Maine

On Sunday, Jennifer and a friend drove down to Fort Lauderdale for a book event. She and another author spent the afternoon selling and signing books at a brewery, while several other authors did the same at a few more. She drove back Sunday night. 

Yesterday morning Susan, Jennifer, and I got up early and headed to MCO and boarded a plane for a trip to Maine. We had a long layover at JFK in New York, so we had lunch and hung out in the Delta Lounge. In the afternoon we boarded a smaller jet headed to Bangor. We got upgraded to first class for that leg. 

We arrived in Bangor after a fairly short flight. Bangor is a fairly small airport, with only a couple of baggage carousels right next to the rental car desks. We picked up a rental car and drove a short distance to the Townplace Suites, our hotel for the next four nights. After checking in we had dinner and did a little shopping. Maine is the 46th state we have visited, and the first new one since 2015.

This morning after breakfast we drove a little over an hour southeast to Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park. Our first stop was the Hulls Cove Visitor Center, just north of Bar Harbor. This is the main visitor center for the park, but there’s no film here and no displays.

We then drove part of the Park Loop Road, stopping at Jordan Pond and Sieur de Monts. The nature center at the later doesn’t open until next month, and the Abbe Museum is closed for renovations, but it was interesting to learn that the spring there had a big impact on the area becoming a national park.