Tuesday 7/23

It started raining early in the morning and when we woke up we learned there was a flash flood warning. It was raining hard. The weather app on my phone was seriously wrong – yesterday it just said storms in the afternoon Tuesday. So, we packed up the stuff and left the tent and air mattress there since the tent was wet anyway – we could always come back to get it. We had a site reserved for three nights but I also reserved the right to not stay there if the weather sucked. Unfortunately it wasn’t the cheapest camping and they didn’t do refunds so we’d just be out the $28 we spent. Whatever. 

So we headed to Bar Harbor and ate breakfast at 2 Cats. It was pretty good, but seemed somewhat disorganized upon arrival. We actually did see 2 cats walking around. They have a cool covered porch with a lot of seating so the cats just come and go. Our waitress was super nice. While waiting we decided to book a room at the West Street Hotel rather than camp that night. Hopefully it will be camping weather again tomorrow. Interestingly, the rates on the West Street website vary considerably depending on what device you’re using and what day it is. On my phone, the cheapest room was $449! Then on the iPad at 2 Cats it was $269. Then on Andy’s phone it was $229. Who knows. I monitored the prices last week and the least I saw it get down to was $199.


Since it was supposed to just rain all day our first plan was to drive around Mount Desert Island and see what there is to see from the road at least. So we drove down to the Northeast Harbor and went to an azalea garden either called Asticou or Thulya (below). It was something to do. Very pretty flowers. I didn’t know azaleas got that big. There is a path up for a little exercise or you can drive to it. It quit raining so hard and just kind of sprinkled for the rest of the day. It was very foggy and pretty out on the water.

Some harbor.

Astilbe at the azalea garden

We got to our hotel around 3 or 4 and then changed and decided to get some food since all we ate was breakfast. We decided to go to the West Street Café which is right by the hotel. It was not bad, but not good either. I had lobster bisque, which was decent but I forgot about it when I had more the next day. I also had crabcakes which were not good in comparison to the ones I had the next day either. Andy had pasta that wasn’t very memorable. It just seemed too expensive. If it was half price I would have been satisfied. 

We walked around Bar Harbor for a while and had a drink at Blaze, which is a wood fired pizza place. It smelled really good. Then we went to the Bar Harbor Club, which is where the hot tub and big pool/kid pool are for West Street guests. They have a huge hot tub that is very hot, as a hot tub should be. I could only tolerate it for a few minutes. We went in the pool which is also heated but seemed chilly in comparison of course. It was very pretty, since the pool area overlooks the water and it was very foggy out still. With the fog there and the steam coming off the hot tub it was really nice. Then we went back to West Street and went in the infinity pool for a short while. It was a little too cold for that. Then we decided that we were hungry since we ate dinner around 4:00 and it was now 9:30. So we went back to Blaze for some of that pizza we smelled earlier and, yes, it was awesome. Our waiter was somewhat annoying though. I wasn’t sure how to take him. Got a great night of sleep at West Street.

Here's a map of Mount Desert Island. We went around the right side today.