Day 3 - Driving to Maine

Got up early, checked out of the hotel, and drove up to see the Boston Temple. Brynn was thrilled to see a fire hydrant there.



Then we went up to Kittery, Maine, where we found a nice picnic spot for lunch. They had a fire hydrant there, too, but I'll spare you that picture. It was very wooded there, and Callie liked comparing the pine cones to the ones she had seen in Utah & California.

We then drove up route 1 along the Maine coast. You really can't see any of the coast from the road, due to the very heavy foliage along the road. In fact, most roads in Maine are quite boring, nothing but trees. You don't realize how entertaining billboards can be until there are none, and nothing new to look at, either. Once we passed Portland, the road got much smaller and rural. Lots of small roadside stores, selling everything from antiques to fabric to homemade jams & jellies or candles. Pretty much every home or business we saw along the way had some sort of homespun store attached to it. We drove right through Freeport - a nice little town of outlet stores (and we've got a fire hydrant picture from there, too - they're yellow with blue hoses. I know you care.)

Kept driving until we reached the town of Rockland, where we'd wanted to go to the Maine Lighthouse Museum - but alas, they were closed at 4 pm on a Saturday in tourist season (whoda thunk it?) so we just wandered the beautiful harbor:

There was a boardwalk/trail along the harbor and we walked a half mile or so, until we came to a small cover where the kids could go down and touch the ocean. For Callie & Brynn, it was their first time touching the Atlantic. Brynn was more interested in the "fardrant" we found on the boardwalk.

We got back in the car, and continued driving up the coast. Around dinner time, we started looking for a place to eat. Drove through many beautiful small towns (Camden, Belfast, etc.) but none had any restaurants except pizza places, and we'd just done that! Drove over a scary old bridge high over the river near Bucksport. Just barely room for two lanes of traffic, with no room for error. There was a much nicer, bigger bridge under construction right next to the old bridge - I imagine the locals will be very happy with the extra room on the bridge! In Bucksport, we found a McDonald's and stopped to eat. Kyra loved the decor on there and took pictures with Darrin's camera.



We finally drove onto Mt. Desert Island just about sunset. Had a beautiful sunset view over the water as we crossed the bridge. (No picture because I was driving.) Found our hotel and checked into our rooms for the night. Brynn was cranky & pulling on her ears, and more than happy to go to bed.