Greetings from The Gem and Keystone!

Yesterday we enjoyed some locally brewed beer and soft pretzels at The Gem and Keystone with Mackenzie’s parents, Matt and Sandy.

More Acadia National Park

The weather has changed here overnight and it’s cool and cloudy. Ben noticed that more of the trees had red and yellow leaves. Fall is right around the corner. We headed out this morning and returned to Acadia National Park to poke around the tide pools at the end of the Wonder Land trail. The granite of Mount Desert Island slopes right into the sea, forming a series of rocky shelves, but we were surprised by the relative dearth of life in the intertidal zone. Seaweed, barnacles, snails, gulls, and a few crabs were about all we could find.

This afternoon we watched the waves crash on the rocks at Thunder Hole, and walked from there along the oceanside trail to Otter Point. We finished the short hike just before the rain started again. We were glad to have climbed the Beehive and played on the beach yesterday.

The rest of our afternoon featured a trip into Bar Harbor on a mission to find some lobster paraphernalia for Mackenzie’s mother, Sandy. Sandy has been a judge at the Tualatin Crawfish Festival for the past two years and apparently all the other judges have crawfish items they wear while judging the various crustacean meals, so her one request was a crustacean-ambiguous item that she could wear to the next festival. After pawing through numerous souvenier shops (how many almost identically-stocked gift shops can one town have?) we found a little lobster pin that could pass for a crawfish.

Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Ben practices his acting skills on the climb up the Beehive

Mackenzie at the Bowl

Ben retreats from the Atlantic at Sand Beach

On Monday, after another morning of engagement excitement (thanks all for the well wishes!), we headed into Acadia National Park for a hike to the Beehive, an outcropping of blocky pink granite covered with lichens and dotted with pines rising a steep 520 feet above Sand Beach. The short but strenuous, hike (read: climb) took us from the park loop road up along a rocky path, through the woods, and along an exposed cliff with iron rungs sunk into the rock to aid hikers. At the top we were treated to spectacular views of Bar Harbor, nearby islands, and the Atlantic, along with a gregarious mustachioed New Yorker who described how he hikes the trail at least three times on each visit. After some photos we descended to The Bowl, a large clear pond teeming with small fish, tadpoles, and whirligig beetles. We highly recommend the hike to anyone traveling to Acadia!

Post hike we headed to Sand Beach  (so named because it’s actually sandy, in contrast to the rest of the mostly rocky coastline here) for a picnic and some relaxing in the sun. Ben decided that 65 degrees was swimming weather so he took a very quick dip into the Atlantic. Mackenzie opted instead to take amusing videos of him running in and out of the water.

We’ve seen many signs for ice cream in Maine and hadn’t had any since New York, so we went searching for the town’s finest dairy treat on the way home. Ben found Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream on Yelp, and had a scoop of their pumpkin carmel while Mackenzie split her single scoop between peanut butter and nutella. It was some fine ice cream and a great way to end the day.

Many more photos on Ben’s flickr.

We’re Engaged!!

On Sunday morning awoke up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise from the peak of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. The sun was starting to rise as we pulled up around 6:15am, and we were worried we’d missed all the action. We quickly jumped out and found a spot overlooking Bar Harbor, the nearby islands, and the pinks and blues of the early morning sky. Ben knelt down to dig through his pack for a camera, but instead produced something else entirely. On bent knee, Ben pulled out a wooden jewelry box and popped the question while revealing a stunning ring. It was perfect. Mackenzie was quick to say yes!

By 6:30am on a Sunday we were engaged and since it was much too early to notify anyone, we headed to Long Pond for some leisurely kayaking. We paddled for a few hours around the pond in search of lily pads, fish, frogs, and other creatures (including a scuba diver whose bubbles we mistook for a river otter). It was a great way to relax after an exciting morning.

For lunch, we decided that the full Maine experience required a traditional lobster meal. We ordered a round of Maine beers (delicious), and waited for our lobster dinners, accompanied by melted butter, coleslaw, and fries. We knew we were getting whole lobsters, but the reality of the creatures didn’t sink in until it was time to dig in. Graphic details will be omitted here, but suffice it to say that lobsters (and especially their innards) are nightmare material. Ben summarized the meal as ‘traumatizing’, and Mackenzie as ‘interesting’, but we both agreed that lobster wasn’t our thing. If you feel cheated by our lack of detail, Ben recommends this piece by David Foster Wallace.

Driving to Maine and The Other Portland

Saturday we drove from Boston to Maine with a lunch stop in the Other Portland. The drive was unremarkable except for the incredibly copious porcupine roadkill.

In Portland, ME we dined at Silly’s, a restaurant that boasts food for any type of dietary restriction. We both found decent meals: an avocado-heavy salad for Ben, and a pizza with a salad on top for Mackenzie.

