the town again and enjoyed an amazing "Tasting Menu" at 555 Restaurant. Carrot Soup, Grilled Caesar Salad, Lobster Mac & Cheese, cheese sample and milk & cookies dessert for me and Matt had a few variations of the above with Pork Belly, Prime Rib and Apple Pie. YUM!

Truth: "Only two things in this world that many can't buy; True Love and Home Grown Tomatoes"

Grilled Caesar Salad- yeah, food papparazzi! 

And after dinner it was time to see what the city's nightlife was all about (on a Thursday).

More kooky Halloween decorations. 

We caught the last 3 songs of this Live Acoustic singer that we now own (2) cds of and still don't know the guys name at "Blue". We'll call him "John Smith" for now.

Next Stop at "Ri Ra Irish Pub" near Casco Bay. Crazy crowd as the Boston Red Sox were playing that night and there was a live band. We hung out there until the band took a break.

And finally - we returned to "The Big Easy" - Thursday was, Jam Night. Not much of a "Jam band" fan but for the last stop of the night - it did the trick. Especially enjoyed watching the mixed crowd bob to the music, beers in hand, slight bend to the kneeds, head mechanically moving front to back and eyes opened, closed - opened, closed depending on what notes left the guitars. Yep, my favorite activity has to be people watching - no matter the venue.

And the next morning .... SMOOTHIE BAR @ the Maine Juice Cafe. Good eats!

Look closely ... this "BIG HEAD Squirrel Feeder" is supposed to be set up in the yard with food placed in the head so the squirrel has to tunnel into to it to eat. End result - BIG HEADED SQUIRREL. No, sadly we passed on this purchase. I couldn't guarantee the same result if we were not already homeowners.

These flying seagulls made Matt a lil nervous to be walking underneath. 
Came out clean though. Phew! 

Final morning in Portland we walked around the downtown area early waiting for shops to open so we could grab a few t-shirts before heading up Rt. 1 Coast to Bar Harbor for the next few nights. 

We definitely did not spend enough time in Portland - just enough time to want to return in the near future!

2nd Destination - Bar Harbor (with many stops in between)

Up the Coast - Route 1 North
- next stop, Freeport, Maine. aka - LL Bean Land.

Had to stop at "Horny Toad" first - a great little outdoor apparel company with spunk. We were excited to finally see one of their storefronts after only finding their clothing in REI in the past. 

Yeah, we had to. 

Took this picture for my grandfather and EVERY OTHER man who has ever said,
"Want to see a rope trick? Here, now you try." 

We didn't even make it to 1/4 of the stores on this site due to time restrictions. This place was MASSIVE with separate buildings for everything (hunting, fishing, cycling, kayaking, hiking, home decor, etc.)

Matt and Mr. Bean

Inside the Home goods store

How and why does one "Live Large"? 

Apparently this is not so uncommon. Silly moose men. Sidenote: on our drive home while listening to a podcast we learned that lemurs do not use physical violence when having to maintain dominance. Instead, they fling their scent at their victims. The smell lasts for days and is considered so insulting that the non-dominant (apparently the less stinky lemur) gives up not wanting to return to battle the stench another time. and now you know.

Absolutely the most beautiful outlet store mall I have ever visited. 

Can you guess what this building is?
Look closer ...

CLOSER ....

Whaaa?? Now that's some ridiculousness New England.

Matt was advised by our tour guide in Portland to visit the Thomas Moser furniture store - beautiful pieces.

Another suggestion from the tour guide - a visit to Wolf Neck State Park

The Lobster Roll: Glad we tried it but I don't think we'll be ordering it again. 

Woodworker Matt in his glory. He walked into this workshop and made a B-Line for the horse. Lie Nielsen is a quality line of fine woodworking hand tools that Matt's fallen in love with. He was able to try out the tools he has been eye-googling for some time now. 

Maybe 250 ft  before Lie Nielsen's shop we saw a sign off the road that read "Beth's Farm Market". Brilliant!

And a few miles later we were here! This place was perfect.

OODLES of pumpkins!

"Peanut"Pumpkins

"We-BE-Little" Pumpkins

"Boo-Bees" Pumpkins

My home away from home.

