Travels to Maine

When you decide to get off the beaten path, amazing things happen. This summer we have been doing a bit of traveling, and while we focus on mostly mitten adventures here, I couldn’t pass up a chance to tell you to GO to Maine. It is beautiful. It is amazing. I can’t wait to go back. Maybe I like it because it’s like Michigan- With more mountains, and an ocean.

There is a lot we wanted to see in Maine, but we decided to hit the Mount Desert Island area. Mount Desert Island is the largest island off the coast of Maine and home to Acadia National Park.

When making travel plans there were many adventures available. We aren’t really big-group touristy type people so we chose a couple of things that were a little less large group oriented-
Kayak the Atlantic
Do Yoga on a mountain.

These two things are bucket list items, so getting to do them both on the same day put me in the clouds. Literally. I can’t even express the joy that day brought to my heart.
We booked Yoga through a relatively new movement taking over our state parks. Not only are we getting to do yoga on top of a mountain, we’re literally doing yoga on top of the tallest mountain on the Atlantic coast at 1,530 feet- Cadillac Mountain. It was nothing short of amazing.

I’m highly in favor of this movement and I can only hope to visit more locations. Check it out at- Yogainyourpark.com. Ellen was our instructor and she was just lovely and the class was everything I thought it would be. As we were leaving she said they have a moonlight yoga on the ocean. What? Can we come back next week?

Our second adventure was Sea Kayaking. We decided to use Coastal Kayaking Tours .

There’s a few things about Sea Kayaking that made me nervous. The first, unrealistic thing was sharks. You are not going to see a shark trolling the waters around Mount Desert Island.

The second thing was waves. However, the four foot swells we got to kayak over were really fun. If something scares you, do it, and then, when you’re over being scared, do it again. This adventure was amazing. We even got to wait in the water for a tall ship to pass. Seeing this up close while you’re in a small kayak really takes your breath away.

The following day our agenda was hiking. We did a lot of sightseeing but there is one hike that really sticks out in our minds. We hiked Acadia Mountain Trail. This was challenging, but lots of fun. The terrain was steep- a 700 foot climb, with lots of steep grades to climb. It is 2.5 miles round trip. This is considered a “strenuous” hike by Acadia guidelines, however, if you are in shape at all and up for an adventure, I’d highly recommend it. For more hiking information on all the trails in Acadia, go here.

This shot is from almost the top of Acadia Mountain Trail

And the view at the top

While we weren’t adventuring in Acadia we found ourselves roaming the streets of Bar Harbor. This cute little coastal town is everything you think of when you think of the East Coast. There’s enough “lobstah” that you’ll never go hungry. The shops are cute, the bars are fun, and we really enjoyed hanging out here.

Last but not least- lighthouses. We scoped out Bass Harbor Lighthouse which is the only lighthouse on Mount Desert Island. This light is about 30 minutes from downtown Bar Harbor. At first, it doesn’t appear to look like much, but once you venture down the cliffs, there’s a beautiful view. We had fun exploring this spot and the cliffs!

We even got to see this beauty from atop the cliffs at Bass Harbor Light

The second light we ventured to was on our way back to Boston on our last night in Maine. We stayed in Freeport and visited the Portland Head Lighthouse. We got there right at sunset and it was a beautiful way to end our Maine adventuring.