Boston and Maine Trip!

Kevin and I traveled to Boston and up the coast of Maine October 12th - 16th.  We had been excitedly planning this trip for several months!  We got the idea in our heads and got more excited as we started planning it - neither of us had ever been to this part of the country so we thought it would be fun to explore!  Kevin's grandmother had done a lot of traveling and has told us several times that Maine was her favorite place she went to.  We used this trip to celebrate our 2 year anniversary a few weeks late, so that we could be there during the changing of the fall leaves.  We saw a lot and covered a lot of ground in just 5 days; wish it could have been longer but it was packed with memories!  We took so many pictures I'll use the pictures to tell the memories...

We flew into Boston Friday morning and  by early that afternoon we were walking the Freedom Trail!

Our hotel, the Omni-Parker Hotel, was on the Freedom Trail, right near the beginning of it

The line of two bricks marked the trail, which  wove through the city and was about 3 miles long

I really enjoyed all the history - more than I thought I would!

The history of the church pews was interesting!  Families used to pay to have their own section, and the walls were high to block the cold wind.

We split a delicious sandwich and clam chowder at Sam LaGrassa's for lunch

We got cannoli from Mike's Pastry, yum!!

Paul Revere's house

USS Constitution

This is Bunker Hill Monument, it was at the end of the Freedom Trail, so we had been walking all day.   I had no idea Kevin intended to climb to the top until I found myself walking up the stairs...

Very happy to see the last stair!

It was a cool view!

  

Right down the street from Bunker Hill we found this bar, we were craving a good beer!

They asked me if I wanted a brown sugar/cinnamon/maple sugar rim on my pumpkin beer, which sounded like a brilliant idea so of course I said yes!  It was delicious. 

We made it back to our hotel in time to catch the sunset from the roof of our hotel

We went to an Italian restaurant that was recommended by locals we met in the bar earlier that afternoon; it was a great recommendation!

Kevin asked our hotel if they did anything special for anniversaries and they sent up two Boston creme pies and a bottle of champagne on the house!  Our hotel was the original creator of the Boston Cream Pie. Kevin surprised me with bringing our letters we wrote to each other on our wedding day; it was so fun and special to read them - something I'd like to do on every anniversary!

The next morning we woke up and walked to the very beginning of the Freedom Trail which wasn't far from our hotel.

We also walked through the Public Garden, around the Theater District, and down Newbury St. which is like the Rodeo Drive of Boston.  We enjoyed Boston so much we didn't want to leave!  But we needed to get on the road to make it to Portland :)

We enjoyed using the T in Boston!  We didn't even get our rental car until the second day, because it was easier  and more cost effective to use the T.

Great view of Boston before we left!

We stopped by Salem, Massachusetts on our way up to Maine.  It was  really festive especially since it was close to Halloween!

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We stopped by Stonewall Kitchen in York, Maine

Our first lighthouse spotting!  This is the Cape Neddick "Nubble" lighthouse.

This is close to the Bush family's vacation home in Kennebunkport

We ate at Nunan's lobster hut in Kennebunkport.  We learned  that we were there on the last night it was open for the season!  We each got the two lobster for $25.

We stayed in Portland that night.  It was a cute town.  We found a neat place to grab some good beers and a fun cheese plate, Novare Res Bier Cafe.  It was hidden down an alley and really hard to find, but we were glad we found it!  

The next morning we drove around Portland just to see it in the daylight and then we made our way up the coast of Maine to Bar Harbor.  We stopped in Freeport to see the LL Bean store and got some pastries for breakfast.

The tree colors got prettier and prettier as we went further north.

We stopped in Wiscasset for a bite to each.  Apparently we stopped at the place that gets voted #1 every year for their lobster roll!  We only had a view people in front of us in line because it was pretty cold, but we were told that there is usually a REALLY long line there during the summer.

We thought $17 sounded high for buying lobster on a bun at a little hut, but it was SO delicious and  it was a ton of lobster, almost two full lobsters.  We learned that some lobster rolls have mayonnaise and lettuce and other stuff mixed with it, so we lucked out eating one from here because it was just straight lobster, butter, and a bun (good for us because we don't like mayonnaise!)

We walked across the street to Sarah's Cafe to get some soup and watch the  person jump from space.   We finally gave up on getting to see him jump because we had to get on the road, and of course he jumped about 5 minutes after we left!

We made it to Bar Harbor just in time to see our bed and breakfast, the Salt Air Inn, in daylight and enjoy sitting on the adirondack chairs on the gorgeous lawn.

  

Our room

Bathroom, with heated floors!

We had a great view of Bar Harbor from our room

Picking out where we wanted to go for dinner

The town of Bar Harbor was really cute and just a short walk from our bed and breakfast. 

We chose Galyn's for dinner; it was a good choice!  We enjoyed blueberry beer, lobster bisque, and steak while watching pedestrians walk by (and laughed at cars trying to parallel park on the hill)!

Kevin got up the next morning to watch the sunrise.  I was glad he took these beautiful pictures because I slept through it :)

We started our morning with a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes - I had been wanting some the whole trip!

After breakfast we drove a few minutes down the road to Acadia National Park.  It has a 27 mile loop road that had  lots of scenic viewpoints!

We did a short hike called Beehive Trail.  It was about 2 miles round trip, had cool ladder climbs, and gorgeous views of the mountains, trees, and coast.  It was perfect because we didn't have all day to hike but we still got to see a lot and hike a cool trail.

Thunder Hole

We ate lunch at the Jordan Pond House which is known for its popovers, yum!

Our view during lunch

It was really windy at the top of the mountain!  I really felt like I was going to get blown over!

We ended the day by walking out to Bar Harbor on the sand bar during low tide.  This was  in the back yard of our bed and breakfast. 

Then we enjoyed some local wine, cheese, and a cookie on the adirondak chairs while the sun set; what a fun day! 

The next day it was time to drive all the way back (about 5 hours) to Boston to fly out that night!  We stopped by one more light house on our way back, the Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth. 

We recognized this from food shows on TV and had just enough time to run in for a steak before getting to the Boston airport.  A great end to the trip!!

Wow!  We covered a lot in just a few days.  It was a bit of a whirlwind but so much fun.  We love planning trips and experiencing the benefits of all our planning!  Can't wait for our next trip - I think we're going to do New York City!  I've finally accepted that a Europe trip just won't fit into the budget before babies, but we have a whole lifetime ahead of us and there are plenty of places in the U.S. that we need to be explored too!