Sunday dawned on Day 09, with breakfast at the cousins’. Our goal for the day was simple — penguins!

We drove to the aquarium, including through some tunnels, and although we took the highways, it was pretty slow traffic. We found a parking garage near the Aquarium and used the cousins’ pass to get in. As I said, our big goal was to see the penguins as Jacob loves them, and we met that goal pretty easily since they’re the first thing you see when you walk in the door. They have African and Southern Rockhoppers. We watched them for about 30 minutes, and then started wandering around, with a break for lunch in the cafeteria where I could see planes landing at the nearby airport.

We also saw sea lions, turtles, rays, fish, coral, etc. There’s a big tank in the centre of the aquarium and a spiral walkway goes all the way to the top floor (4 floors of fish plus an open tank at the top). There was a show at the top where you could see them feeding the turtles, but well, the real draw was the penguins.

We watched them feeding both kinds of penguins, and the feeders kept track of which penguins ate what type of fish and how many. There are more African penguins but the rockhoppers were very vocal during and after their feed. You could also see that for both types, there always seemed to be one penguin keeping watch, like a lifeguard.

At the end, we went to the touch tank and Andrea and Jacob touched rays as they swam by — very slimy! (The rays, not Andrea and Jacob hehehe). On the way out, we stopped by the gift shop and picked up a couple of items that will make appearances at Christmas.

The parking was very expensive for the day, but since the Aquarium was free for us, it worked out. We also took some pictures of the tall buildings nearby, which Jacob liked seeing. He isn’t used to much in the way of tall buildings in Ottawa as we rarely go downtown.

We decided to take a drive to the local campuses in Boston, and drove by M.I.T. easily enough. We decided we weren’t smart enough to go to Harvard as we spent way too much time even FINDING the campus so we could visit. Afterwards, we took a long, circuitous route back to Needham, with pizza delivery for dinner. The cousins arrived back home after we had gone to bed.

Obviously, we took a LOT of photos and videos during the day:

• #1-2: maps for the day;
• #3-77: penguins;
• #78-85: sea lions;
• #86-111: aquarium tanks;
• #112-117: penguins;
• #118-159: aquarium tanks;
• #160-185: penguins feeding;
• #186-192: touch tank;
• #193-196: aquarium area and old Boston;
• #197-199: M.I.T.; and,
• #200-204: Harvard.

We ended up with 510 photos and videos for the day, curated down to 204. And only 70 km driving.

2023-07b July – Day 09 New England Aquarium

204 photos

On Day 08, our goal for the day was to make it to Boston / Needham (photos 1-2). But first, we had a nice Saturday morning brunch at Dutchman’s Bagels in Brunswick with Andrea’s cousin Chris. The old mill building has been converted into a restaurant and event space, with a small theatre area. The bagels were gigantic. We had a nice visit for about 90 minutes and then it was time to hit the road.

We drove to Boston (photos 4-7) and rushed, rushed, rushed to get to the Museum of Science. Although to be honest, my real goal was really the Charles Hayden planetarium that is attached. I had hoped to see one of their “Exploring the Universe” videos, but most things were sold out for the day by the time we got there. The schedule wasn’t going to work very well for any of the three days, so we opted to explore the museum (photos 8-11, 14-15) and to catch Destination Mars at 4:30 p.m. (photos 12-13).

We grabbed a fast lunch in their cafeteria and then wandered around for an hour. Despite the museum being fairly busy (not surprising for a Saturday), we saw dinosaurs, an arctic exhibit with icy walls, and an overview of all the planets outside the planetarium. Destination Mars was cool, with 180-degree reclined views. I would have loved to spend some time in the gift shop, but the museum closed at 5:00 p.m.

The drive to Needham where Andrea’s cousins (Scott, Dana and Henry) live was easy to plot in the GPS, but not so easy to drive. A torrential downpour hit as we left the museum. We were avoiding the toll highways (which said they only worked with electronic Easy Pass which we didn’t have installed, so we weren’t sure how that would work!), but many of the side streets were completely flooded (photos 16-19). We made it to the cousins’ house, although they were away for the weekend, and settled in with time to do some laundry! Exciting stuff, I know.

