5 Days in Maine
Day 1: Stopover in Portsmouth, NH
After starting the day with the best lobster roll for lunch at Belle Isle Seafood, we drove towards Portland, Maine, where we’d be staying for the next few days. We stopped by the town of Portsmouth on our way. I’d heard Portsmouth be compared to Stars Hollow of Gilmore Girls and I could kind of see it when I was there. As with. most city centers, the few blocks that made up the downtown area was lined with shops and eateries. It’s cute, quaint, and quiet. I would have been curious to see whether it gets lively in the evenings or on weekends.
Our Airbnb in Portland was spacious and the coziest one we’d stayed in thus far. We took advantage of it and stayed in to cook dinner, watch TV, and plan some of our future travel.
Day 2: Downtown and Old Port
Another positive of staying in a quiet town for a few days is that we’re able to have more “normal” days. We allowed ourselves a morning of sleeping in and having a few slow hours before doing anything productive.
We drove to a nearby Jiffy Lube to get the truck’s oil changed and tires rotated. They gave us an estimate of 3.5 hours so we walked to a nearby shopping plaza to kill some time. We somehow managed to make 2 hours go but decided to wait the rest of the time at Jiffy Lube. Luckily for us they finished an hour earlier than expected.
We explored downtown Portland and Old Port this evening, but not for too long. We walked around to look at the shops and bars they had in the area. It seemed pretty cool and fun but we were honestly tired and weren’t in the mood to stay out. So we headed back to our Airbnb and continued looking into more things for future travel.
Day 3: Beach Day
Another day, another slow start to the morning that consisted of TV, eating a homemade meal, and squeezing in a living room workout.
Today was our first beach day of this whole trip and it was awesome. We went to a small local beach and were surprised to see quite a few other people there. It seemed random for a weekday afternoon but perhaps everyone is on summer vacation. We did nothing but lay there for a few hours. We napped, read, dipped our toes in the water, ate fruit, and it was all so great.
Day 4: Drive to Ellsworth
Check-out was early today at 10am. It doesn’t seem bad but that extra hour makes the day feel longer when you have nowhere to relax until the next check-in at 4pm.
We drove around Eastern Promenade, a scenic coastal stretch on the east side of Portland, and got lunch at Duckfat.
We drove (I drove!), grabbed some groceries, and hit up a cool antique store near our Airbnb while waiting for our host to respond about us hoping to check in half an hour earlier.
The Portland Airbnb had been our largest stay of our trip, but this stay in Ellsworth had it beat. We didn’t need a two-story home, but we had one and it almost felt a little too big since we’re so used to having all of our belongings within a few feet from us. Who am I kidding, the space is very nice. And laundry is always a luxurious amenity nowadays.
We chose Ellsworth because we’d planned on visiting Acadia National Park and this town was just outside of it for a reasonable price. We also weren’t able to snag a campground when reservations opened. This ended up working out in our favor since the weather forecast now said it’d be a rainy weekend.
We now have plans to wake up at 3am to drive to Acadia and catch the sunrise. So we spent the rest of the night doing laundry and getting our things together so the next morning we could just wake up and go.
Day 5: Acadia National Park
I always have trouble sleeping when I know I have to wake up early the next day. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and when I actually do, I stress out about sleeping through important alarms so I find myself constantly waking up and checking the time. I ended up getting 3 hours of interrupted sleep and we were on the road by 3:30am.
It was a 45-minute drive to the parking lot at Cadillac Mountain, a popular sunrise viewing spot that requires reservations during the summer months. There weren’t too many people when we arrived but many more came over the next hour.
The temperature wasn’t that cold but the wind gusts made it really chilly. The clouds blocked a lot of the sun itself, but we could still see the pastel colors of the sky and the redness of the sun in between gaps of clouds as it rose.
We didn’t feel the need to nap just yet so we started our hike on the Beehive Trail. The views were gorgeous and the hike was one of the more unique ones we’ve done. The trail starts off on a rocky path that later turns into areas of bedrock. As you ascend, the trail gets steeper becomes more of a climb because now there are metal bars and rungs to step on and grab. Some bends on the cliffside were pretty narrow—and a little freaky—so we had to be careful. The whole loop took us about an hour and a half and could be viewed as a challenging hike, but not necessarily strenuous.
The rain clouds were now starting to come in so we drove around on a scenic path and got out at different viewpoints. After a few stops it also became apparent that we really needed sleep so we got back into our car and started driving back to town. Our timing remains pretty convenient because it really started to rain about 5 minutes into our drive back. The rain would not stop for the rest of the day.
We showered as soon as we got back and napped for a few hours into the afternoon. We didn’t plan for groceries tonight because we thought we would go out, but the rain and our lack of sleep changed that. The first half of the day was active and the second half was lazy. We ordered a pizza and hung out on the couch for the rest of the day.
Tomorrow, we head to Canada!