Photo of the Month

There are still cottages left so, book now!

We want to thank Diane for watching the cottages while we took off on our family reunion to Hawaii!	The 16 members of the Mun family reunion 2008 in front of Julie's Father's house

Point across from our dock. Can you find the Eagle?	Immature Bald Eagle in our cove.

Julie and I love Hawaii and Maine, after all they have many of the same things!
Here are a few of them ... as I see them!!:

They have tree climbers at the Polynesian Cultural Center	We have Lumber Jacks and Jills in Timber Tina's Great Maine Lumber Jack Show!

We hiked down to see the lava at night on the Big Island. Lots of red lava, very impressive but not too tasty!	All right, we don't have lava but we have red lobsters!! (My cousin Debbie, who we lost last year to cancer, used to fly over every 3 years for some Maine lobster!)

Beach picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park	Picnic on the pink granite along the park loop road in Acadia National Park

Good eats, in Kona we got some shave ice	Here we have popovers at the Jordan Pond House! (This is my niece who is also the girl in pink in the other photo!)

700 pound billfish caught in a tournament in Kona while we were there. The day before they caught a 1000 pound billfish!!	While we were gone Diane had a visitor who caught a mackerel off the dock ... I bet she is just as excited as the Kona fisherman!! And just think, how many paper towels she would need if she pulled in one as big as the Kona fish!!

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What's New?!

8/17/08 - We have some good news for those of you who are visiting us this month! The construction on I295 south has been completed early so you can stop in Freeport on the way up here and again on the way home if you wish!! We do have a LL Bean outlet store in Ellsworth, just 20 minutes away, but if you want to stop by the main store we understand!

A young Bald Eagle has been visiting our cove quite often lately! We saw it twice on Saturday and the second time I got a few photos. I pointed it out to our guests and then went back to the office. They told me later that I should have hung around! The Eagle was there for about half an hour then it simply grabbed the branch it was on and flew off with it!! The branch was pretty big so it was quite a sight. Of course, I missed it! We wonder if the Eagle is making a nest close by?!

Since Julie and I got back from our family reunion in Hawaii, I have been thinking about all the similarities there are between there and here ... no honest ... you don't believe me?!! I decided to put together a few photos just to prove my point. If you can't afford to pop on over to the Hawaiian islands then you might as well visit us here on our little island!! We hope you get a chance to compare the two places for yourself!! Of course, you should come up here and visit us first!!

We have opened up several weeks to daily rentals so drop us a line if you want to make a shorter visit. We have also taken several reservations of more than a week from families that wanted to extend a few days past their week. The weather here has been great and as I have mentioned before, the fall is the best time to visit the area! Enjoy the rest of your summer wherever you are!

8/8/08 - Well, we have had a busy month and most of it was spent some place else so I only have a few photos to post! Julie saw a big deer in the woods by the cottages but when she tried to get close enough to take a picture she spooked him along with a couple of other deer and they ran off. Our guests this week have seen a pair of Bald Eagles on a tree in the cove almost every day this week. They are probably trying to snag some of those fish that our guests are catching off the dock!!

Julie and I just got back from a two week family reunion in Hawaii with all but one of my Brothers and his family. There were 16 of us in all and we tried to do just about everything there is to do on two islands! We also were able to get together with our relatives on Oahu and probably gained about 20 pounds! I have put up a couple of photos from our trip will try and get some local photos up as soon as we recover from our jet lag!

The weather that hit this area while we were gone did change things some! The Blueberries were ripe before we left and I expected them to be gone when we got home! The over cast weather must have slowed down the ripening and the rain plumped them way up so they are perfect right now!! The renters have been picking them on the trails and they said they are real sweet! Speaking of trails (nice segway, eh?!), the park officials have opened up the Precipice and Flying Mountain trails (the peregrine falcons have left their nests).

If you have been reading your local news paper you might have seen that lobster prices have been going down instead of up!! So, please help out our local fishermen and eat some lobster!! Not a usually something we have to ask visitors to do! In fact I think that I will go out and get a batch this weekend to eat and some more to shuck and freeze the meat for lobster salad sandwiches this winter ... or maybe a good newberg ... that could add on another twenty pounds!!

We want to thank Diane for watching the cottages for us while we were gone! She had to deal with a power outage and some other minor emergencies so she has passed all the tests! She got a visit from some of her grandkids and they caught some fish off the dock! Thanks again Diane!!

