Frenchman Bay, Maine

Last weekend (aka the beginning of the heat wave that stole my desire to use my brain, much less go anywhere near a computer), we headed up to Ellsworth to visit my father. The highlight of the trip was a boat ride across Frenchman Bay to Bar Harbor for dinner. It was absolutely gorgeous out on the water, and we saw a number of sea birds, and either a dolphin or a porpoise (we saw plenty of fin, but no head). It’s a much faster, pretty pleasant way to get onto Mount Desert Island.

We had dinner at Cafe This Way. I highly recommend the Littlebit appetizer (which we plan on replicating), and their fish and chips was amazing. The BF, my father and I all ended up ordering that, because it just looked so good. C got the pecan crusted halibut, which was one of the most enormous pieces of fish I’ve seen in a while. The restaurant itself is just a great setting. They have several huge doors they can open on the front end of the building, and they’re tucked in a little cul de sac, so despite the heat everywhere else, it was quite lovely and breezy there.

We rounded out the trip the next morning with a game of golf croquet at the regulation croquet court near my father’s house. C and the BF won, but Dad and I didn’t do too badly. I actually managed a wicket by myself.

And finally, for the first time I can remember, I came out of the Big Chicken Barn with less than half a dozen books. Three still seems like a pretty respectable number (and really, it’s not like I need to add to the pile on my bureau), but it was vaguely disappointing to not find very much. It did look like they had quite a bit of new stock in their prep area, so I’m looking forward to my next trip. We have a friend coming over from England next month, and figured we’d be idiots not to bring her up the Island since it’ll be peak weather, and off peak tourist season. So I’ll be up there again before I know it.