Courtesy of Google Images We started out the day knowing we were missing some information. Like for sure how to return the rental car. The hotel was close to the airport so we decided that we would make a trial run. When we first picked up the car and found our hotel we knew that it had a little rental car wear and tear. That was the first thing. Also we wanted a big map of Maine..
When we headed off for our trial run to the airport, the previous nights inventory of rattles and shakes from the General’s Aveo found their way back into my head. The lump, lump, lump sound of a tire was the most troubling. It had the sounds of early belt separation. I decided I would go inside and ask for instructions when we got to the airport.
The young fellow at the Hertz desk was named Wes. I put on my very best blank face and told him I needed instruction regarding what to do when I had tire problems. I said it wasn’t shaking yet but that one or more of the tires was going lump, lump, lump. It sounded just like it was starting to separate a belt. I just needed some instructions because I had about 1500 miles I was going to drive and I knew at least one tire wasn’t going to make it.
Poor kid about had an anxiety reaction and started apologizing. Said he would switch out the car instead of fixing it and that our new car was going to be a Buick Verano. I said I was happy with the economy and to just give me a kia. He replied that he couldn’t give me what he didn’t have. Then he took me to the parking lot and swapped our bags into a shiny new Buick . Major upgrade. Felt very similar to driving our Cube. The Chevy had about 35k rental miles. The buick had 680 when we drove away. Frankly the Aveo had been ridden hard and put away wet and I expect the buick is going through that right now. We gave it about 2100 miles ourselves. Nice car.
When we headed off for our trial run to the airport, the previous nights inventory of rattles and shakes from the General’s Aveo found their way back into my head. The lump, lump, lump sound of a tire was the most troubling. It had the sounds of early belt separation. I decided I would go inside and ask for instructions when we got to the airport.
The young fellow at the Hertz desk was named Wes. I put on my very best blank face and told him I needed instruction regarding what to do when I had tire problems. I said it wasn’t shaking yet but that one or more of the tires was going lump, lump, lump. It sounded just like it was starting to separate a belt. I just needed some instructions because I had about 1500 miles I was going to drive and I knew at least one tire wasn’t going to make it.
Poor kid about had an anxiety reaction and started apologizing. Said he would switch out the car instead of fixing it and that our new car was going to be a Buick Verano. I said I was happy with the economy and to just give me a kia. He replied that he couldn’t give me what he didn’t have. Then he took me to the parking lot and swapped our bags into a shiny new Buick . Major upgrade. Felt very similar to driving our Cube. The Chevy had about 35k rental miles. The buick had 680 when we drove away. Frankly the Aveo had been ridden hard and put away wet and I expect the buick is going through that right now. We gave it about 2100 miles ourselves. Nice car.
Sally and the Buick, at the top of Cadillac mountain later in the day. We found the map at a Walmart and the search put us behind schedule but the rest of the day was a snap. The map was laminated in plastic which is good cheap insurance against coffee stains etc. Sally took pictures of just about everything including the factory where they make B&M baked beans. Then her batteries went dead and when she changed them all her pictures were gone. She lost just over sixty pictures and the clip saw them as unrecognized photos. We knew we had lost more than the sixty photos. We had also either lost an expensive camera or the chip. Had to wait to find out.
I think this hits from Houlton Maine to the nation's capital. This shot from Google Earth sort of puts things into perspective. You can see the two pins. The green one is Portland and the Red one is Bar harbor. The “almost an island” “paen insula” sticking out to the right is Nova Scotia. The big island at the top right is Newfoundland and most of the ground between Maine and Nova Scotia is New Brunswick. That is the area uncluttered with internet signs. The light blue would represent the littoral waters (coastal) and the darker is part of the oceanic abyss.
Lobster stew and lobster rolls are only cheap if you dive for your own. Stopped for Lobster for Sally and souvenirs. That was the restaurant where we asked about Cadillac Mountain and Acadia National Park. We were told that a bomber had closed half the park for several days. We finally figured out that it was the president’s sequester plan and she couldn’t pronounce it right - "Obamar." n.
Thanks to politics it wasn’t going to be the complete deal at the park. We did stop at a chamber of commerce office and were given a map with the closed sections marked. That man working there likes politicians about as well as I do. I'm pretty sure he blames D.C. for Bar Harbor's lost tourist dollars. He told us there is one plumber in the whole park who is about to retire and no money allotted to hire another one!
Thanks to politics it wasn’t going to be the complete deal at the park. We did stop at a chamber of commerce office and were given a map with the closed sections marked. That man working there likes politicians about as well as I do. I'm pretty sure he blames D.C. for Bar Harbor's lost tourist dollars. He told us there is one plumber in the whole park who is about to retire and no money allotted to hire another one!
The Bar Harbor Inn, Bar Harbor Maine. Most of the help spoke with a caribbean accent and were very professional. Good stay. We knew we were getting late and had a long trip the next day so we went to check into our hotel. It was very impressive and there will be a lot of pictures in the slide show below. If fact, I expect there will be some in tomorrow's as well. I think this shot looks pretty impressive all by itself.
Cadillac mountain is represented by the red pin. Bar harbor is where the highways 3 and 233 meet. Most of the water we saw was Atlantic Ocean because of the side we climbed. This picture tells me that we also saw fresh water lakes. Even though the scenery was beautiful it was not my favorite. I think it's almost impossible to choose a favorite with all the beautiful water and mountain scenes we saw. Even so, I did. Hope you can't tell where it is.
We weren't real sure how these panoramas were going to work. These were taken with Sally's Iphone 5. We went for that phone over the iphone 4 just because of the camera. Because we did not have her camera that day, all the photos were with her iphone and my camera (that she seldom uses). In this situation, it doesn't matter what I use. I'm driving - she is taking the pictures.
We left here to return to the hotel. There are a lot of pictures for that but no need to be more verbose. Please enjoy the slideshow. You can either hit play or run them at your own speed by manually changing the picture.
We left here to return to the hotel. There are a lot of pictures for that but no need to be more verbose. Please enjoy the slideshow. You can either hit play or run them at your own speed by manually changing the picture.
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