We arrived in Bar Harbor early in the afternoon and checked back in to the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, this time in the new wing. We had carpet on the floor this time and the same great view of Cruise ships in Frenchman Bay.
We were up early to check out of the hotel in Calais, it was raining. After having breakfast in a diner, the one a Miami tourist claimed had "the best breakfast I have had since driving up from Florida". That was nice to know, even though we were heading back that direction today. We drove the #9 to Bangor, Maine, just for a change of scenery. It rained off and on through the trip but had quit by the time we got to Bangor. We checked out a couple of Antique stores and some Thrift Shops when we were in Bangor then headed down the 395 to Ellsworth then took highway #3 back to Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor. We arrived in Bar Harbor early in the afternoon and checked back in to the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel, this time in the new wing. We had carpet on the floor this time and the same great view of Cruise ships in Frenchman Bay. Since we still had most of the afternoon left we headed to down town Bar Harbor. There are Lots of tourist type shops in the downtown area, seasonal business lots of T-shirts and hoodies (50-70% off this time of year). Here they are big on Lobsters and for some reason Moose. Apparently you don't see a lot of Moose though, sorta' like the Loch Ness monster or Ogopogo. There are Fish Boats in the harbor at the end of main street, a couple of nice little parks, restaurants and waterfront Hotels. Cruise ships sit offshore and ferry passengers to the downtown area where you can catch the Lighthouse tour boats or be bused to Acadia National Park. When we returned to the hotel we visited the house on the property. It was part of the original estate of Klondike billionaire, Sir Harry Oakes . This house and the 12 acres around it are now part of the hotel and property. The inside of the Oakes' House is decorated in period fashion has a drawing room, sitting room, parlor, numerous bedrooms, and a conference room. I picked up some brochures from the hotel lobby to learn more about Acadia National Park and tomorrow we will be visiting sites like the lookout on Cadillac Mountain, Sand Beach, the Carriage House and Thunder Hole.
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Arriving after dark from Salem Massachusetts we found our hotel in Bar Harbor Maine, the Atlantic Oceanside. After begrudgingly signing (I actually crossed out some of the stupid stuff) a Pet Release Form saying we took responsibility to stop our dog barking or messing on the furniture, not leaving the pet in the room alone, but not bringing it to restaurants or public places. . . etc, we were checked into a ground floor pet friendly room in the older section of the hotel. We weren't too impressed with our room, it didn't have carpet so the ceramic tile floor was cold and the room smelled like a wet German Shepard. For the extra cost they charge pet owners (not us fortunately) they could have spent that extra and cleaned the rooms more thoroughly. Other than that the rooms were nice, with good wifi, waterfront views, comfortable beds and wide screen TV's. This brings me to another concern. Most hotels have these brand new 40 inch HDTV's in there rooms. Nice looking except when you turn them on. Am I the only one who cares that when you show non-HD, or standard definition programming on a large flat screen TV it looks like crap. If you aren't going to provide premium TV stick with the CRT's, at least they have a good picture. It was getting late and we were hungry. Teddi Googled and found a funky little eatery just up the road called the West Street Cafe. It served great pasta and seafood. After dinner it was late so we retired to our pet room for the night. Because we intended to stay here again on the way back to Boston Teddi arranged with the front desk to stay in a different "Guide Dog Friendly" non pet room in the new section of the Hotel. The next morning we exercised in the fitness room and had a swim in the saltwater indoor pool, breakfast then off to the Canadian Border. With the GPS programed for the Hotel in St John's NB we took of on highway 3 to Ellsworth then for some reason it's off the highway on to a few streets then to North street or ME 179. Twenty three miles of 2 lane country roads dotted with a lot of older homes in need of some TLC and closed down businesses. Eventually we came upon this swamp with a hand written sign attached to a dead tree. I had to stop for a picture. A few more miles up the road we thankfully turned on to ME 9 E more of a major Highway. That took us past some beautiful fall scenery and then on to US Route 1 to Calais and the Canadian Border. Here's where the trip goes south, literally. We pulled up the the small Canadian Customs kiosk and handed our passports to the officer, answered a few questions about where we were going to which he replied "we have a problem here". Not something you want to hear someone official say to you. Well, turns out there is some concern about newer American cars being smuggled into Canada and sold for a big profit. Short of paying a huge Duty on the price of the car we could not enter Canada with the rental car. To make matters worse (if they could be) the American Customs office was temporarily closed and we could not cross back into the US. Think Tom Hanks in "Terminal". The time seemed to fly by, having to borrow a phone in the customs office (our American Cellphone couldn't phone Canada) I phoned and cancel our hotel reservations then joked around with the customs guys. Apparently this happens quite a bit now with the discrepancy in prices of cars in Canada and the US. While I waited inside Teddi wanted to break Buddy and almost caused international incident by walking into Canada. Fortunately she wasn't shot or anything, but it scared the poop out of Buddy. Mission accomplished. Once the Border opened we crossed back in to the States, it was late so we decided to stay in Calais, pronounced Callus like the sore on your foot, not the Calais like in France. We had the choice between two Motels, we chose the one that advertised the fitness center and the Olympic sized swimming pool, unfortunately both the fitness center and the pool were closed awhile back. We checked in anyway. We went out for a scenic drive around Calais and looked at some Maine architecture then had some excellent Chinese Food in a new Plaza Restaurant. Tomorrow we'll drive back to Bar Harbor via Bangor, Maine and stay in the new wing of the Atlantic Oceanside Hotel.
After leaving Salem around noon we had a lot of driving to do to make our destination of Bar Harbor, Maine. It was 5+ hours according to Google maps and our GPS said just over 4 hours. Discrepancies like this don't worry me, I have learned to put a little trust in the GPS. It seems to get us there in the end. I love the way we'll be driving down the Interstate and then all of a sudden the GPS will tell us to take the next exit off. What I don't like is it was usually right after a Toll Booth. I have checked the settings on the GPS it is marked as "Fastest" as opposed to "Shortest" (really they seem to be the same short should be fast) and it seems the Interstate isn't always the fastest. Lucky, the roads it chooses turn out to be the scenic routes through farmland and small communities. We drove for about an hour on the 1A hoping to be along the coast line, unfortunately not much coast to be seen, so farmland on the #95 and 1A it was. Around 5:30 pm, at sunset, we came upon the Penobscot River and the magnificent new bridge that was built to cross it. The Penobscot River Narrows Bridge was built to replace the Waldo-Hancock bridge in 2006. The Waldo-Hancock bridge built in 1944 was the first permanent long span suspension bridge to cross the river just below Bangor Maine. This sight in the setting sun was something I couldn't resist stopping for. It was only another hour or so on the Ellsworth then down the #3 to Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor. We stayed in the Atlantic Oceanside right on Frenchman Bay, a stones throw from the main entrance to Acadia National Park. The Hotel is built on a 12 acres, formerly the estate of Klondike billionaire, Sir Harry Oakes, his original house still stands there and can be viewed or request to stay in one of the rooms.
Sunday, my Birthday, was our last day in the Poconos, it was the day we drive back to Brooklyn. One last stop as we follow the Delaware river on route 46 was at Hot Dog Johnny. Quite a popular Sixty's style Hot Dog Stand. It started in 1944 and has been a family run business since. Great Hot Dogs, Fries and Apple Cider. The place was so busy we stood in one of the numerous lines for 15 minuets for our Dogs, it was worth it. Back in Brooklyn it was time to repack for our Monday morning flight from JFK to Boston. Now here is where I want to say I loved flying with Jet Blue. I flew from Seattle to New York with them a 5 hour flight in comfortable large leather seats, all with video monitors, stereo audio, satellite radio with free snacks and drinks. For our short 1 hour hop to Boston we had the same great service, no charge for stowed baggage. After we landed at Logan International in Boston we got our rental car from Enterprise. We were given a white Hyundai Sonata, it was roomy enough for the two of us and Buddy (Teddi's Guide Dog), it had a great stereo satellite radio and a USB connection for music from our iphone. We hooked up our GPS unit and off we went on our Great American Road trip. . . . well once we managed to find our way out of the airports maze of roads. There seems to have been a lot of new construction since my Garmin GPS had a map update. We were on the road again. Our first stop was Salem Massachusetts. We have spent some time here before and know Halloween is a really busy time, even two weeks prior. We couldn't get a room in our favorite Hotel "The Waterfront", and