Summer Touring in Maine - an Eclectic Review - Page 11 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Just joining in...loving all of your amazing photos. My sister and her husband just came back from a bike trip (motorcycle) to Lubec. They loved it there. Their vacation home is in North Conway, NH, so that was their starting point. I also love the photo of the Grand Hotel in Whitefield. My parents grew up in the great north woods of NH so all of those places are so familiar to me. Tasha is adorable and I'm sure brings lots of love. The reunion with your DH was precious. Thank you for sharing. My favorite picture I have of my son is when he was 18 months old, overlooking a stone wall on top of Cadillac Mountain. He's 21 now but I can't top that shot!
That is absolutely precious!!! I was so hoping you'd be able to capture the moment!
Thanks for the suggestion to try and capture the homecoming.
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Originally Posted by rlb38
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Originally Posted by lfredsbo
Sooooo cute!!!
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Originally Posted by chezp
Those photos are so precious!
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Originally Posted by oddboysmum
Those are awesome ... really captured the moment.
Thanks for the kind words.
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Originally Posted by Huntermom
What sweet pictures, especially the last. I have dogs in part because of no matter how long you've been gone or how bad a day it's been, they always greet you like you've been gone forever.
That is definitely one thing I love about having a dog around.
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Originally Posted by lauriep
I love this series of photos! What a sweet reunion. I also really love seeing the first photo. I love how some dogs, notably spaniels, lie like that with front legs stretched out straight and back ones, too, so that their bellies are flat on the ground. Amazing how their joints work!
Thanks - she loves the "frog" pose.
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Originally Posted by Irenaroo
Just joining in...loving all of your amazing photos. My sister and her husband just came back from a bike trip (motorcycle) to Lubec. They loved it there. Their vacation home is in North Conway, NH, so that was their starting point. I also love the photo of the Grand Hotel in Whitefield. My parents grew up in the great north woods of NH so all of those places are so familiar to me. Tasha is adorable and I'm sure brings lots of love. The reunion with your DH was precious. Thank you for sharing. My favorite picture I have of my son is when he was 18 months old, overlooking a stone wall on top of Cadillac Mountain. He's 21 now but I can't top that shot!
Thank you. I'm glad the photos are bringing back some fond memories!
The weather was still drizzly, but we set off from Lubec (which we always call "Lebec" since I grew up in California). Our destination was Bar Harbor, but with a tour of the Schoodic Peninsula, which is actually part of Acadia National Park. We definitely need to get back here, since the weather made it difficult to get good photographs.
The entry to the drive to Schoodic Point
The Rugged Coastline
A storyboard about this part of Acadia
A nice follow traveler, taking a photo
Winter Harbor Lighthouse
Lou wanted to see the Prospect Harbor Lighthouse, so we followed the windy road, and came upon an unexpected surprise - THE GIANT LOBSTERMAN!
This guy is Gulliver-sized Ginormous, and gave me a bit of a fright, as I wasn't expecting him. Turns out he was the symbol for the last remaining sardine cannery in Prospect Harbor - actually, the last sardine cannery in US. So why is he holding a Lobster Crate? Apparently there are plans to use the plant to process lobsters.
Here's the news story I found about the Sardine Cannery:
We did find the Prospect Harbor Lighthouse
We drove to Schoodic Point, the end of the peninsula, and it really started to rain. We snapped a few quick photos before we got drenched.
And, just for fun, a digital painting I made from one of our Schoodic Point photos:
From here, we headed into Bar Harbor for another stay at the Bar Harbor Inn. Here are a few more lighthouse photos - these were taken on the next day, when the weather was better for brief periods:
Egg Harbor Lighthouse in Frenchman's Bay
A slightly closer look at Egg Harbor Lighthouse
Bass Harbor Lighthouse
The Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage at Bass Harbor
Lou braved the stairs down to the beach for another view of Bass Harbor Lighthouse
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Absolutely beautiful! It seems so foreign to me to see lonely shorelines. I'm used to sandy California beaches filled with people almost year round! Your pics remind me a bit of the Carmel and Monterey scenery.
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Absolutely beautiful! It seems so foreign to me to see lonely shorelines. I'm used to sandy California beaches filled with people almost year round! Your pics remind me a bit of the Carmel and Monterey scenery.
It is a bit like Monterey, and definitely less crowded than most California coastal areas. We will be spending a week in Sea Ranch north of San Francisco in October, so I will do some comparisons.
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Originally Posted by chezp
More beautiful photos. We really do need to spend time exploring the New England coastline.
no doubt you will get to New England - just have to fit it into your busy travel schedule.
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Originally Posted by lauriep
Just beautiful. I just love that rocky coast.
Thanks, Laurie - am enjoying your ABD report.
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Originally Posted by rlb38
Love the fisherman! & of course all the beautiful scenery
I love large signs or symbols. Australia has many famous ones - the Big Pineapple, the Big Lobster, etc. Don't see much here in the US.
We'll get to to the Bar Harbor Inn eventually, but I wanted to share a real time update. We had some excitement this week. A young Harbor Seal found it's way into the marina, and was swimming near our boat.
It made it's way up on the bank (it was near low tide), and just rested for about 10 minutes. We couldn't tell if it was in distress, but thought it was too young to be out on it's own. A call to the Harbor Master put us in touch with the local rescue group. Another group had also reported it, thinking it had an injured flipper. After a while, a nice lady came down to check things out - of course, the little guy (or gal) was gone by then. She had me email my photos to the rescue group.
We found out later that the rescue folks looked at the photos, and while they couldn't rule out an injured flipper, they were satisfied that it was moving okay. We have a number to call if it shows up again. Hopefully all will be okay.
For scale - here's a photo showing some kids as well. The boy on the side with the seal is a real pistol - he wanted to pet it. We finally got him out of there!!!!
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I hope the seal is okay too. So far there have been no more sightings - not definitive, but also means it is not grounded anywhere near the harbor. I'm really not sure at what age/ size they are weaned.
In other news, Lou has mapped out our departure from Maine in early September. We will be embarking on a 2 month road trip! Retirement is harder work than I thought it would be. More details later.
Okay - on to our next Touring installment -
The Bar Harbor Inn
What is now called the Bar Harbor Inn was once an "oasis" of culture for the likes of the Vanderbilts, Pulitzers, and Morgans. According to Gladys O'Neil, local historian, the first social club to be organized on the island was started in 1874 and named the Oasis Club. After brief stays in rented buildings, the club moved into its own quarters in 1887, newly incorporated as the Mount Desert Reading Room, with the avowed purpose of promoting "literary and social culture." source: Bar Harbor Inn History
The Inn rates 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor. We like it because of its oceanside location, and it is conveniently located to downtown Bar Harbor. Although we seldom venture into town, as it's just too crowded. The lounge and restaurant at the Inn are both staffed with friendly people, and the offerings are good. If given a choice we always pick a hotel with a good onsite restaurant.
Here are some photos from our various stays.
A very persistent gull on our balcony.
Downtown Bar Harbor before sunrise:
And, finally - a sight you don't see every day - a deer using the crosswalk as we exit town to head to Acadia:
We will miss out on a visit to the Inn this summer, since they don't take pets. But, that's okay - there is always next year.
Coming up next: A Maine Media Photography Workshop
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We really do need to spend time exploring the New England coastline. 
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