Summer Travel Map

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

More touring around Bar Harbor

July 17, 2007
Bar Harbor, ME

Yesterday, we toured the remainder of Mount Desert Island, after I dealt with the latest installment of our saga with the State of New Jersey. I used their web site to request a description of how to handle our problem with our 2004 taxes, but got no response (one was promised in 10 days 3 weeks ago) so I called their tax help hotline. The message said everyone was busy – then just hung up on me. No queue, no “leave a message and we’ll (not) get back to you”, just “click”. So, I documented what I could and sent a formal response in the mail. I have until right before Labor Day to file a petition for a hearing, so there’s plenty of time. I’m just hoping that the auditor realizes how wrong he is and prefers to drop it instead of embarrassing himself. That’s wishful thinking, I reckon. “Into the valley of death”…

For this day trip, we circled to the southwest corner of the island. Geri saw a house that she thought was interesting, and she posted on that separately. We ended up at the tip of the island, near Bass Harbor Head Light. It was a nice day, so some pictures were in order. I walked down to the lighthouse and then around the other side to the rocks below it. Geri wasn’t up for the climb, especially the stairs to the rocks, so she waited in the car with the pups.

From the lighthouse, we headed east to the seawall area, where there’s a natural rock wall holding back the sea. This was also interesting, but signs were posted prohibiting taking rocks as souvenirs. L

We dropped the pups back at the park and headed north the Ellsworth to do some shopping. Geri saw a shoe store she wanted to check out, and we thought we might be able to find a portable “screen room” like those we’ve seen in various parks this year. The newer models are tent-like, with flexible external poles, not just the 4 corner poles like we’ve seen before. We ended up finding one for a discounted price at the local L. L. Bean factory outlet. After we looked through the store and came up empty, Geri asked the staff who couldn’t find one either, so they went to show us what it looked like in the catalog. Once I saw the labeling, I went back to the pile of boxes (it’s a factory outlet, after all) and actually found one. Since it was a returned item, there was a hefty discount. Good deal!

We then hit the local gourmet shop looking for dinner. We were relatively disappointed with the options, but did find a couple of things we needed. We stopped at the local Shaw’s supermarket on the way home, and picked up 2 nights’ dinner. We found some nice flounder fillets and a package of local crab meat, so we made stuffed flounder with mushroom risotto and peas. Once again, we had a great “campground meal”, this time accompanied by a wonderful Pinot Noir. This one was a Santa Rita Hills version from Alma Rosa on San Luis Obispo in Santa Barbara County in California. We’re on a mission to try as many wines as we can from the Santa Rita Hills AVA, so this was a real treat.

Today was a slower day, as we slept in (again!) and took it easy this morning. I put up the screen room, with Geri’s help, to make sure everything was OK. If it wasn’t, back to the store it would have gone. Fortunately, it was fine (even though the directions seemed to be incomplete), and we positioned it outside the coach for use while we’re here. The pups seem to like it, although they still try to bark at everything and everybody that walks by.

After a lunch of a terrific horseradish chicken salad that Geri whipped up, we decided that today would be a good time for visits to the local brewery and winery. As it turns out, even though they’re about 3 miles apart, they have the same owner. We started at the brewery, with a tour of the brew house and tastes of about 6 different beers. Interestingly, they also make root beer and blueberry soda. Geri thought they were the highlight of the tasting! I was a little skeptical of the beers when they said their claim to fame is their blueberry brew, but they were decent. We picked up a few bottles of the different brews to take back to CT with us, and some of the soda to drink on the way (Geri was right – they’re good).

From there, we headed to the winery. As it turned out several other people were on the same travel plan, so we saw some familiar faces. The wines were generally mediocre, but that was to be expected since Maine isn’t on track to be an emerging viticultural area. The Chardonnay, Riesling, Syrah, and Pinot Noir were not the worst we’ve ever had at a “tourist winery” but close. None of the fruit was local, and who knows where it came from. The two sweet wines were local, one raspberry and one apple. Ouch…

We stopped on the way home to order two lobsters to be shipped to Mom and Annette in Alabama. They’re the only ones in the family there who eat lobster; everyone else doesn’t know what they’re missing. We had them sent for Friday delivery, and called Rick to let him know they’re on the way.

For dinner tonight, we grilled a couple of burgers, cooked some home-made French fries, and steamed a couple of ears of local corn. We had a nice Napa Cabernet, from Screw Kappa Napa, which went well with the grilled flavors. Geri tried something different, with tomato slices and whole basil leaves under pepper jack cheese on the burgers. It was pretty good!

Tomorrow, our plan is to take a drive up the coast, so I’ll close it out for tonight. I downloaded the pictures from the last few days from the cameras, but haven’t had a chance to cull, reformat, and post them yet. Soon…

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