Mount Desert Island
Mount Desert Island (MDI) is Maine’s largest island. About 10,500 people live on MDI year-round - half of them in Bar Harbor - and nearly 4 million people visit Acadia National Park each year. Astounding! Oh, and the island’s name is pronounced like “dessert,” the French way.
This week we are staying in Otter Creek, a small village in the southeastern part of MDI. It was once a busy fishing town, but now it is completely surrounded by Acadia National Park. (Otter Cove and Otter Point are now part of the park.) Now, Otter Creek is a quiet residential area. It’s just ten minutes’ drive away from downtown Bar Harbor, but doesn’t have the traffic or crowds.
We love our cottage. It’s both spacious and cozy, and very comfortable. The fresh sunflowers were a gift from our wonderful host. Steve has been busy in the well-equipped kitchen. (After weeks of living on restaurant food, we are once again enjoying his home-cooked meals!) And there is a lovely little yard out back, with comfortable furniture for working or lounging.
We are just a short drive from Jordan Pond House, so we went for dinner one evening. We thought that we would need to wait an hour or more for a table, but perhaps because it was late in the day, we were seated immediately. Their famous popovers were delicious! After dinner, we walked past a meadow of flowers to Jordan Pond, where we could see the Bubbles reflected in the calm water.
It is interesting to be adjacent to a national park, without being “in” it. Yesterday I walked a narrow, rather overgrown trail that started behind the cottage and led to a small cemetery at the border of the park. From there, I followed an old carriage road, probably one of the roads created 100+ years ago by John D. Rockefeller Jr. The carriage road was no longer maintained; it was covered with thick, spongy moss and fallen trees, and eventually became inaccessible. I backtracked to a well-maintained trail, which went through the Blackwoods Campground. From there, I accessed the Quarry Trail, which led to the northern tip of Otter Cove. This was the same cove that we had picnicked at last Sunday. It was fun to see it from the other side.
Yesterday, we drove north along the center of MDI to the non-touristy part of Bar Harbor, to a lobster pound called The Travelin’ Lobster. A father-daughter duo provided excellent live music. My Maine Blueberry draft beer was garnished with local blueberries that bounced up and down as bubbles formed, then popped. Fun! The locally harvested mussels, steamed and served with drawn butter, were tasty. The steamed soft-shell lobsters - from nearby Frenchman Bay - were sweet, juicy, and tender. Delicious! The lobster dinners were less than half the price that restaurants charged in Portland. I thought our Bar Harbor lobsters tasted better than our Portland lobsters, but Steve maintained that our Portland lobsters were better because they were trapped by our lobster boat.
The weather was perfect - about 70℉ during the day and 60℉ at night. We agreed that Maine - especially Mount Desert Island, and this wonderful cottage - would have a place on our list of favorite summer destinations.
