On this gloriously clear and pristine Sunday of April 26, we headed off to Acadia National Park where I looked forward to some placid strolling though forest paths. WRONG.  After a brief stop at the Visitors’ Center for orientation (highly recommended for your first sojourn), we headed out to the trails around Sand Beach. (Aside: I thought how redundant to call a beach, “Sand Beach”, being from the mid-Atlantic area where all Delaware and Maryland beaches are deep with golden sand.  I discovered that Sand Beach in Acadia is the only beach with copious amounts of sand in all of Maine north of Portland (and Portland is very near New Hampshire)!  Hence, the name.)  Back to the trails which were nothing like easy walking and more like a billy goat trail –  I played Daddy Long Legs scrabbling up a rock face or crossing a creek where a few stones were strewn as a “ bridge”.  With my derriere up in the air, good thing my husband had forgotten the camera (alas, no attached pictures here).   We spent three hours marveling and huffing.   You may want to visit the web site but you must visit Acadia.

            It’s Wednesday late afternoon and I am in my normal hunt mode for a good cappuccino.  It’s been tough, having just arrived in Belfast in late March after a lifetime spent in major cities of the world – Washington and Rome to name two.  My husband, a devotee of consumer reports, said that Dunkin’ Donuts was rated pretty high.  Well, with no Starbucks within 60 miles of here, I drove up to the Dunkin’ window in Belfast and ordered “ a cap”.  When handed to me by the sweet young man, maybe all of 16 years, I remarked that the cup was very heavy, like regular coffee, and did he know how to make a good cappuccino?  With an innocence of a babe, he replied,  ‘Well,  all I did is press the second button.”  BTW, Dunkin’ offers a drink known as Dunkaccino; and BTW the cap as not bad.

     One cannot find a bad meal in Italy; equally true, one cannot find a bad plate of mussels in Maine.  You may think Maine is for lobster; true but not the whole story!! Maine is also for mussels.  This week alone we had mussels at the Waterfront in Camden, The Three Tides in Belfast and just last night at Chez Michel’s in Lincolnville (no web site yet).  The broths were all different but those little critters were superb in every one of these terrific eating establishments. (You may think that all we do is eat out — this would NOT be true!)

                                                Later,

                                                Diana