Maineventure Part 4: Tea and Popovers

I confess that when I travel, one of the most important things for me to do is sample the local cuisine. Lobster and blueberries, we already accomplished the first day on Mt. Desert, but there were some little hidden gems that I was determined to try, too.

One of the main things I was really excited to try was Teahouse 278, located in the town of Bar Harbor, arguably one of the more well-known towns in the Mt. Desert area of Maine.  As such, we decided to make an entire day trip of Bar Harbor.

Bar Harbor was a lovely little town with a lot of quaint shops (that we, of course, neglected to take any pictures of.)  There was, of course, the harbor itself:

And the most important part, the tea house:

It's not a terrible Maine-esque thing, but I was really intrigued by a description that I read of it in a visitor's guide magazine that my boss lent to me.  Teahouse 278 is a somewhat modernized replica of a traditional Chinese tea house, though it offers tea blends from China, Taiwan, Japan, and India. Each visitor gets to experience a mini-version of an actual tea ceremony, complete more equipment than I even knew existed.

DG and I spent a good hour and a half, sipping our (very tasty) chosen blends and sitting in serenity along the main street.  Touristy things are all well and good, but sometimes, you just want to sit back and take a moment to enjoy your company.

The next day, our destination of choice was the Park Loop Road of Acadia National Park, probably one of the simplest ways to actually see the park.  All told, the loop is 27 miles long, and can take you anywhere from an hour to 6 hours and beyond to actually circumnavigate it, depending on how fast you drive and how many times you stop.  DG and I made many frequent pauses on our drive, not just to pull off for a few minutes, but to hike along some of the trails as well.

We encountered this guy on the Pemetic Mountain trail.  Some things (some really inane and kind of uncommon things) terrify me, but this?  This was just plain beautiful:

And, of course, there were the Boobs Bubble Mountains of Jordan Pond, because I am a child.

Upon closer inspection of the shore, we found this little guy:

So I've been told, a trip to the Park Loop is not complete until you stop at the Jordan Pond House for blueberry lemonade and popovers:

It was a little dense, but it was otherwise a nice treat after another day out on the trail.

Tomorrow:  all good things must end (but first - seals!)

Until the next.