Small town Maine

Today was a partly sunny Father's Day!  We drove toward Bar Harbor, stopping for ice cream at a little stand along the way.  It had a walk-up counter with 5 windows (like a Dairy Queen, but an independent).  Behind that it had about almost 10 picnic tables, a playground, a dining hall (to eat indoors), and an arcade.  Huge comples.  And a home was attached to the back of the kitchen of the stand.  It was very clean, though, with flowers planted, and everything very clean.  There was a notice posted that said that because of the state of Maine laws, the picnic area, dining hall, playground, and ordering area were all non-smoking.  That there was a small area (it was a bench and a butt post) behind the dining hall for customer and employee smoking.  Wow, that is way stricter than Minnesota law and Minnesota smokers are always complaining that they are treated like pariahs and discriminated against.  As a non-smoker who doesn't want to breathe in that second hand smoke, nor wants her children to, I say yay!

We drove to Bar Harbor and walked around the town, along the waterfront, in the park, and browsed in the shops.  Joshua found out that lobsters are boiled alive and was very sad all day about that and began coming up with ways to cook the lobsters so that they wouldn't feel pain!  Poor boy.

Some shops in Bar Harbor

The beach area with a hotel in the background

The harbor of Bar Harbor

Joshua on the beach

The water on the rocks

Randy and the children near the beach

Joshua and Shelby in a great climbing tree

Just a photo of some cool vines in the park

After Bar Harbor, we drove to our hotel in Belfast.  We drove through many small Maine towns and they were all very cute (not as touristy cute as Bar Harbor, of course, but they don't try as hard either).  They all had many beautiful homes--some were kept up well, others had good bones but needed a little TLC and cash.   Many from the 1800s and early 1900s.  Very fun to see.  After we checked into the hotel, we ate in the restaurant in the hotel.  None of us had eaten lobster before, so we asked if we could have a taste.  Our waiter was able to get a lobster roll for us as an appetizer, which he cut into five pieces for us.  :)  Joshua would only taste his after I assured him that the loster had either been frozen or never cooked (it was cold in the roll), it had not been boiled alive.  Our waiter was in his late teens, maybe 20, but was slightly gawky--a very nice young man who worked very hard for his tip.  Then we headed to the pool before bed.

First the children . . .

Then the Daddy joined them and was attacked by his children!

And a Happy Father's Day was had by Father and children.