We have packed something into every minute for the past 2 days, so I'm behind a day on our blog. We had our first "what do we do with this RV" experience the night before last. At 2:30 AM, some type of alarm started going off in the RV. We knew it wasn't on fire, so we started trying to sort it out. We got the manual out, tried hitting a few a buttons, but nothing worked. Jason ended up going outside and opening some panel and disassembling something...which finally made it stop. Somehow, the kids slept through all of this.
In the morning, we got up and made the trek into Bar Harbor. We used the Island Express bus to get back and forth, since we don't have a car with us. This was a bit of an interesting experience because these are the busiest few weeks for tourists here. We landed at the park on the edge of the village and walked down to the ocean. This really might be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in the United States. Blue water, pine trees, and giant rocks all come together to create a masterpiece. We found a cafe for lunch, but had to spilt up into groups to eat there. After lunch, we wandered down to the main shopping area. We were surprised with a torrential rain storm. Thankfully, it only lasted about 15-20 minutes. We wandered around a bit more, and then made our way to the College of the Atlantic where we'd booked a boat trip for the kids.
On our way here, we scoured the Internet and used Trip Advisor for suggestions on things to do. We found a boat tour called Diver Ed's Dive in Theatre that was highly recommended for kids. This turned out to be one of the biggest highlights of the trip so far. Diver Ed and his crew welcome the kids on the boat and take us out about a quarter of a mile or a little more from shore. Then Diver Ed suits up in gear and dives down, with an underwater camera, to collect sea life from the ocean floor. It's all done in a very entertaining way. While he's underwater, Captain Evil (Diver Ed's wife in real life), explains what he is doing and talks to him through an underwater microphone. After his dive, he brings what he's collected up to the boat, they sort through it and then bring all of the kids up to the front of the boat to touch and hold the creatures. The kids got to hold crabs, starfish, lobster, and sea cucumbers. They LOVED it. They couldn't stop talking about it last night. We got back late last night, ate some leftovers, and all crashed into bed. We knew we needed to get a good night of sleep as we planned to hike through Acadia the next day.
We're driving all day tomorrow, so I'll post about that, then.