7/12/08 - We had a beautiful 4th of July this year and there were a lot of visitors in the area for the long weekend! The weather has been very nice in general with much more sun than rain. That may explain why things are growing faster than usual! We are happy to see the Tate's Strawberry stands along the road and the berries look very good (at least the last 4 quarts have been ... may have to get a few more just to be sure!!). I also noticed that the blueberries are starting to ripen. They are just beginning to ripen and won't peek for a little while.

This weather must have warmed the ocean up as well because the seal has started to visit our ledge and some guests have seen porpoise swim by when they were out kayaking. Last week I was down at the dock and saw a school of fish jumping in the cove. Some of our guests have seen a Bald Eagle in the trees around our cove as well.

The construction in Ellsworth is still underway but they have paved the road so driving is much easier. The McDonalds has opened back up again and now has two order lanes in it's drive thru. The construction on the super Walmart and Walgreens are still going strong so along with the roadwork so expect some delays as you travel through Ellsworth.

I managed to break my hand several weeks ago so updates are taking a little longer while I learn to do things with my left hand! My typing was never great or fast so things now move at a snails pace! Photo editing is the hardest! Click and drag was something that I did with out thinking ... I think that I pulled something the last time I did it?!

So, come on up and enjoy the weather (make sure you don't bring any rain with you!). If we are full then we hope that you will stop in and check us out for your next trip! Enjoy your summer!

6/5/08 - Things are starting to hop up here! Not all of them for the better I am afraid. We have had several cruise ships in Bar Harbor already. They don't effect our business at all but when they start to show up the businesses open up in a hurry! That means our early visitors can enjoy things like whale watching and nature cruises as well as more shops and restaurants! The ships will continue until November so guests that visit us in October are surprised to see so many things still open!

More construction news for those of you headed up this way. You won't notice it on the way up here but when you head south you will will not be able to use I295! The south lanes will be closed from June 16 - August 30 so you will have to use the Maine Turnpike, Route 1 or the detour along Route 201. For more information you can look at the Maine DOT page.

As you can see from the photo above, the seal is back on the ledge in our cove. It stopped by 3 times last week and I saw it twice so far this week. I also see Bald Eagles quite often but have not seen the immature one for awhile. I didn't take a lot of photos last month so I have added the seal photos to the other wildlife photos I took the month before.

We have dumped the woodlandprk.com address and now just have the woodlandparkcottages.com address. We hope that everyone switched over OK! We have not used the old address for over 5 years but a number of web sites still have us listed under that address. They put us on their site without asking and make it very difficult to change the information without paying them some money! Of course, after we decided to dump the address, the gas prices skyrocketed and now is not a good time to have potential guests not find our site! Just a little FYI ... I check my email at least twice a day so if you email us you will usually get a response within 12 hours! If you don't hear from us by then, your server probably thought our message was spam and didn't let it through or trashed it! If you send us another email, let us know that you would like us to call you back.

5/15/08 - Well, we are open for the season!! The weather here has been great and Bar Harbor has quite a few shops and restaurants open. We even had our first cruise ship of the season in this week! So, if you want to enjoy Acadia National Park with out all the crowds then now is a good time for a visit. The Temps have been in the 60's during the day and in the 40's at night. The Blackflies haven't been bad at all so far. They actually haven't been bad for over 5 years. We thought that was because we haven't had much snow during that time. This winter we had lots of snow so we will have to throw that theory out the window!

This spring has been a great one for wildlife! That is why we decided to have a wildlife themed photo of the month! We have seen the Bald Eagles soaring over head and sitting in a tree just down the road. We also have seen a yearling in the area (doesn't have the white head yet). The Deer are everywhere. One large group of 7 or 8 were grazing in a field close by us. When they saw us they decided to go home I guess. Home must have been across the road from us because they raced us to the road and we had to stop to let them cross the road! On the road between Bangor and Ellsworth we saw one of the biggest turkeys I have ever seen trying to cross the road!! It was in the middle of the other lane trying to find an empty space between the cars. Lucky that no cars were going the other way! Of course, we didn't have a camera ready in time to get that shot!

