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A very nice musical garden.
 
These are not blueberries, but some type of bulb.
 
From the Long Pond trail, we head up and over the ridge. People are still
pretty vague about how to get to the botanical gardens. We find a nice
blueberry stand in a sunny spot on the ridge--a mid-morning snack.
When we look back across the valley, we see the Rooms and the double-spired
cathedral and realize that we've gone way out of our way to get to this
spot. We could have come straight across campus, but our walk over to Long
Pond and the college neighborhoods was certainly pleasant.
 
By the time we arrive at the botanical Garden it's 11am--we've been
walking for nearly four hours.
It's always good to find out what you've been admiring in the woods. The
blue-berried ground cover that I thought might have been a lady slipper is
Clintonia borealis. In the spring it's called corn lily and in the
fall it's called the bluebead lily.
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There are several miles of walking trails in the gardens. Somehow,
we don't feel the need to go very far; things look the same as the
last few miles of our hike over the ridge to get here.
 
The teasel florets form neat lavender rings around the flower
heads. The mountain knapweed is another of the flowers we've been
seeing on this trip.
 
It's good to find out information about the heathers, heaths,
and their relatives. We've been seeing a lot of them.
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We would have liked brighter, less rainy weather for our visit,
but...
 
...all in all a very nice garden. We learn from the people at the
counter here that there is a bus stop at the bottom of the hill
and a convenience store with an ATM. About a mile away. That
sounds good to us.
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Love the Newfound Cabs logo. We actually walked a little further
than the convenience store to find a bank. And we get on a bus. It
feels very good to sit down! This weird old guy with bleached hair
has a photo of actress Anna Paquin, with a real chain around her
neck, safety-pinned to his jacket. We
can't make this stuff up!
 
Tim Hortons is famous for its coffees and we saw them everywhere
in town-many with insanely long drive-in lines.
We get off the bus early and walk down the hill to the ship.
I used to have an antique candle lantern just like the one the constable
is holding.
 
And so we bid Canada adieu and head back to the US.
We'll go through customs on the ship before we can get off in Bar Harbor. Actually, this will make it easier in Boston, we'll
just disembark as soon as the ship docks.
We have a day at sea until we arrive at Bar Harbor
in Maine. We were there a few years ago on our van
trip to Nova Scotia. |
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Another beautiful sunrise bodes well for nice weather today. It's
beginning to feel like summer again!
The water is thick with lobster pots and lobster boats working their
lines.
 
A lobster pot line got caught in our stabilizer (an underwater arm that
sticks out from the ship to suppress the rocking), so one of the
lobster boats had to come and extract it. It's no wonder, there were
no clear channels out where we'll drop our anchor.
 
A fully-loaded whale-watching boat whizzes out to sea.
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The Maasdam, our sister ship, which is the same size and built with
similar features, is already here in port.
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Finally, the tenders are lowered into the water and after we're
cleared by customs, we go ashore.
Yes, it's a tourist town, but one with class. Be sure to go
back and see all the photos we took here before on our van
trip to Nova Scotia. We head for the L.L. Bean-sponsored
buses and take one into Acadia National Park.
We get off at the stop for Sand Beach. You might ask why they call
it that, but here in Maine almost all the beaches are rocky, so
the sand is a big draw.
But of course, we avoid the crowd and continue on the trail past the
beach.
But soon enough we depart from the trail and walk the route less
traveled--scrambling along the rocks.
I stopped to take a photo of a meadowsweet flower. I've always had
a soft spot for this shrub.
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Some of the rocky cliffs are tricky to navigate.
 
 
We take the trail for a while to by-pass some really steep rock
faces.
While there are a lot of people out here, especially near the
parking lots, they seem to be well-behaved.
This woman and her dog look like they are set for the day.
 
Finally, we catch the bus and end up at this bus stop with the
ancient wisteria vines.
Just for the heck of it, we take the bus to Northeast Harbor.
There is a ten-minute wait until the bus starts back.
The stand-alone docks out here serve as boarding and loading
platforms, as well as storage.
After our bus ride, we're back at the Village Green.
 
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While there is a sign that welcomes the cruise passengers, Bar
Harbor recently passed a law that will regulate how many cruise
passengers will be allowed in town at one time to 4,000. Actually,
that would allow both the Maasdam and the Veendam in at the same
time since the Veendam's capacity is 1,350 people, while the
Maasdam's is 1,258.
A 4-masted sunset sailboat passes in front of the Maasdam.
At our tender dock, the Downeast Brass quintet is playing for us. Very
nice!
And so the sun sets on this cruise adventure. Tomorrow we'll be in
Boston and from there we'll hightail it home. We both ended up
with coughing colds, but the symptoms did not start until we were
off the ship.
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