the attic of my mind: Blueberries (aka Maine weekend #2)

Last weekend was themed on Maine staple #2: Blueberries.

After arriving on the bus, we went to dinner at Captain Nick's... Not an inspired choice as it turned out. Cheap seafood is why people hate seafood. I had been wanting mussels, so we got some steamed mussels and we got a seafood on pasta entree. Well, the seafood was unappetizing to look at and even worse to eat. The pasta (linguine) came with a big ball of butter in the middle and some lobster clawmeat, scallops and haddock and a token shrimp. The pasta tasted like water. I have never had such awful pasta. The haddock was the only thing remotely ok. It was all WAY overpriced. We got a slice of bluebie (it was the tiny ones!) pie with ice cream for dessert and that was somewhat redeeming. later we really didn't understand why we had eaten that awful seafood. I guess it was just the thought that we had ordered it and didn't want to waste. Oh, the side of the restaurant was a train car and we ate in that part. :)

The next morning we tried to get up early because we wanted to stop by a bakery and get one of their chocolate croissants before they sold out. We left a little after 8am which was pretty incredible and got our croissant and another heavenly pastry. Then we were off for Acadia. I had forgotten to pack our roasters, so we had some delays trying to find some at random places. no luck. Acadia was so misty while we were there. We were lucky enough to get a campsite so we set up our tent then went back to see some of the acadia sights. We went up to Jordan Pond House and got a delicious lunch (including a seafood chowder that successfully erased all bad memories of the night before) and of course the fames popovers. Popovers, it turns out, are huge, fluffy, eggy muffin-shaped balloons of delight. I liked them best piping hot and with a touch of bluebie jam. For dessert we got a popover with 2 scoops of their homemade icecream (one bluebie-- that was the best!!!-- and one vanilla) and blueberry syrup. SOOOOOO good! yum. Highly recommend Jordon Pond House.

Then we needed to find firewood. We had seen so much on the way. I thought we'd have better luck heading north than south, but I was wrong. We drove further than we would have if we'd gone south and were despairing of finding any wood. Finally we saw some and got a bundle. It was pretty damp though. (Later we found out that pretty much all firewood everywhere was soggy because of a huge storm that went through the day before.) We then headed back to Acadia and stopped by Sand Beach, the only sandy beach in the park, and perhaps in the state of Maine. It was small, packed with seaweed and people- reminded me a lot of Singing Beach. It was strange to see all the people at the beach in the mist. We walked over to some rocks on the side then went up to find the coastal trail and go to Thunder Hole and Otter Point. Thunder Hole is supposed to be like la Bufadora in Ensenada or that cow one in PR, but I don't know if it's a real marine geyser because it hardly ever does it. In fact we never saw it do it, and even reading online it sounds like it's relatively rare, doing it mostly in storms. so that was not as interesting as it could have been, but it attracted lots of people so the conglomeration of tourists was interesting. We continued to Otter point, and on the way at a big blueberry from a tree (those tiny ones just grow on ground shrubs), and we didn't die so it must have been ok. We climed down to a beach that was made up of huge stones, all smooth and rounded from being tumbled in the waves. We sat there for awhile and listened to the hollow rolling of the stones as the waves tumbled them. Then we continued on to Otter Point and tried to check out tide pools. The rock looks flaky like slate and it must have some high metal or something content because all the pools of water and pretty much all water in the park was a deep blackish rust color. not so delicious-looking. and no marine life to be seen. It was a short hike, but quite scenic and enjoyable. We got a brief hour or so of blue sky at lunchtime (but even when the fog shrunk back enough for us to see blue sky, it waited just off the shore, so we never could see the eastern horizon-- always a grey blend of sea and sky and impenetrable fog that teases you so you can't tell if you are seeing far or near or just going blind) and as we got in the car to head back to camp after our hike, the blue sky and golden evening sun shone on us so we drove to the top of Mt Cadillac (highest peak on Mt Desert Island) to watch the sunset. It was spectacular and on the east side we could look down on that spectacular fog we'd been caught in all day. It lay like a big, thick cotton blanket-- like batting- on the sea and the western side of the coastal islands peeked through like slits had been cut for them to bump up. It was truly incredible.

We went back to our campsite and tried to make a fire. We had some newspaper and matches for our damp wood but no kindling. This proved to be a highly unsuccessful approach. We created a lot of smoke (luckily it went straight up so none of our neighbors got mad at us) and a few crackling licks of fire, but that was about it. So we headed to a nearby town where we'd seen a camp store, and kept our fingers crossed for kindling or starters of some sort. The had this weird liquid in a plastic pouch that claimed to be unfallible, so we got two of those and more free newspapers and went back for another try. This pouch of stuff created a raging little ball of fire and we started trying to roast some of our lil smokies, but after a bit the damp wood proved to get the upper hand. So we loaded up one stick with half the package of lil smokies and loaded up the other stick with marshmallows then lit the other fire pouch over the logs and tried to do a crazy breakneck roasting extravaganza. It was successful enough for us to get a little food in our tummies (although erin made me eat like 3/4 of the smokies!!) and then we gave up and smothered the remaining glows and went to bed.

We went to bed...

but that doesn't mean we slept!

We had borrowed stuff from the family, but apparently they don't believe in sleeping pads or something. We didn't know we were lacking pads until I was already on my way up. So we did our best to lay out sleeping bags under us for a little padding and put a blanket over the top. It was still pretty hard (luckily the ground was very flat at least, no killer rocks in our hips or anything) and so sleeping wasn't such a successful endeavor either.

In the morning we went to church in Ellsworth then headed home. We stopped back by the lighthouse on our way home this time and went down the treacherous cliffs to look for starfish. We didn't have any luck although Erin had lots of luck earlier in the week with the girls she nannies. We wandered all over the rocks and looked under all the seaweed, but just lots of mussels and snails there. We wandered all the way over to where the coast guard steps come down so we went up them since we were done with our excursion and that was a lot less perilous than making our way back over all the seaweed-covered rocks and up the cliff.

And those are the great adventures of Blueberry weekend. Tune in next time to see what final adventures await me on my last crazy Maine weekend! On the way home, I did see a sign for Captain Shorty's all-you-can-eat boiled dinner... ;P