Schoodic Peninsula - Maine

What do people who live in Bar Harbor say of the coast north? They say something like "that's really Down East!"

This comes up because I drove travelled from NYC to Bar Harbor over the weekend to visit with my daughter, who's living up there until later this fall.

I don't have to tell anyone who's ever been there how beautiful it is. Nor do I have to tell anyone who's driven there how long the drive is. For those of you who've never been there: it's beautiful. For those of you who've never driven there, Bar Harbor is remote from almost anywhere that isn't in Down East Maine.

The original plan was to take one of the boats out of Bar Harbor to either an out island or across Frenchman Bay and the Gulf of Maine to Winter Harbor. Because of high seas from a hurricane out in the Atlantic, all ferries were canceled and just about every boat stayed in port, anchored offshore. Instead, we drove from Bar Harbor to Winter Harbor and then beyond to the Schoodic Peninsula part of Acadia National Park. It was a long drive - about 50 miles, but it turned out to be to our advantage. For one thing, just about everything a tourist might want to do or see was shut down in Winter Harbor - it was after Labor Day. For another, there was only one ferry each way and we would've been wandering around for about five hours without a lot to do. For a third, we would not have been able to continue on to the Schoodic Peninsula where we saw some remote, rarely visited parts of Acadia, including crossing the land bridge to Little Moose Island during low tide.