Bar Harbor, ME

We spent the last five days in Bar Harbor, ME (or what the locals call it, "Ba Ha Baa"). If you have ever wanted to go to Maine - do it! What a beautiful place! Especially if you like hiking, kayaking, nature and lobster!

Tom caught this kayak and the beautiful sunset from the view at our campsite!

There were so many great things about Bar Harbor but here are just a few of the things we liked the best:

The Mount Desert Oceanarium Lobster Museum & Hatchery

Ok, when we pulled up the place didn't look like much but man were we surprised when it turned out to be everyone's favorite stop of the week. This place raises baby lobsters and then releases them back into the ocean. It was really neat to see thousands of baby lobsters swirling around in these huge beaker-like columns of ocean water. Here's a pic of one of the momma lobsters:

Laura and a visiting mommy lobster. Thousands of her babies are floating in those tubes in the background.

The Oceanarium also gave a presentation about lobster fishing, the life of a lobster and they had a touch tank with some local sea creatures. Did you know a mother lobster carries her eggs for 22 months before she hatches them? And, when we eat a 1 1/4 lb. lobster, it's probably around 6 years old!

What made this place so special were the people - you could tell they love what they do and loved sharing the information. Thanks, David, Audrey and Laura!

The Great Maine Lumberjack Show

This was another pleasant surprise. It looked a little hokey but we thought the kids would enjoy it so what the heck, right? It turned out to be really cool!  There were 4 lumberjacks and lumberjills competing in chopping, sawing, axe throwing, timber climbing and log rolling. This show was created by a woman called Timber Tina (who incidentally was on Survivor - Panama). She has been competing since she was 7! Kaitlyn even got up on stage to see what sawing was all about:

Lazy Man's Lobster

Did I mention the lobster? Yum. However, in Bar Harbor, I discovered the best way to order it at a restaurant. It's call the Lazy Man's Lobster. The chef does all the hard work by cracking the shell and removing all of the meat and then her puts it into a serving dish filled with lemon butter. Could their be anything better? No more wasting time trying to extricate the lobster delicacy from his shell fortress for me! (And I don't have to see any of that green stuff either...yuck!)

Another highlight is Acadia National Park but that deserves its own post...more to come later.