After lunch, we stopped for groceries at a co-op in Belfast, ME that Mackenzie located on Yelp. We were interrupted while browsing the produce section by an incredibly earnest older woman who introduced herself as Lilly. She was determined to teach us, right then and there, how to make a white wine cream sauce (which we had been discussing between ourselves when she interjected). She detailed each step of the process, and followed up with a quiz/recap, and some tips on various antioxidant-rich foods. To her credit, we took her advice the next day and ended up with a great dish.

Upon our arrival at the Chalet of the Bears in Bar Harbor, ME, we were treated to a tour of the building by the owner, Paul, who related the story of the eccentric woman (Belle) who had commissioned it in 1929.  The building was designed and built in Interlachen, Switzerland, then shipped piece by piece across the Atlantic for assembly.

The place features some amazing original wood flooring, fluted ceiling beams, and decorative wood burnings on the walls. Our apartment is on the ground floor and is (to put it charitably) more rustic. There’s no indoor stove, so we’ve been cooking on an outdoor propane grill with a side burner. It was already dark the first night, so we drove into town for a lovely dinner at McKay’s Public House (thanks for the recommendation, Uncle Mark!). We had their homemade red bean burgers, some local beers on tap, and  a slice of blueberry pie.

Boston Brouhaha

Thursday morning(-ish), we said goodbye to Mackenzie’s aunt, uncle, and cousins in Rhode Island, hit I-95, and made our way to Boston, MA.  We found a spot at the end of a pier to park our rental car near the North End, Boston’s Italian neighborhood.  From the water’s edge, we headed inland via the T to meet up with Mackenzie’s cousin Nick, who’s studying fashion merchandising at Bay State College.  Nick related the trials and tribulations of being an RA over a satisfying Indian buffet lunch on Newbury St.  After lunch, Nick showed us around his building, and let us hang out in the lobby to catch up on email and blogging.

After lunch, we hopped back on the T to the North End again, to pick up cannoli’s from Mike’s Pastry and Modern Pastry.  Mike’s has always been Mackenzie’s favorite, but a friend suggested that we try Modern Pastry as well, so Mackenzie bought some of each in preparation for a taste test later in the evening.

For dinner, we met up with Ben’s former co-worker Matt and his wife Tania at Giacomo’s.  When we arrived at 5:30, there was already a line snaking out the door.  We split a bottle of chianti (sans fava beans and liver) between the four of us, and Ben and Mackenzie had some excellent pumpkin tortellini and wild mushroom ravioli.  The waitress nearly slapped Ben for leaving one lone tortellini on his plate. “Really, you’re going to leave just one?”

After dinner we headed to Matt and Tania’s apartment in Quincy for some more wine and conversation (mostly swapping Apple stories and talk about education, where both Mackenzie and Tania are looking for jobs), and our cannoli taste test.  Mackenzie swore that Mike’s filling was creamier, sweeter, and more delicious, but Matt was wooed by the more practical size of the cannolis from Modern Pastry.  They were very gracious hosts, and sent us on our way the next morning after a hearty breakfast featuring St. Viateur bagels from Montreal (which Tania stockpiles in her freezer). Onward to Maine!

Erin Sandwich

Here’s a quick shot of Mackenzie sandwiched between her friends Erin and Erin at Pastiche last night in Providence.

Newport and Providence, RI

Thursday we drove to Newport, RI for their famous cliff walk, a winding concrete path hugging the shore in front of the opulent Newport mansions. It was cloudy when we arrived but the clouds quickly dissipated, and we ended up getting a bit sunburnt. Along the route Ben wandered off the path and found a dead lobster and an egg case from a shark or ray (“mermaid’s purse“). Mackenzie kept him from straying too near the cliff edges. We saw seabirds, crabs, two kayakers, and a few surfers. The waves were tiny, but we wished we could join the surfers anyway, since it was a humid 80 degrees or so.

After wandering the path, we retreated from the heat and humidity to an air-conditioned restaurant serving fish & chips, since Newport seemed like a good spot for seafood.  Mackenzie indulged her fish & chips craving, but she still isn’t sure how much she enjoys fish.

In the evening we headed to Providence, RI to meet up with Erin McDonald, another friend of Mackenzie’s from Roger Williams University. We’d last seen Erin about a year and a half ago when she was living in Santa Cruz, CA. We caught up over some delicious Mexican food, and after dinner met up with the other Erin for a double Erin dessert at Pastiche Fine Desserts. McAvoy and Mackenzie each had a slice of the Italian Mascarpone Torte, McDonald had the Torta Di Cioccolata, and Ben had an apple and cranberry rustic tart with carmel and vanilla sauce. Dessert was amazing and the girls spent two hours retelling stories from their first two years of college while Ben contemplated what it meant for a tart to be ‘rustic’.

