This morning’s breakfast was at 2 Cats. I could hardly believe that the place was nearly empty, at least inside! Even the outer room had no tables-there was merchandise there instead. My only thought was that maybe since it was such a warm, dry summer, more people wanted to eat outside and they moved the tables to the porch?
Our breakfasts were delicious (granola for me and dad [he had yogurt while I had milk], tons of fresh fruit, pancakes for R with crispy bacon. Waiter was pleasant, funny and pretty prompt. Overall a very good meal.
That put us in the right mood for a nice long walk, and the sun was coming out to signal the start of a great day. We stopped in Mount Dessert Bakery to check out their offerings (for another day) and then dad wanted to check out Morning Glory too, to compare. Rich meanwhile wanted to pick up a few things at Hannaford, so he went there while Dad and I went to check out the bakery (same stuff, no danishes). We walked back to the hotel through the cemetery, where we noticed that Lucreatia’s grave stone is still lying broken on the ground.
Today we walked from town along Spring Street to the Great Meadow loop, which we followed to the Hemlock Road. We did the “figure 8” along Hemlock to Sieur de Monts and then Jesup Path back, including some time in the wild gardens, and some time spent looking for the owls (we didn’t see any today). Then we walked north on Great Meadow again to the Kebo Brook trail, which we hiked to its western end on the Park Loop Rd. Then we took dad up Great Hill. 🙂 The heavy clouds were rolling in by this point but the views were still excellent. Some color is showing in the trees already. Saw no one on Great Hill, but when we got back to the bottom (and were waiting for the bus) we saw a car pull up and stop in the overlook parking, and three people got out and dashed across the road. We figured they were looking for the roadside cave, and they apparently were (they found it).
The whole route was just over 6 miles and while it was a lng hike, it was relatively mild. The eastern end of Kebo Brook trail is level and very smooth; it becomes steeper and rockier as it nears the Cadillac North Ride trailhead near its western end and intersection with the Park Loop rd. There was an interesting pile of rocks at one point with cold air emanating from it - maybe something like Cold Air Cave? We were pretty tired by the end of our hike, which turned out o be just over 6 miles. From the overlook we flagged down the Jordan Pond bus on its way to the visitors center and then back to the village green. (“Mind your hiking poles!”) The driver was pretty wild; Rich said she might have been a rodeo rider in a previous life! ;) We went through the messy construction on Route 3 and were almost glad to be back on foot after the jarring ride.
We met for dinner a little after 5:00 and walked down to Paddy’s. Dad and I had the fish sandwich again, and Rich tried something new, the pork sandwich with cheese and slaw. Everything was very tasty! And we each had a Guinness. At one point, just after my father had been saying that he hadn’t seen too many buses up here so far, a Martz bus passed by. Knowing that his coworker Ralph was driving for a trip to New England he joked “Hey I’ll bet that’s Ralph,” and then a second later “Hey, that is Ralph!” He ran out of the restaurant to try to catch up with Ralph, which he did. They talked for a few minutes while Rich and I finished our drinks.
Too stuffed for dessert there, btu after a short walk around (checking out Sunrise menu, buying socks for R) we had just enough room to split a baby scoop of blackberry-basil (new? or just new to us?) sorbet. It’s awesome and just as good as the blueberry basil.