Bridge off of Route 3 and US 1 over Penobscot River

And we arrive in Bar Harbor! Our hotel was just a few miles from downtown with an incredible Ocean View we discovered in the morning. A visit downtown for dinner at McKays Pub. Great food, live music and met another couple with suggestions on "things to do" in Bar Harbor. Unfortunately - most things in the area were closed including their suggestion to see the "Dive In Theater with Diver Ed". Next time, definitely!

There was a full moon out the night we arrived. We debated on going up to Cadillac Mountain before dinner to get a great view of it but like always, hunger prevailed. Still a great shot in the cold night.

AND .. back to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep before returning to the mountain again REALLY early to catch the sunrise. 

Matt took some amazing pictures 

And I took a few pictures of Matt

Many many sunrise pictures.

Cadillac Mountain is off of the island of Mt Desert in Acadia National Park - the first rays of the sun in the United States are seen here. Great experience. We also met another couple who bunkered down to stay warm waiting for the sun. Their sun had just married and moved to Connelsville, PA. I made sure they told their son to visit the duck before it left! They live in Portland, Maine - I had a difficult time talking them in to swapping homes.

A great little breakfast joint! 

We had an incredible breakfast after our early morning and in preparation for a
never-ending cycling adventure through Acadia National Park.

George. AKA #1

A return to Bar Harbor.

This GIF took far too long to create but I think it was definitely worth it! :) What a sport!

Let the adventures begin! Not only did we rent mountain bikes but we got to make a special visit to the basement to get the souped up mountain bikes! yikes

Heading up to Hulls Cove Visitor's Center -

Carriage Road Sign - 45 miles total of Carriage Roads route through the park and are open only to cyclists, pedestrians and horses. An incredible way to experience the park - especially during October!

The beginning

This is my view of the sky from the rock I thought I was going to die on 17-miles in on this hellacious "scenic route". Ahhhhhh.

Year the bridge was completed or the # of calories burned during the ride?

Sick-O. 17-miles in and pedaling with that smile plastered on his face. I spent the last mile threatening to sign him up for the next 5K so he could experience my suffering.

Earlier in the day ...

Yep, still early ... 

S-P-E-N-T (with 3-miles to go)

I spent the majority of the ride searching for trees full of red leaves ... Newt had it right all along.  

No better way to polish off a killer bike ride then to dump the bikes off and head back to the park to frolic on rocks during a visit to Thunder Hole.

Finally made it to dinner after several miles of failed attempts to find a good Lobster Restaurant - they were all closed for the season as of Friday. Had a great non-Lobster dinner regardless.

Then went for Ice Cream to cap the night off. They offered "Lobster" ice cream - we sampled but passed on the offer for a full scoop. Not so good (big surprise!)

Downtown Bar Harbor @ night

An impromptu breakfast in Ellsworth heading toward New Hampshire

Goofy moose picture at a rest stop

Awww, a Matt & Beth sign at Starbucks.
We love you too Starbucks. Note: there is very LITTLE love for Starbucks in Maine.
Dunkin Donuts EVERYWHERE. Ick.

Kennebunkport - Beautiful town but way too Conservative for my blood

New England Clam Chowder for me and Lobster Bisque for Matt

Back on the road to New Hampshire and a visit to a few covered bridges at dusk/night.

Our final stop on vacation - the Lane Hotel in Keene, New Hampshire -

This little town now owns (once again) the Guinness World Record for the most carved, lit jack-o-lanterns. 30,581 pumpkins total to beat Boston's previous record established in 2006. Here's a picture of their awesome festival this past Saturday night:

and ... having arrived the following night post festivities (Sunday night )... here's what we saw

Sad lil' pumpkins.
There were two huge containers of these guys set to be discarded. Crazy.

Outside of the hotel 

Two more covered bridges before home!

And miles and miles later - after stopping for an amazing dinner in Syracuse at the Copper Top Tavern and a terrifying slam-brakes-on-last-minute-to-avoid-a-deer later we were HOME.

Yet another great trip! I don't know how we pulled off 3-weeks in a car last year. Yeesh.