4th of July Weekend...

Last year, I celebrated 4th of July weekend with family in Richmond, VA. Can't believe it had been a year.

This year, the weekend wasn't plan until last week, when I met up with Teck Hua for dinner and Transformers, where we bounced the idea around of going up North. After asking a few more friends and getting suggestions and recommendations all around, we decided to go to Acadia National Park, ME. And it wasn't until late Wednesday night when we started looking up rooms and booked a motel room at the very last second. So, the plan is: May Ying will take a bus from NYC Friday early morning to Boston, we will pick her up, lunch, then drive to Bar Harbor, ME.

I was running a little late on Friday morning (there was a line at the ATM and I needed to get gas). So, I was 20 minutes late picking up Teck Hua, and then May Ying waited at the bus station for a good 20 minutes. I'm sorry!

So, we had lunch at Chinatown. The serving was huge. I had salted fish fried rice, May Ying ordered a bowl of noodles, and TH a bowl of porridge. We sorta split the dishes 'family-style'. The food was pretty good. Anyway, we left Boston Chinatown at about 1pm for Bar Harbor, ME.

The traffic wasn't bad at all, there was a section where it was slightly congested, for a short period of 20-30 minutes, and that was it. From one of our emails, Mel (the poor thing that got too excited about the trip and had a gastric attack earlier in the week and decided to bail out) mentioned those 'cute little towns' in Maine. So, we decided to punch in 'shortest route' instead of 'fastest route' into our GPS and the it took us through some rather interesting towns and little roads. We stopped by a souvenir shop and also a strawberry stand. We were told that Maine strawberries are really sweet, but, the ones that we ate were rather sour. But it was really flavorful though. I bought a jar of strawberries jam, and we shall find out.

So, we continue our journey by the back roads, and it was a good while before I decided that it was the same 'cute little towns' scenery that I grew tired of and decided to go for the fastest route to our destination. We reached The Villager Motel, smacked right in the middle of Bar Harbor, ME at 15 minutes past 6. We checked in, walked to the information center to get some answers and maps, and then it's time for dinner. For dinner, it was planned well before hand that we will be going to my friend, David's family seafood restaurant, Lobster Pot in Ellsworth, ME. The dinner was amazing.
(I had a lobster pie dinner, TH got a surf and turf, MY got a lobster dinner), and I was able to catch up with David too. Awesome! Thanks!


After dinner, we drove back to Bar Harbor. We drove up to Cadillac Mountain, hoping that we will be able to see night sky with stars, but it was really foggy and the drive up was rather dangerous. It was so foggy that we could barely see the Moon. So, we decided to call it a night and to wake up early the next morning for the sunrise. As it's the Summer right now, waking up for the sunrise means waking up at 4ish. We woke up at 4am and got to Cadillac Mountain again at 4.45am. We were there, and saw about 5-6 other cars up there. It was even foggier than the night before. So, we were shit outta luck. We walked along some easy trails and took some pictures, and left at 6.30am. On the way down, we saw the Sun being way up high, and as it was still foggy, it was still kinda nice and we took some pictures then. Then, we went back to our room, changed and packed and checked out of our room. We rented bikes for the day, and it was fun. We decided not to stick around downtown for the parade and other activities as we were thinking that we woulda enjoyed the biking more.


Fortunately, the weather held up, so we were able to enjoy the entire day. We biked along the main carriage trail/road (about 22 miles long) and it was a great way to enjoy the nature. The ponds/lakes, the greens... it was just great to be so close to 'pristine' nature. We stopped at the Jordan Pond house for lunch, where I had a lobster quiche lunch.

We were able to sit on the lawn and enjoy the amazing view by the pond.
This is the scene.
Pictures from the other side of Jordan Pond.
We are not the only one enjoying the view...

So, the biking was from 8am til 1.30pm. We then went to the Bar Island.
It's a rather interesting geographical formation, where during the low tides, we can walk to Bar Island without getting wet, and while during high tides, you might have to swim a lil. Walking towards the Bar Island...
On the Bar Island, looking back.
It was interesting to step on those wet rocks that's covered in barnacles that clicks all the time.

We returned our bikes, bought some souvenirs, and then, we went to the Sand Beach.
What's interesting about the Sand Beach is, all the other beaches are rock beaches, and you guess it, Sand Beach is actually a sand beach. The water was rather cold.

From there, we hiked to Thunder Hole, where we are on high rock cliff right by the sea, watching the tides crashing into the rocks.View from Thunder Hole.
A picture of downtown Bar Harbor. A rather small town, where everyone's friendly and nice.
We decided not to wait for the fireworks as the weather were getting iffy, and staying for the fireworks at 9 would mean we would be driving back to MA really late. So, we left Bar Harbor, ME at 5pm, and we went to this winery that's on the way back, and tasted some wines, bought a few bottles, and left for Boston.

Got back to Boston at about 11.30pm, back to my apartment at about 12.30am. The next morning, I met up with them at 8.30am, and I was dead right on time this morning. We had dim sum for breakfast, and MY took the bus back to NYC.

So, while it was a short trip, it was a rather fun one. Thanks for the company and everything else.