The past few years, I’ve given the kids some choices for their birthdays: presents OR a party OR a trip. Up until this year, the “trip” has just been a night or two in the Twin Cities. There have been rides at the Mall of America, swimming at the hotel, visits to zoos. But last year, Kid 2 said, “For my tenth birthday trip, I want to go to the seaside.” Like… that’s a little bit farther away than the Twin Cities! But we did it!
The main goal was whale watching, and a search for good whale watching spots on the east coast turned up Bar Harbor. I now realize that Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park are well known and very touristy, but I’d never heard of Bar Harbor before that google search! Luckily, Kid 2 was born at the perfect time of year for this sort of trip: everything was open, but the crowds had not yet descended. (We were there late May / earliest June — I would also consider visiting in September, after schools are back in session, but seeing current photos of Acadia, I would NOT go in the summer!)
Anyway, whale watching.
This photo is from the second time we went on the whale watching boat, because the first time, we spent five hours freezing on the open sea and *didn’t see any whales*. The whole experience, to me, was as close as you could get to torture while still making the torture-ees pay for it. Just absolutely miserable. And we were fairly well prepared! The company gives you a voucher (good for three years) to come back on another trip for free. I couldn’t imagine doing it again! But a few days later, we bundled up and headed back out. This was *the thing* Kid 2 really wanted! It was colder that day, but at least it was sunny. And we saw whales! Several fin whales, including a mother and calf. I got a couple of video clips but mostly just enjoyed Kid 2 being ecstatic. Worth it!
We really fell in love with Maine! I keep saying that it’s all the things we love about Minnesota — just more of it than we have here. Kid 2 was in heaven, being able to hop in the car and be looking at tide pools a few minutes later. We actually stayed about 45min outside of Bar Harbor (on Hancock Point), and I didn’t mind the drive to Mount Desert Island, but I’d also probably choose to stay on MDI if we went back.
Conveniently, Kid 2 just finished fourth grade, so we were able to get the free national park pass that’s available to fourth graders, which meant we were able to drive around Acadia without having to pay anything! We weren’t ambitious in our plans, but we got a reservation to drive up Cadillac Mountain (see the photo at the top of the post) mid-morning one day, and that was very cool. From there, we went to Jordan Pond for lunch and strolled around the pond for a bit. Then I failed at sign reading and got us stuck on the loop road around the park, which wound up being lucky, because we stopped at Sand Beach and Thunder Hole.
This is what Kid 2’s dreams are made of!
We also spent a lot of time in Bar Harbor itself, and it’s a perfectly lovely town. I’m not sure I’ve ever been anywhere SO seasonally touristy! The Oceanarium was nice, and we really liked the museum at the College of the Atlantic. (I’m a little bit starry-eyed over the College of the Atlantic. Do *I* need to rack up some college debt to get a degree in ecology in my 40s??)
Kid 2 was ready to leave our old life behind (including Kid 1, lol!) in order to start anew in Maine. I do have to say that this was the first place I’ve visited that actually felt truly tempting. Not Bar Harbor itself but Downeast Maine. It was so like Minnesota in a lot of ways and even better in a few. The temperatures are milder, but they average more snow than we do (that’s a strike against it, sadly). I do think that if we had an unlimited travel budget, we’d be going back every few months!
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