The Maine Thing

October 4, 2007
Thursday
We awakened to a deep-throated fog horn and the sound of water lapping on the shore beneath our window. Gail opened the door open and lit the fireplace and we watched ghostly boats bobbing in the bay.
After breakfast in the Reading Room (cinnamon apple crepes and lobster and havarti cheese omelet), we walked to Main Street and bought souvenirs and USA postage stamps. Then it was time for lunch so we got a lobster roll at Bubba’s and carried it back to the hotel and ate at a picnic table overlooking the water.
Mrs Davis needed dessert so we went to Ben and Bill’s, the original home of Bar Harbor’s lobster ice cream, for a cone of pumpkin pie and chocolate cherry chip.
At 4:00 we walked the Shore Path to the end and back, then had cocktails in our room and dressed for dinner.
The chef’s special dish in the Reading Room was lobster pie, so what were we going to do? At least he did not offer us lobster ice cream for dessert.
Friday
After another Reading Room breakfast, we took a 2 ½ hour bus tour of Acadia National Park, driven by Heather, who once worked at Anacapa Island National Park and even became pregnant and delivered her first child there.
Mount Desert Island is the third largest island off the each coast, after Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. Locals pronounce it "Dessert" to mimic the French accent of Samuel de Champlain who named the island in 1604.
Verrazano wrote about these lands in the 1500s and compared them to the Acadian lands of Greece. That’s what Heather told us. I never heard of the Acadian lands of Greece and all I know of Verrazano is that he was both Strait and Narrow. (A little geography humor.)
We drove first to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, 1,530 feet high, arising straight from the water, the highest such rising north of Buenos Aires, according to Heather. Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the United States that the rising sun lights every morning, according to Heather.
Heather noted that a gull that flies over the sea is called a sea gull and a gull that flies over the bay is called a bay gull.
We looked down from the summit of Cadillac Mountain onto a cruise ship that arrived in the night and disgorged this morning 2,600 tennis-shoed, gray-haired geezers onto Bay Harbor’s sidewalks.
Heather told us Bar Harbor is named after the sand bar that is exposed at low tide and connects the town to Bar Island. You can walk across when the tide is out, spend some time and walk back. If you spend too much time, though, you have to wait six hours for the next low tide. Heather said it’s a great place to take a date.
Somes Sound is the only fjord on the east coast, that is, it has cliffs both above and below water level. It almost bisects the island.
A wildfire in 1947 burned a third of the island down to mineral soil and destroyed many summer homes. Birch, beech and maple trees are the pioneer species that have grown back since then. Eventually they will provide enough shade to promote the growth of spruce and fir, which is Maine’s climax forest, according to Heather. When they grow high enough, the hardwood trees will die because they are shade-intolerant. Eventually the spruce and firs will grow so thickly that their lower branches will die and become kindling for the next wildfire.
Rudolph Bruno built the High Seas, the only mansion that survived the 1947 fire. His childhood sweetheart in Germany agreed to marry him on three conditions–that he buy her a large diamond, build her a mansion on Mount Desert Island and give her a first-class ticket on the world’s most luxurious cruise ship, scheduled to sail across the Atlantic in 1912.
We stopped next at Thunder Hole, just a murmur today because the swells were small. The Labrador Current protects Maine from hurricanes. Cold water robs them of their energy but the coast is still hammered by giant swells during the season.
Heather told us about the many miles of carriage roads the John D Rockefeller Jr built to preserve the carriage industry on the island after automobiles began to encroach at the beginning of the 20th Century. As we passed the aromatic stable, she was reminded of an old song, "She was only the jockey’s daughter but all of the horsemen knew ‘er."
John D. Rockefeller Jr came here in July, 1908, and a month later his son, Nelson, was born on the Shore Path near the Bar Harbor Inn.
It was interesting to me that the original John D. and Cornelius Vanderbilt and their friends built summer homes off the South Carolina coast, on Jekyll Island, and their children went north for their summer homes, to Newport and Maine.
Jordan House was built in 1845 and is today the only restaurant in the National Park. It is also a starting point for many of the island’s trails and welcomes dogs to its outdoor tables on the lawn overlooking Jordan Pond. I guess anyone is welcome as long as they can pay the tab.
Jackson Laboratory is the number one employer in Hancock County and supplies three million mice a year to experimental laboratories all over the world. The lab is a pioneer in genetic research.
Heather told us that most of the town closes down for the winter after tourists stop coming here. Only a few businesses stay open–a motel, a bar, the supermarket and the one-hour photo shop.
After the tour, we went to The Thirsty Whale and had a beer and chatted with a young man who makes racing shells and kayaks that will be used in the Beijing Olympic games.
Back to our room, we dressed for dinner and went to the Terrace Grille for a Maine Lobster Bake. We expected to see Robert Goulet any minute, singing about June Busting Out All Over with a chorus of people clapping and throwing seaweed on the fire, but it was just us and a bunch of hotel guests sitting beside the water and feasting on fish chowder, mussels, clams, corn, potatoes, lobster and blueberry pie.