It’s been over five years since the Helmigs went on a family vacation, so this was way over due! Earlier this year, we all decided to make the trek up to Maine for peak fall weather. And what a trek it was!
It was a full day of travel for us with every form of transportation available: car, bus, train, and airplane. We woke up at 4 AM MST and didn’t get to the Airbnb until 9 PM EST. We snacked and stopped at the slowest McDonalds ever, but we made it! We were the second to arrive; Amy, Bryan, and Graham were the first ones at the Airbnb. Shelley and Marco made it to town around midnight.
We all woke up surprisingly early the first full day in Bar Harbor. We headed to Jordan’s for breakfast (this would be a common breakfast stop for the trip!). We tried our first blueberry muffin and blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup for breakfast since Maine is all about blueberries. Basking in the sugar high, we went and explored the quaint town of Bar Harbor. Graham loved the beach stop where he got to play in the sand and explore the shore! We met up with Tim and Cheryl in the center of town. We all grabbed more sweets as we wandered town before ending up back at the Airbnb. We then headed back to the beach to try to do the Bar Island Trail. Unfortunately, we made it to the island but the sign at the trailhead there said that we needed to have a parks pass – bummer! We turned around and headed back into town before settling into a brewery for an afternoon of beers and snacks.


Graham woke up around 4 PM, so we decided to do another walk around town. We had to build up an appetite for dinner somehow! We decided to head through some of the neighborhoods to the south, so we could circle back into town along the seaside trail. We all took turns playing with Graham along the way – such a cutie! Amy and Bryan had made reservations at Geddy’s for dinner; our walk conveniently ended at the main park in Bar Harbor right next to Geddy’s. We spent the evening enjoying food and drinks and catching up together!


The next day was dedicated to park activities! We grabbed a hearty breakfast of donuts this morning – this was a good call as we ended up eating the leftovers for the next couple of days. We piled into the car with Tim and Cheryl, Amy, Bryan and Graham were in their van, and Shelley and Marco were in their rental leading the caravan. Our goal for the day was to drive the circumference of Acadia National Park, making it all the way to the Bar Harbor Head Lighthouse. Before we made it there, we ended up stopping at a little restaurant where we all grabbed some fried food and lobster rolls.

It was about time for Graham to go down for his afternoon nap, so Amy, Bryan, Tim and Cheryl headed back to town while we piled in the car with Shelley and Marco for an afternoon hike. We were on the far side of the island, so we decided we try to do a hike nearby. We settled on doing the Beech Mountain Trail. It was an easy 1.2 mile loop that went up to the Beech Mountain Fire Tower. It turned out to be an awesome choice!
















Back in Bar Harbor, we reunited with everyone back at the Airbnb. That night we headed out to get some BBQ, but it wasn’t the greatest. We’re from Missouri – we have high BBQ standards!
The next day we decided to go back into the park to see the main highlights before heading up to Cadillac Mountain. We made stops at Sand Beach and Thunder Hole before stopping at Fabbri Picinic Area to chow down on sandwiches. We tried to head to Jordon Pond after that, but with our reservation at Cadillac Mountain coming up and the craziness of the Jordon Pond parking lot, it didn’t work out. We ended up stopping at the side of the road overlooking Jordan Pond instead, and it was beautiful!






I’m so glad we made reservations for Cadillac Mountain months ago! I can see the allure of watching the sunrise from there, but it was pretty amazing during the day. We all wandered around the summit before taking a bunch of family photos. They turned out pretty awesome! Kudos to Kyle for the awesome editing. 🙂











After hitting the summit, Kyle, Shelley, Marco and I decided to go do the Beehive Trail! Shelley and Marco had tried to do it a year ago, but turned back because they didn’t have hiking boots. Luckily they had the right boots for it this time! The Beehive Hike is a black diamond hike; it’s really more of a scrambling with rungs actually built into the rock. The exposure was pretty exhilarating in some places. I’m really glad we got to do it!