A word of warning for anyone heading up this way! There is a lot of road work going on in Ellsworth. We have a downloadable set of driving instructions on our FYI page. Some of the photos on it for Ellsworth are no longer good. The KFC was torn down and a new KFC/Taco Bell was put in about 200 feet down the road. Not to be outdone, the McDonalds has been torn down and a new one is being built in the same place. The town is changing the traffic flow at the route 3 and Route 1 split so the construction will be going on for a while yet!

The harsh winter left a bunch of frost heaves and pot holes on many of the roads! They are trying to get them all fixed up this spring but the roads are a little rougher than usual this year!

A few rules of the road that may differ from your state: 1. The Police can stop people for not wearing seat belts. 2. you are required to turn on your headlights if your windshield wiper is on.

We hope that you will be able to visit us this summer! Please check our availability page and fill out the contact page and we will see what we can do for you!

4/1/08 - Happy April Fool's Day!! Don't we wish that the photos were a joke!! Julie and I do love the snow but now it is starting to cut into our opening time! The snow "storms" we have been getting lately are very small and the snow melts off in a day or less but the cold that arrives with it slows down the melting process! We do hope to get started on the cottages very soon!

For those of you who visit us regularly, you will notice some big changes as you get close to the island. Ellsworth, the closest large town (about 20 miles away) is undergoing a growth spurt! Since last summer they have added a Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken and Lowes. We have heard that a number of new stores will be added soon. They have broken ground on a Walmart Supercenter, Walgreens and there are rummers that some other large stores will join them. Developers plan to have some smaller stores in several strip malls around the larger stores! There is also some construction going on along route 3 between Ellsworth and the island. Most of the big projects are located away from the island so you may welcome the variety!

As you can see from the photos above we decided to do some leisure exploring last month! Some friends of ours came down for the day so we decided to head into Bar Harbor and see what was going on! We drove through the town ... the grid lock there almost made us loose our appetites ... but we were able to find several places serving something other than plywood sandwiches! We decided to eat at Galyn's Restaurant on Main Street down by the water. We got there at 11am, just after they opened so we were able to get a table right in one of the windows looking out over the town park. The view was great and constantly changing thanks to several small snow flurries that obscured the small islands in the distance. The food was very good and the deserts pushed us over the edge! We had to take a hike to work it all off but the only trail close by was the shore path! The blowing snow caused us to rethink that idea but we did go a short ways along the trail (and doesn't the cold accelerate the calorie burning process??!!)!

Well, the snow will be gone very soon and we hope that you will visit us when the weather is a little warmer! Enjoy natures air conditioning while you can!

3/15/08 - Well, Julie and I made it back from visiting family and friends in Hawaii! We were not able to go last year because Julie broke her back so we stayed extra long this year. We had lots of fun catching up with everyone but seemed to run out of time all the same. Julie had a blast learning a new Okinawin dance for her family's Christmas Eve Party. They rented a hall and had just under 100 attendees. We seem to do a lot of eating when ever we are out there so I have about 10 pounds that I have to work off now that I am home. I hoped to get a lot of swimming in out there but it rained almost every day for the first two months we were out there! We took a trip to the Big Island if Hawaii during our visit and saw some sea turtles sunning on the beach. We actually saw two sets of three turtles on the beach and two more swimming just off shore. One of Julie's friends had a niece who won 4th princess in the Narcissus Pageant this year. We went down to Chinatown to see her and I got a picture taken with her and the Queen along with another friend we saw there.

Last year we stayed home because of Julie's back and we got hardly any snow! This year it started snowing the week after we left on our trip and hasn't stopped yet! There were two big rain storms just before we got home that melted a lot of the snow. That is why my photos do not have a lot of snow in them! We usually start work on the grounds April 1st but the temperatures have been pretty cold since we got home so the melting has stopped! We have been pretty busy since getting back; unpacking, working on taxes and getting all of our mail sorted out! Now that we are home we will update the website more often and might throw in a couple more shots of our trip to warm you up! Hope that your winters have been going well and we hope to see you this summer!

We have been seen some new info on crib safety and we are afraid that our cribs no longer comply. We do not get enough use from them to justify replacing them so have taken them off our web site contact page. There is a local baby equipment rental place that has them if you need one (see our FYI page). We are sorry if this causes any inconvenience but we are sure that you would want the safest equipment for your baby!

11/17/07 - We are now taking reservations for 2008! Please look at our availability page to see if we have a cottage that will work for you! We are still sorting out some of our regulars and reunions so some of the holds could open up. Let us know what you want and we will see what you can do for you!!