booked ourselves in to "The Clippership Inn". Big mistake. From the moment we stepped in to the room we noticed a bad smell, the room was tired and old looking the tv was at least 20 years old and the wifi was bad to nonexistent. We looked at two other rooms, they were no better. Since we were only staying the night (and there were no other hotels in the area with rooms) we decided to tough it out and spend time outside visiting Salem. We had a wonderful meal at "The Witches Brew" then walked around looking at the sights of Salem at night. The next morning we were heading out for breakfast when the Hotel owner called us to the office and informed us she was going to charge us extra for our pet dog. Teddi tried to explain he was her Guide dog , not a pet and was protected by the American Disabilities Act. We showed her the ADA laws on the internet and phoned the Guide Dog Foundation so she could speak with them, to no avail. Teddi finally asked her to phone the Sheriff and have him attend. When he arrived he explained that a Guide dog was a working animal and she could not charge us extra she still did not believe us. She kicked us out of the hotel, so we left. Apparently she has had other complaints registered so the Foundation is looking to file a law suite against her hotel "The Clippership Inn". After all of that commotion, we had a huge breakfast at our favorite little Salem eatery, Red's Sandwich Shop We then visited some of the downtown shops bought some gifts, got Teddi her own Witches Hat and visited the first cemetery in Salem (just across the street from Red's).
Next it's up the coast to Bar Harbor Maine and Acadia National Park on our Great American Road trip. It's nice to be home again, that said it's also nice to do a road trip once in a while. The first week of October I took Teddi over to Seattle to Fly to New York to visit with her friend Carolyn on Long Island, she spends more time indoors and is not as adventures as another friend Linda so I stayed back and flew to New York the second week. Teddi and I started our trip visiting friends in Brooklyn, New York the second week of October. It is a great time of year on the East Coast, so much color and comfortable weather. John and Linda had a jam packed week of adventures for us, we visited some local and world class museums, ate in some yummy restaurants and met some of John and Linda's relatives and good friends. After a couple of days in Brooklyn John had some time off work and wanted to take us to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. John and Linda had spent many of their weekends at a Cabin they had there. Only a three hour drive from Brooklyn, it was worlds away from New York. Sorta' like a East Coast version Youbou, except larger. They once had a beautiful little lakeside property with Bears, Deer, Raccoons, Possum and the ever elusive wild Turkeys. Not the whiskey, that is more Southwest. John, another NASCAR fan, took me to see the Pocono Raceway hopefully to see the track. Unfortunately they were doing work on the facility and were not letting visitors on to the site, or at least that was what the guards at the numerous entrances we tried told us. We visited Memory Town, a once beautiful recreation area, a place the family spent time in summers past but that's what it was now, a memory, most of it was closed and boarded up except for the Bar, it probably should have been closed and boarded up though. Now the places we did get to see were simply amazing. Quaint little chocolate shops that put chocolate on anything including jalapeno peppers. Country roads with famous old golf courses, one, the Shawnee Country Club, is situated along the Delaware River, a favorite of old movie and television stars like Jackie Gleason. Another one The Inn at Pocono Manor overlooks the Pocono Mountains, large hills really but still a tough golf course. Sky Top Lodge a Large stone building on a vast property has huge balconies that look out over acres and acres of treed land. The interior was massive, it remind me of the Banff Springs Hotel, from the movie "The Shining" . We tried our luck at a Casino, a bit smoky for my tastes but the women won money, I like that. Teddi a couple of bucks and Linda over one hundred dollars. The house we were staying at was owned by friends of Linda and John's. It was in a gated complex in an area again sort of like the outskirts of the Lake Cowichan. We had no internet there but on Saturday Night John made sure we got to watch the NASCAR race on TV. Thanks John! All in all a pleasant visit to a very scenic area. Next Blog back to Brooklyn then on to Boston and Maine. I'm going to try my hand at blogging, don't know what I'll say but now would be a good time to start since we have just returned from holidays on the East Coast of the United States. The trip took us from Seattle to New York, into Boston/Salem on to Bar Harbor Maine. We had planned to visit St John's NB and Halifax NS but read on and be amazed.
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