From A to B

After Burlington we made the 8-hour drive across New England to the coast of Maine. Of course, we stopped on the way at the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory for a tour and free sample, and ended up arriving in Bar Harbor, Maine at around 6:30, when it was already pretty dark. We debated on whether to stay at the Black Friar inn, but instead opted for the lower budget option of camping at the Blackwoods site. We found the inn while walking around town a couple days later, and I feel like we would not have found it if we tried in the dark. The Blackwoods campground was aptly named. We had to drive through a forest, with tall imposing trees bearing down on us along the way. I remarked that I had had a dream like it once, and it didn't end well. But there was no incident for us, except that after we chose a site and set up camp we couldn't quite get a fire started. So we asked our neighbors if we could use their fire to cook our dinner, and they turned out to be just ending a long camping trip and had no problem sharing a portable stove and giving us grains to cook. They told us that they had all been in the Adirondacks doing trail building with the SCA, and to celebrate the end they camped around for 6 weeks. The next day when we came back from hiking, we found that they'd left us a can of chickpeas and half a bottle of bourbon.
Acadia National Park is beautiful. When we got into the park we parked the car and split up, each of us curious to see something different. Ashley and David climbed the Beehive, which had innovative trails that required you to scale rock faces by climbing up metal bars, and is one of the trail systems that gets closed down for part of the year so that peregrine falcons can breed there. I just strolled along the coast, walking over the rocks and visiting Thunder Hole, where the waves crash into a small inlet and sometimes with such force and in such a way that it sounds like a big clap of thunder. We decided to meet back on Sand Beach (Maine is very creative with their names of places), and so I got there early and climbed another small trail that led up from the beach. Along the way for all of us we faced chattering, self-righteous red squirrels. To me, even the crows in Maine were wilder than those at home. At around three o'clock we were all back on the beach and ready to go back to Bar Harbor for some lobster. We went to a restaurant called Gailan's and the waitress, Ginger, tied on our bibs for us and instructed us newbies on how to open up the crustacean. It was pretty tasty, but the best part of the meal was dessert. We ordered an ice cream cappuccino, which was delicious, and indian pudding, which tasted like pumpkin pie on steroids, it had so much flavor (from the molasses).
The following day we went to the other end of Acadia, West End, so that we could hike a trail that one of Ashley's and my friends from NYRP had worked on as an Americorps. It was called Flying Mountain, and it was beautiful. There were ferns and mosses and lichens surrounding us as we climbed, and we crossed the paths of more squirrels and even a couple of garter snakes. At the top of the mountain we had a view that could have been a Thomas Cole painting, and I learned later that he had visited this area and painted there. The trail took us over a landslide, where trailworkers had simply marked tested paths with blue painted lines, and a rather steep rock face with a path laid out in rocks that were held in place by big iron pins. It was pretty cool.
After hiking this area, we drove around West End admiring the scenery and stopping to visit a lighthouse, then drove back to Bar Harbor. We tried Harbor Bars at West End Drugs. Harbor Bars are chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches dipped in chocolate, and they were really good and really rich. We finished up the night in town by doing a bit of food shopping and then going to a bar for some beers. Back at the campsite we succeeded in cooking dinner over a fire and went to bed.
As you might except, it was pretty cold this whole time, but we managed. However, after three nights we happily drove down the coast and made our way to Boston. David and Ashley have a close friend working here and we have been staying with him for the past few days. During the drive down we stopped in Portland, Maine, which was a really cool town that reminded my friends of San Francisco.
In Boston we've been seeing some of the sites and just taking it easy. Yesterday we started walking the Freedom Trail, but ironically didn't get very far because we got distracted by one of the re-enactment tours in the cemetery. The man doing the re-enactment was simply very good-looking, and he was also really lively with a great booming voice. As a result, we just hung around his tour group for a bit, learning the juicy details of the American Revolution, including John Hancock's missing right hand, and how Dr Prescott happened to be the one to bring the news to Lexington of the redcoats movements.
As we followed the tour group on and off, we saw a little more of Boston, stumbling into a used book store (we seem to find one of those everywhere we go), and eventually getting to Quincy Maw-ket  for some New England clam chowder.
We also visited Jason's place of work and then the Occupy Boston site at Dewey Squares. David and I participated in some Theatre of the Oppressed. It wasn't really my thing, but it was kind of fun to play the games. Two of them did get the intended point across very well. One showed how difficult it is to follow one lead while trying to lead or protect others at the same time,. It also looked into the psychology of someone being forced to follow a power, then in turn being given power over that person, and how different people might react in a situation like that. The other allowed for a visual representation of something that bothered us. I thought it was a little silly, but I volunteered the idea of mountaintop removal. A couple of us were the mountain. A couple were in charge of hypothetical dynamite. So one group pushed the dynamite and the others collapsed, and David pointed out afterwards his feelings about seeing something that seemed eternal being suddenly reduced to nothing through such little effort on man's part. As we ended that scene, a man got up in front of the group and grabbed a microphone, but we went to look for Ashley, and Jason was just getting out of work, so we left Dewey Square and went in search of $3 Vietnamese sandwiches. We searched, we found, we ate. And it was good. Boston is pretty small, so this did not take that much time.
We headed back to Jason's place and relaxed for the evening.
What shall we do today? Ashley and I are tempted to look for the tour guide, haha, but we may just find another tour and explore the city some more.
By the way, the cannolis at Mike's Pastry on the north end are fantastically delicious, particularly the florentine.
That's all for now,
 ~Alicia
P.S. pictures soon, hopefully