Maine: Portland & Bar Harbor
The summer, in the middle of the pandemic, we drove eight hours to get to Maine and discovered its extraordinary beauty.
If I were rich, I’d completely and utterly buy a house in Bar Harbor without a second thought.
My family had tickets and reservations to go to San Diego this past summer originally. But, however, the COVID-19 pandemic came about, and while my father was still pushing to go to California, my mother put her foot down and cancelled the trip when the cases in California started spiking really badly. Getting the money back for all of that truly was a time, but, at the end of the day, we were properly refunded and capable of affording a trip elsewhere.
We knew we wanted to go somewhere where there wouldn’t be a lot of people, so on our theoretical map, we were left with only a couple of options.
At the end of the day, we knew my father’s cousin owned a nice home in the upper part of Maine, and so we set our sights on driving eight hours all the way to Portland, where we would rest for two days, and then make our way to Bar Harbor for the majority of our trip, then go even farther north, almost into Canada, where we would meet my father’s relatives.
And so we packed a rental car and headed our way up to Maine. It was an insanely long car ride, about nine and a half hours from Maryland with the rest stops, but I got to see my beloved New York City again for a brief time while driving through the Bronx and Yonkers. I missed the city, so that was a cute little reunion kiss.
Finally, we made it into Portland, where we checked into our hotel.
Portland, Maine.
One Day: Portland, Maine
When we arrived in Portland, as soon as we entered the premises of the town, we were already fighting about food. We ended up introducing our parents to Indian food, where I had the best chana masala of my life.
Literally no other chana masala has lived up to that one, even as I searched all of New York City (or, well, my neighborhood in Brooklyn) and Baltimore for something similar. The place was called Taj Indian Cuisine. Get the chana masala if you’re passing through. It does not disappoint. I just really wish I got a mango lassi there.
The next morning we woke up and put on our tennis shoes to check out what Portland had to offer. A short drive away from our hotel there was a beautiful lighthouse and beach, where we wandered around,
Five Days: Bar Harbor, Maine
It took about two-ish hours to drive from Portland all the way into Bar Harbor, and oh man, the sights while driving were even pretty. Lots of trees. Lots of nature. It was so refreshing to be in.
And that’s the backstory to Bar Harbor: Bar Harbor was such a wonderful, amazing place to visit, especially during a time of great anxiety. Everyone wore their masks, even on the hiking trails of Acadia. Everyone would pull their masks down if they were in the presence of their household, but if they came into close quarters with a different household, they immediately pulled the mask back up. Mad respect over there for that.
Our first full day in Maine, we wandered into Acadia National Park and stopped at the first picturesque place possible. The entire park is a massive loop, with multiple diverging paths and signs telling you where you can go if you have anything specific in mind. We didn’t know that and just followed the person in front of us. We’re not a nature family, but we are now!
The park ranger helpfully informed us at this stop about this really cool time-sensitive place you can visit. Just outside of the area of Acadia, at certain times of the day, the tide of the moon pulls the water to create this massive land bridge. It leads to Bar Island. No one lives on the island, but you can hike to the top and take a look at the views and listen to the sound of nature.
Obviously, you have to get back to the mainland before a certain time (it’s around noon) because the tide will pull the water back over the bridge. They have water taxis if you’re stuck there, but it’s a bit pricy (think it was $60).
We hiked to the top of this island. There wasn’t that much to see, but it was worth seeing the land bridge. Maybe if you’re interested just go and see the land bridge, the island itself isn’t very exciting.
Foggy mornings.
I honestly thought the food selection in Bar Harbor was a little lackluster if you’re someone who doesn’t eat seafood or turkey. Lots of turkey dishes on the menu here, like Turkey chili. But if you’re coming into Maine, especially in the summer, you have to eat one food: lobster rolls.
Maine is extremely famous for them, and as my family chowed down on lobster roll after lobster roll, they confirmed that it indeed lived up to the hype. For some reason my dad kept requesting us to find Iranian food (we’re Iranian) and we had to keep explaining to him over and over again that this town won’t have that. They had Italian, Thai, and Indian food as “ethnic” food and that was it.
Along the main strip of the highway through Bar Harbor, there’s a little ice cream place that’s popping as soon as people start eating their dinner. It’s supposedly homemade ice cream, but my family really enjoyed it. I seem like such a party-pooper, but I think I just got the wrong flavors. I made a rookie mistake and got apple-pie flavored ice cream with a scoop of cookies and cream. It was the worst mistake, I do not recommend that combination of flavors.
At the end of the little highway is the main street of Bar Harbor. It was extremely crowded when we went, which made us anxious because of COVID. There’s a bunch of nice little shops along this strip, and restaurants, and I recommend it when it isn’t crowded. I bought a pack of blueberry soda here, which is more delicious than it seems, and some jewelry. There’s a cute bookstore at the very front of it too, which a lackluster number of poetry books.