However, we went out to a little Thai restaurant nearby called The Little Spoon, which was excellent. We got another thunderstorm as we were heading back to the house, with a small detour to a 7-11 for some basic groceries.

As you can see, it was a bit of a lighter day. We still drove 243 km, and the rain was no fun, but we only did 29 photos curated down to 19.

2023-07b July – Day 08 To Boston

19 photos

Day 07 was our day to leave Bangor, visit Acadia National Park, and then start making our way towards Boston (photos 1-2). Jacob had planned our trip to the Park, and it did not disappoint.

We drove over a big bridge from Bangor to Brewer, near where we had visited the waterfront park the day before, and headed for Bar Harbour. We eventually crossed over another bridge to Maine Desert Island and the tide was low (photos 3-12). We drove around Bar Harbor, which had a resort-town feel. It was very crowded for a Friday, with no parking anywhere in the downtown area. We ate lunch at a nice seafood restaurant on the water, just outside Bar Harbor, with great lobster rolls and lobster mac and cheese (photos 13-16).

We drove into Acadia National Park and made a tactical error — we didn’t stop at the Info Centre to get a map, since we had GPS. The park has a road that does a loop around it, and not a lot of good signage. Essentially, although we didn’t know it, you can do a clockwise loop only — we assumed we could do either way as the opening section is bi-directional. As we drove along, there were lookouts with a bit of parking, all of which were filled. We stopped at an area where you could walk down to Jordan Pond, but I ended up doing about a 30-minute circle in the three adjacent parking lots while Andrea and Jacob walked down (photos 17-44). The photos show a beautiful lake surrounded by hills. There is no swimming allowed as it is a local source of drinking water.

We drove on and saw the road divide into the uni-directional route (the opposite way), and ended up going out the South West Gate. We saw a bit of the island coast and then re-entered the park, retracing our route to Cadillac Mountain (photos 45-50). We had debated going up the Mountain or not, there was a separate charge for it over the park pass, you had to schedule it, etc. But what the heck, we pulled up to the checkpoint and said, “Soooo, what’s the deal, how do we do this?” We had to buy our spot online, which was only about 15 minutes from then, so we pulled over on the main road to do that, then back into the short line and up the mountain. It was the absolute best part of the visit, and I can’t believe we almost didn’t do it.

There were amazing views on the way up and at the top. The summit had nice walkways and viewing areas, natural-looking, a big open area that wasn’t too crowded (although the parking lots were full). We visited the gift shop although that was primarily to get some cold water — it was a warm day, particularly on top of the mountain with no shade anywhere. The mountain top itself is pretty rocky, and we could see lots of boats, islands and ships (photos 51-159).

We had picked up a map at the gatehouse to the Mountain route, and could now see the uni-directional loop and where it started. As much as we would have enjoyed doing the loop too, we didn’t even do the Mountain part until 3:00 p.m. and it was now almost 4:30 p.m. with a long drive ahead of us still. We weren’t sure if we were missing much though as we could see all of the island from up top. Still, it would have been nice. But time waits for no tourist! Off we went, driving the same route to get off the island and to see it at high tide now (photos 160-166).

After that, we headed down the coast of Maine. We had hoped that a nice leisurely drive down the coast would present almost one continuous view looking out over the ocean. Of course not. That land is too valuable for mere roads; almost all of it is has houses and buildings on it, with the view from the road often limited to trees or gaps between trees. We saw some larger interesting bridges and a few beach / marine areas, and a nice sunset, but most of it was uneventful (photos 167-181). We had dinner in Rockland at a McDonald’s, and Andrea had booked us a Fairview hotel in Brunswick. The hotels in that area (Portland) were very expensive (and fancy), but the main thing I noticed was that it was almost pitch black on the roads getting to the hotel itself — I could barely FIND the turns.

But we made it. We drove 354 km for the day, and took a ton of photos — 574 in total, curated down to 181, including 1 video. A small Easter egg in the video is that as Andrea pans around, she captures the bird that I’m taking pictures of in burst mode. Another great day, planned by Jacob. I think we’ll keep him around.

2023-07b July – Day 07 Acadia National Park

181 photos