As always, more pics here.

The Smallest State of All: Rhode Island

Tuesday we arrived in Barrington, RI where Mackenzie’s aunt Leslie and uncle Steve live with their children Maddie and Colin. Everyone was busy with school and work when we arrived midweek, so we took some time to relax after walking Manhattan. It was a welcome break to read / compute (Mackenzie devoured her aunt’s copy of the latest Janet Evanovich novel within the span of 36 hours) and hang out with Jack, the big goofy golden retriever.

On Wednesday we met up with Mackenzie’s friend Erin McAvoy from her first two years of college at Roger Williams University in Bristol, RI for lunch at Stella Blues in Warren, RI. It was great listening to McAvoy’s subtly-accented stories and catching up from Mackenzie’s last visit four years ago.  Ben concentrated on spattering marinara sauce evenly across his white shirt during the meal.

After lunch we drove to Portsmouth, RI to see the Green Animals, a topiary garden at the Brayton mansion. The mansion overlooks the Narragansett Bay and was built in the 1860’s as a summer residence. The garden was a shrine to humanity’s power over nature, featuring sculpted shrubbery in a variety of animal and geometric forms, as well as a fish pond, dahlia plot, vegetable garden, and pet cemetery. Mackenzie’s favorite was a shrub that looked like a chicken with a crown on its head.

More New York

Yesterday we ventured out into Brooklyn to see the Brooklyn Botanical Garden in Prospect Park, have lunch with Mackenzie’s friend Freyan, and explore Williamsburg. The Botanical Garden was free, to our surprise, and delightful, with indoor sections for tropical, aquatic, temperate, desert, and bonsai plants.  You can see a few photos from the garden on Ben’s flickr feed. Mackenzie’s favorite part was two large ponds full of different varieties of water lilies. They reminded her of Monet’s paintings.  Ben enjoyed the outdoor Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, reminiscent of Portland’s own Japanese garden.

After the Botanical Garden we met up with Mackenzie’s friend Freyan and her boyfriend Nico at the Zen Vegetarian House, a vegetarian Chinese joint with an impressive array of fake meat dishes. We all enjoyed some “fish” nuggets, mango “chicken”, and peking “duck”, and some genuine eggplant.

Sated, we headed to Williamsburg for a brief walk. There were some neat places, but we were too tired to explore much, especially after learning that the subway line we had hoped to take back to Manhattan was closed for construction. Before leaving, though, we did get some chocolate from Mast Brothers Chocolate and had some good but pricey espresso (Ben) & chai (Mackenzie).

Having spent much of our time in NYC walking, we decided to treat ourselves to a solid caloric injection in the form of beer and pizza. We headed back to the East Village and met up with Jessie for a cheap beer ($3!) at Drop Off Service and not-cheap-but-tasty pizza at Motorino (the Colatura di Alici with grape tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala, red onions, and white anchovies was even enjoyed by Mackenzie, after she carefully removed the anchovies).

Today started out rough: we spent 3 hours trying to re-park our rental car. After extensive patrolling of the same 15 or so blocks of the upper west side, we finally pulled up on a street where people were waiting in their cars for the last half hour of the street cleaning window. We quickly fled and swooped back upon arrival of the street cleaning truck.

The first non-parking-related stop was at Zabar’s, a specialty grocery store and deli known for its bagels, lox, olives, and cheese. We chose some excellent items, including some spicy olives, rugelach, and an unidentified kugel-on-a-pizza thing. The rugelach lasted long enough to be enjoyed sitting on a giant rock sticking out of the ground in Central Park.

Our big trip of the day was the Staten Island Ferry. The ferry departs the southern tip of Manhattan, takes about 20 minutes to get to Staten Island offering great views along the way, and is mysteriously free. The weather was gorgeous today and Ben wouldn’t be quiet about the idea of riding the ferry back and forth all day, just because it was free. Mackenzie thinks he’s nuts.

Our poor feet where asking for another happy hour break and we are obliged by heading back to the East Village for drinks at Destination (not as good as neighboring Drop Off Service). Ben’s brilliant dinner idea was to disregard all food recommendations and try a raw vegan restaurant called Quintessence. To be fair, we were both craving a salad or fresh vegetables so it seemed like a great idea. The tostada appetizers were good and Mackenzie’s Cesar salad was good. Ben’s sea vegetable salad was, well, exactly what a normal person would expect when ordering a sea vegetable salad at a raw vegan restaurant, which is to say, terrible. For dessert we went to 16 Handles (thanks for the tip Ashley!) where they have a self serve frozen yogurt and topping bar. Mackenzie stuck with a chocolate/carmel/peanut butter theme, while Ben randomly selected every appealing-looking topping in sight.

We’ve had a blast in New York, but now we’re ready to move on.  As with yesterday, see Ben’s flickr for more photos.