They have everything else though! I bought a signed book of poetry by a local poet there.
We spent the bulk of our time in Bar Harbor at Acadia National Park, and that’s because it’s so huge and diverse that we had to spend most of the time there. There isn’t that much else to do in Bar Harbor during COVID, but when it’s normal there’s whale watching, boat tours, etc. We didn’t even get through half of Acadia in the time that we were there. There are so many hiking trails, many of which we didn’t go on, and so we were forced to leave them behind.
As seen in the image above in this section, there are many mountains to climb, but also you can just drive up to the lookout points. The sights are so stunning when it’s not foggy and there isn’t a crap ton of tourists in the way. On the sides of these mountains, too, you can pick blueberries. You have to have a really good eye for that though, because I kept scanning the brush and finding nothing. The blueberries are tricky ones to find.
The big lake in Acadia, Jordan Pond.
I swear there are some of the most serene places in the park to read a book. Literally, bring a book and a lawn chair with you in your car. On the side of the road, as you drive through the loop, there are a bunch of flat rock formations where people would climb trees and read in the branches, or just lie on the flattest parts of the formations with their chairs and read.
We did that on our very last night in Bar Harbor, but were unfortunately attacked by the horseflies. They kept biting and chasing me around the rocks. Bring bug spray if you’re going to do this.
The other serene place we saw on our last day there: the lake. The lake, which has a restaurant off to the side, was insanely hard to find parking at. Everyone wanted to go to this lake, I swear. But it was surrounded by the mountains and rippled with the breeze.
The water was so clean and clear a plaque nearby declared it the source of Bar Harbor’s entire population’s drinking water. And because of that, no one was allowed to go directly in the water. I did see a guy kayaking with a golden retriever in it though. The dog looked like it was having the time of its life, which then inspired me. You rock, lil doggo, wherever you are now.
My absolute favorite part of Acadia, hands down, was going to the top of Cadillac Mountain and watching the sunset. I’ve attached two images of what they looked like here, but they were completely and utterly breathtaking. The best sunset I’ve ever seen was on that mountain and the sky literally looked like a watercolor painting. No picture will ever do it justice, I swear on that.
After that magical night on Cadillac Mountain, we packed our bags and drove another couple of hours north to a tiny town in Maine where our relatives lived. We spent the day there, chatting over local organic hamburgers and the most delicious guacamole I’ve had in my life.
Going to include the recipe for that salad in this post because it was so magical and so easy to make. My dad destroyed the rental car while trying to park at their house, as he didn’t look where he was backing into and backed into a tree, causing a last-minute anxious scenario that stressed my mother out extremely.
We stayed the night in the next local town, then headed home the next day. Because we were driving from farther north of Maine than where we were going to originally, it ended up being a ten hour drive back to Maryland. The trip was completely worth it, however, because it was so soothing to be in nature like this. It inspired my family, who’d literally never go to a National Park as their vacation, to book a trip to Tennessee for the next summer.
Go to Maine if you can. Trust me, it’s worth it. And order some blueberry pancakes if it’s blueberry season—those babies are fresh and locally sourced. It’s a trip that soothes the soul, that’s for sure. There was a ton of nice architectural sights, too, like the lighthouses and the rich people’s homes. There were a lot of rich people’s homes that looked extremely nice. I totally didn’t take not-so-discreet pictures.
This could’ve been an insanely long blog post, but I’m touching on the essentials. We literally didn’t get to do everything in Acadia, which is a bummer because we loved everything we saw. Maine is just so beautiful y’all. My family, though, collectively agreed that if we went back we would not drive. Portland is the major airport in the region, so we decided we would fly in and rent a car if we ever did that again. Maryland is just too far from Maine, unfortunately.
Mariam’s Guacamole Recipe
Ingredients:
2-3 mangoes.
1/2 of a lime’s juice (better if fresh).
A pinch of lemon juice (optional, this is if you don’t want to keep this longer than the meal. Avocado browns quickly otherwise).
Half of a red onion.
1/4 of a jalapeño (optional)
1 Tablespoon of salt (add more to taste)
4 avocados
Serves: 2-4 people. It’s delicious, be careful of that.
Instructions:
Cut the mangoes into cubes. Place that in the bowl. Do the same with the red onion.
Cut the avocados; finely mash them into the mixture of mango and onion.
Cube the jalapeño chunks. Avoid the center membrane and the seeds if you don’t want it to be extremely spicy.
Squeeze the lime, adding all of its juice into it. Add in the lemon juice in if you want to preserve the avocados longer.
Add salt to taste. Then add cilantro if you have it on hand.
Enjoy! My entire family devours this dish every time we make it—it’s so, so delicious and we can’t get enough of it.
