View from Room 227
5 September 2026
The calendar said it was August 22, but the weather said it was October. The Bar Harbor Inn parking lot was nearly full. I found a spot close enough to the Main Inn, and then guided Heddy to the Newport Building, where she and Ginger would be staying.
I'd reserved our room more than a year ago. I'd been put in touch with a charming woman named Peggy who went above and beyond to help me figure out where our group could stay, and for how much. She sent me long descriptions of everything, which, of course, I turned into a spreadsheet. In the end, Jim, Regina, Rickety, and Cheryl opted for a much less expensive option: a house. The rest of us stuck with the hotel, which was more money and less work than a house, and breakfast was included.
When Jack and I visit Bar Harbor, we stay in the Oceanfront Lodge, a long building that looks more like a motel than a hotel but has sliding glass doors that open onto decks facing Frenchman Bay. These rooms are barely affordable in the off-season. In August, they're hovering over $900 per night after taxes are figured in. The Newport Building, behind the Oceanfront Lodge, with no ocean views, has much cheaper rates. The trick this time was that there was no way Our Jeff was going to spring for even a Newport room by himself, and I wanted to see the water and take pictures of the sunrise without having to change out of my pajamas.
This is where Peggy came to the rescue. At first, before we looped Jeff in, she reserved a room for me and Jack in the Main Inn. The reason it was the cheapest room in the place was that it was next to the event space and above the kitchen. She'd stayed in it several times, though, and recommended it, because events had to be over by 9:00 pm. Then, when we added Jeff, she moved us to another quirky, affordable room, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms connected by a vestibule. The view was of the hotel grounds, though. At first we all agreed to that, but the lack of a view was gnawing at me. I contacted Peggy again, and, for $50 more each night, we could see the water but would have to share a bathroom. I told Jeff that Jack and I would pay the difference. He agreed that a view was worth more than his own bathroom. So there we were, booked into room 227 of the Main Inn.
Our tenth visit was last spring, and there was a little gift bag of handmade pottery and syrups, with a thank-you note, in the room. This spring there was another gift bag with blueberry sugar* and another little clay vessel. Our twelfth visit bag, this time, was over the top. Not only was there another jar of blueberry sugar and a larger clay pot, but there was also a little box of chocolates.
The room itself wasn't quite as I'd imagined. It was on the second floor, accessed most easily from a side staircase next to the restaurant. The entryway had a bench (onto which we loaded the beers and chocolates). There was a small hallway with the bathroom on one side and our rooms on the other. Jack and I took the one with the king bed. Jeff took the one with the two queens. His room was bigger and had the refrigerator. Ours had a desk. The view from our room faced Frenchman Bay through a large window and a screen. I should mention that the Main Inn is an old building. This was not a modern window. It took a bit of muscle to slide the sash open.
Jack went straight for the puffy chair and made tea while Jeff and I loaded a luggage cart and brought everything up on the elevator. The problem was that the elevator, next to another, grander, front stairway, was six stairs shy of our level. So we had to leave the cart by the elevator and haul all our stuff by hand, up six steps, around a corner, and down a long hallway to our room. But we did it, and the bikes too (which rested, with my gravel wheels, next to the bed he wasn't using).
I should mention that, while we were busy checking in, Martha Stewart was apparently in the lobby. She has a house in Northeast Harbor. I didn't see her, which was fine because whatever.
By the time we got settled in, it was raining. Jim and Regina, and Rickety and Cheryl, had done the drive from Central Jersey in one day, and were unloading at their house on Atlantic Avenue on the south side of town.
Heddy texted that she and Ginger were having cappucinos in the rain under an umbrella at a table by the pool. I put on my new fleece and joined them.
view of Frenchman Bay from the pool
the front of the breakfast area, Newport Lodge in the background
our room
vestibule by the door
We had 6:00 dinner reservations for all 9 of us at Paddy's on West Street. I'd hoped we'd be able to catch the sunset by the pier there, but, well, not tonight.
Back in the room, there was a knock on the door. "Turndown service?" the woman asked. This was new. They don't do that over in the lodges.
"Um, no thanks," I said, and she handed me three bags of chocolates. I gave one to Jeff and dropped the other two in the candy bag. This turndown thing would happen every night we were there, and I came home with multiple bags of the stuff when we weren't able to turn down the turndown. Sometimes Jeff would find a bag on each of his beds.
Anyway, we headed out to dinner. On the hotel grounds in front of the Shore Path were two chairs repurposed from lobster traps. It was too wet to try them out.
"That's the Margaret Todd," I explained. Hello, Maggie.
Ugh. A cruise ship. A very small one, though.
We got to the restaurant before the Atlantic House people did, and were ushered to a table in the back. When they arrived, after our hardy greetings were over, we posed for another middle finger salute to Tom, for which Jack extricated himself.
Despite the rain, it was necessary to find ice cream. It was necessary to find blueberry ice cream. It was necessary to get to all the ice cream shops in town over the course of the week and compare blueberry ice cream. We went to Ben and Bill's first. Those that had blueberry proclaimed it good.
It was also necessary for me to take a picture of the moose above Geddy's. The moose above Geddy's, though lit, was in need of some maintenance.
We made plans for the next day: a walk on the Ocean Path inside Acadia National Park. This group is one that turns in early. Jack and I tend to stay up until almost midnight most days. We adjusted our schedule somewhat, but I would still have time to download all the photos of the day, label them, upload them to Blogger, and type in some notes. I knew it would be a while before I'd be able to do any actual writing, and, well, here it is September 5 already and I'm only two posts in.
(*I did not know what to do with blueberry sugar. Add it to oatmeal in the winter, perhaps? It only occurred to me yesterday that I could use it to make blueberry lemonade, which is a thing one can find all over Bar Harbor in the summer. Mine is an experiment in progress. I have two jars to work it out.)
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