Friday 2 June 1995 Bar Harbor, ME
I don’t know what happened to the showers and possible thunderstorms
which were meant to come through this evening, but it has remained fine and
warm (in the sun and away from the sea, at least). It was sunny most of the day
but not quite as hot as yesterday. We woke up fairly late and had a very pleasant
Continental breakfast with toast so we could have a bit of Vegemite. (We always take a tube of
Vegemite with us since it is very difficult to obtain outside of Australia) it was great sitting out at a table on the lawn in
the morning sun watching the passing show. I have done quite a bit of that here
as our balcony gives us a very good view.
Just before I came in I was watching
a seagull dropping some crustacean or other
onto the exposed bricks below us – swooping up, fluttering its wings and
then following the prey down. We had seen a blackbird doing this on the driveway
earlier on, although it did not seem to have grasped the principle in its
entirety as it dropped its quarry onto the lawn a couple of times. I would love
to know who learned what from whom??
After breakfast we set off for a drive around the island. The initial
part of the drive was spectacular but as the morning wore on and we reached the
south east corner of the island the vegetation became more spares and the
scenery less attractive. I think there may well be a rain shadow there, or very poor soil, because what trees
grew there were stunted. 
There was not
much sign of life over there either, so we couldn’t even get a bite to eat at
lunch time when we were a bit peckish after our light breakfast. A white tailed
deer gave us a bit of a fright when it suddenly appeared in the road ahead of us – there was no danger
as it crossed the road well before we got near it, but we kept a sharper
lookout after that. Apart from that, a little chipmunk and a bald eagle in the
distance we haven’t seen any wildlife.
Grabbed a couple of packets of snacks and cans of drinks when we got
back to the hotel and did a bit of observing while we ate and drank. There were
a couple of delightful puppies fooling around on the shore. Which reminds me –
we saw another schnauzer in town last night after dinner. It was a standard,
bred in Hawaii and living in Ohio, here on holiday. We also spotted it
walking in the woods with its owners. Rab baled them up and had a long chat
with them, of course.
We wandered around the town in a desultory way after we had done our
socialising – there is not much to it and we got the impression that it is
definitely downmarket compared to spots like Boothbay or Kennebunkport. I reckon at the height of
summer the place will be crawling with loud, drunken college kids and biker
types all seeing a bit of “the country”. It just has that feel to it. Although
the hotel we are staying at is very nice, many of the others look decidedly
seedy as do many of the eating places and bars.
The chowder we had tonight was truly delicious and the rest of the meal
was good too. We had appetizers again, having finally learned our lesson about
dealing with the enormous main courses. And so back to the hotel to watch the
boats go out on the evening cruises and return.
Three sailing craft went out –
there is a nice breeze tonight and it was a grand sight to see them hoist their
sails and head off across Frenchman’s Bay. I wish Rab would try something like
that but she refuses point blank even when she can see that the water is comparatively
calm and there are no big swells running. She hs this curious fear of being sea
sick despite never having actually been sick. I would love to have gone whale
watching today. Even though it is early in the season they have seen a few up
the coast, so they say. But it was not worthwhile trying to get her to go, even
on the catamaran. Of course she urged me to go on my own, but there is not much
fun for either of us in that and it seems
to me to be very unfair to leave her on her own for four or five hours.
Maybe…..one of these days….. maybe I’ll get her to try. (Nothing doing yet –
almost twenty years later.)
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