My aunt was in town last week, and we had planned some outings in advance.  We had asked her what she wanted to do while she was here.  The only thing she actually wanted to do was visit Bar Harbor, because she was supposed to have Bar Harbor as a port of call in an upcoming cruise, and for some reason, that town was stricken from the schedule.  So she wanted to see it.

I suspect if she had really known what Bar Harbor was like (I’m talking the town here, not Acadia National Park, which is fabulous) she would have been happy to substitute Boothbay Harbor and saved everyone a great deal of time. 

When I was out with the Grand Chat a couple of years ago, we moored in Bar Harbor for a couple of nights.  Now  I think living in or near Bar Harbor, or going to school at the College of the Atlantic, would be a great deal of fun.  But the tourist town is not fun, although it is occasionally funny.  We were in town buying groceries one day on that trip, when a tourist asked us “what time the bridge came up.”  It took us a few minutes to catch on to what she was asking ... which was “when does the sand bar that Bar Harbor is named for become visible and dry enough to walk on?”

In short, she was wondering whether we had a tide table.  Which we did, and we were able to answer her question.  But we also told her that she shouldn’t go out to the island without a tide table of her own, or she could be marooned all night.  To which she replied that she’d just ask someone what time the bridge went down while she was on the island.  We just nodded and smiled.  She smiled back.  We all smiled.

One of the things Bar Harbor usually has going for it is that it is a very dog friendly town.  Most of the shops let you bring Fido in with you, and there are even a few restaurants where you can dine out on the deck with your pooch.  Rudie the Dog was in doggie heaven that day, and we bought her a cookie at Bark Harbor before we started the long, long drive home.

Earlier that day, though, we stopped at Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge Observatory.  I had only been to Fort Knox once, in the dead of winter, and long before the observatory was built, so we were pretty excited about it.  Chris had wanted to go up in the tower since it opened.  Although they let dogs in the fort, they don’t let them ride the elevator up to the top of the tower, so we had to take turns.  It’s a great place to spend a whole day if you have one, and you can bring a picnic lunch and watch the boats in the Penobscot River.  All for five bucks a person.

Two days before that, we had taken the Maine Eastern up to Rockland, and the Morning in Maine out in the bay.  Now to me, that’s real Vacationland.  I could spend every single free moment sailing and not think a thing about it. 

We also went to the beach one day, ate at Spinney’s on the way home, and another day went to Freeport.  On Tuesday night we heard the Swing Band in the park, and on Sunday afternoon we went to the Chocolate Church to hear some of the Bowdoin Festival students.  And one day we drove up to Augusta to go to the Christmas Tree Shop and have lunch at the Senator Inn, where I had a sizeable gift certificate.  We used up the whole hundred bucks, and it was great.  We drove back through Dresden, and bought bottles of maple syrup made right on the premises at Gorenson’s.

So I guess we got the Summer in Maine experience, a little bit, anyway.  We never got out to the peninsulas with my aunt, and I could have stood another day of sailing, but generally speaking, it went well.  She got to see Maine in the summer, and Chris and I got a few days off, in theory.

But by the time I got to work on Monday morning, I realized I was wiped out by the week.  It is almost a relief to sit here at my stationary desk and write.