That night we went and grabbed drinks and appetizers at the Terrace Grill. We walked past it the first day in Bar Harbor and we all wanted to come back. It was a really fun evening playing with Graham and enjoying the sunset over the ocean. We grabbed pizza at the Airbnb that night; the blueberry Hawaiian pizza was surprisingly delicious.


The next day we went to Fort Knox. Not that Fort Knox, but the Fort Knox Historic Site and the Penobscot Narrows Observatory located in Prospect, Maine. On the way there we stopped for breakfast at the Riverside Cafe in Ellsworth, where I had the best biscuits and gravy ever. Seriously – it is what biscuits and gravy should be. The fort had an amazing views and the guide at the site knew all sorts of interesting facts about the place. You could really tell he loved his job. The bridge to the fort may have been the coolest part – it has an observatory at the top of one of the towers.

On the way back, everyone decided they wanted to stop for lobster rolls. Kyle and I were still pretty full from breakfast, so we decided to skip the rolls and go for a hike instead! With Beehive under our belt, we decided we’d go for the scariest trail in the park and one of the more dangerous hiking trails in America – the Precipice Trail. If Beehive is a black diamond hike, Precipice is a double black diamond. There were some very serious exposed sections with very real consequences. The only thing that Kyle and I have done that has been similar to this (besides actual roped climbing) is the Kelingking Beach “hike” in Nusa Penida. I’d never to do the Kelingking “hike” again but I would do the Precipice trail again. It was a fun challenge but you can definitely get the same experience without having to do that, in fact I’d argue that Beehive has the better views.


Once we finished our afternoon hike we met up with everyone in town for drinks before heading to dinner. We ate at the Side Street Cafe in Bar Harbor. It was a bit of a wait, but I got to play with Graham for awhile so that made it pretty fun! Plus it was great to have a burger as we were all lobster-ed out at that point.
The next morning we said our goodbyes to Shelley and Marco before heading down the coast to Portland. Bryan and Amy booked a very cute Airbnb in downtown Portland within walking distance to a bunch of restaurants and breweries. The first evening we were all pretty tired from the drive, so we just ordered some food from the BBQ place down the road. I had some BBQ chicken tacos, and they were amazing! Probably one of my favorite meals of the trip.
The next day we headed to the Portland Head Light. We wandered around the lighthouse and Fort Williams Park; even though there were a ton of people there for it being a Friday, it was a beautiful walk. It was finally lunchtime so we went into downtown Portland to eat at DuckFat. It was absolutely delicious! I’d definitely go back there again. We made it back to the Airbnb for Graham’s nap time. With Graham down for a nap and Amy holding down the Airbnb, we did a few rounds at the nearby watering holes. We first stopped at mead brewery… No one was really a fan of it so it’s a good thing we didn’t order a bunch. They did have a mead lavender lemonade slushy, which was my favorite thing there. We tried to go to a fermentory after that, but that was too “unique” for all of us. We went down the road to the nearest brewery. Everyone got beers besides me; I tried the mango cream seltzer they had on tap and it was interesting ha. We were all worn out from the trip, so Tim and Cheryl headed back to the RV and we ordered food in for dinner. Graham was in a much better mood after his nap, so we got one good evening play with him in before the trip was over!



The next day we all had Dunkin Donuts at the Airbnb. We said our goodbyes to Amy, Bryan, and Graham before heading to Kennebunkport with Tim and Cheryl. We briefly explored the town before grabbing one final lunch together before we headed to the airport. It was a good thing we left when we did because our trip back turned into a nightmare! Southwest had a bunch of cancellations from Florida. When we got to the Manchester airport we ended up immediately booking another rental car to make it to Boston so that we could make it back to Denver that night! We eventually did, but with flights both delayed we didn’t even make it home until 3 AM MST! It was a big travel day and we were happy to be home, but of course, we have been missing family a bunch since we’ve been back. I’m so thankful we were able to make this family vacation happen!
Now it’s back to normal life with work and Captain Fuzzyface 🙂
– Andrea