Bar Harbor, Day One

Early evening at the campground

We arrived at the KOA campground in Bar Harbor around noon and lucky for us, our campsite was available.  Our site sits near the water - we're not right on top of it, but we have a view from just about every part of our spot.

We had a quick snack and set up some of our camp gear and then took a walk down to the beach.  The beach here isn't sandy - it's rocky and very similar to the area of Boothbay Harbor that Henry and I went tidepool hunting in.  There's lots of colorful rocks and snail/hermit crab shells, along with mussel shells and clam shells.

This campground is on the Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park bus system, which was created to cut down on the number of cars on the road system here.  The bus is free, and from the campground, we can get to the Visitor Center at Acadia and downtown Bar Harbor.  From downtown Bar Harbor, you can catch buses to places all over the island, which is great. 
This afternoon, we took the bus to Bar Harbor.  It's a 45 minute ride when you account for about five stops at other campgrounds along the way.  We walked around a bit, and then had a late lunch/early dinner at a restaurant on the water.  I had yet another lobster roll and Jeff also repeated the fried seafood platter.  Both delicious once again. 

We had two goals for the Acadia stop: to see the park and do some other boat tours.  We went to the pier and since we couldn't convince Ruth to try another whale watch, we picked the lighthouse tour for tomorrow, which runs for about three hours and goes by five lighthouses.  Jeff liked that one because it also goes by parts of Acadia National Park, so we can see the park from both land and water.  The whale watching cruises this afternoon were cancelled because of rough seas, so Ruth might be onto something... 

On the beach by our campsite

Ruth spotted an ice cream parlor and both she and Henry claimed to be STARVING, so we went in.  I went for the coffee ice cream with fundge and toffee chunks, Henry got cookies and cream, Ruth got mint chocolate chip and Jeff got soft serve vanilla.

After ice cream, we walked over to the bus stop and headed back to the campsite.  It was perfect timing to walk on the beach during a cloudy sunset look for treasures, and take some pictures.  I've added some to the slideshow.

More from Bar Harbor tomorrow.