We have had a great fall for wildlife and the leaves peaked the last few weeks of the season! We started seeing the pair of bald eagles in the fall. Mostly on the little pond just down the road but several times on the trees along the sides of our cove. We saw single eagles a number of times on our cove and watched them pull fish out of the ocean! We also saw some dolphins and a young eagle in a nest just up the coast when we were out kayaking. We saw the young deer and a big buck on our place throughout the summer.

There were a record number of cruise ships in this year! They clogged up the town a little but they also brought in enough business that most of the shops in town to stayed open until the end of November! Most of the passengers took buss tours and shopped in town. The trails stayed pretty empty so it is still our favorite time for hiking!

Have a GREAT winter and we hope to see you next year!!

9/18/07 - Well, we just spoke with the town water company and they plan to keep the water on until October 20th so we can open up the cottages for another week! The week of October 13 - 20 is now open and the rates are $100 less than our special October rates! The foliage should still be good at that time and of course most of the shops in Bar Harbor have end of season sales! The cruise ships usually continue stopping through the end of the month so there are usually plenty of shops still open.

In the second photo of the month you can see a cruise ship partially hidden by Bar Island. We have a 12 foot tide here and at low tide, you can hike out to the island. In the photo you can see the path you walk on, just be sure and get back across before the tide comes back in!! There is a trail on the island that gives you a nice view across the water of Bar Harbor town.

We have had a pretty warm fall up until this week! Nights are now dropping into the 40's and occasionally the 30's and the days are up in the mid 60's to 70's. You will find links to a weather page and foliage report on our FYI page if you want to keep up on how things are going. We did have a spell of hot weather just a week ago so don't be surprised if we get a touch of summer during your visit (days can pop up unto the 80's occasionally this time of year).

We just added another kayak to our fleet. We have some kayaks that we rent out to our guests for use in our cove. Our rowboats are free to use and many of our guests bring their own kayaks. If you don't want to haul your own up we have several one and two person kayaks.

8/18/07 - I didn't think that we had too much going on last month but managed to find a few photos to show you all! We had several cancelations so we have opened up several weeks for daily rentals. Please check our availability chart if you want to pop up for a couple of days!!

We did get a visit from an old high school classmate and his family! Their visit allowed us to get out a bit!! We hiked up the north face of Cadilac Mt. and watched the fog roll in over some of the islands just off Bar Harbor. There were tons of blueberries on the Mt.. and we picked some for desert. The hike was beautiful and not too difficult but since the shuttle bus does not go up Cadilac you have to hike back down or arrange to leave a car at the top. Some of our guests managed to find a tour bus at the top and paid for a ride down the mountain!! We also went out on kayaks and saw a Bald Eagle's nest that had a young eagle watching us from the branches next to the nest. It still does not have a white head and tail so it will be hanging around for a while longer. While we were out cruising around a couple of dolphins passed by us. I was trying to get a good shot from a rocking kayak and wanted to make sure that I didn't get my camera wet, so it is not my best work!!

We finally put a queen sized bed into Bay View's master bedroom!! Now all of the cottages have a queen or King in the master bedroom. I have updated the website with the information but have not had a chance to take new photos of the cottage. The queen is now in the front bedroom and the twins are in the back.

We still have openings this fall so check our availability page and see if we have a cottage and week that will work for you!

7/8/07 - Last month was a busy one for us!! We hosted a reunion for my Mother's side of the family. We had up to 85 people here at once and had 4 generations present. My parents started our family reunions here in 1975 when we had only two generations present. This year we had 4 generations present! We kept busy all week and had family in the week before and after so we were able to get a lot of visiting in.

We had some great wildlife sightings during the reunion. It started when a young porcupine wandered through the cottages and climbed up a tree by our dock. Then, on a hike around Jordan Pond, a beaver walked between some of the cousins and cut down a little bush, then dragged it back through them to the pond! Talk about your close encounters!! We also saw seals, Bald Eagles, deer, snapping turtles and more.

One thing that we do every year is to go tubing at Blue Hill Falls. There is a reversing falls there that goes under a bridge into an inland lake. We jump off the bridge or take inner tubes down through the waves. I got to play safety swimmer again and helped pull the inner tubes out of the current. I think that it is about time we got someone younger to spend over a hour in the water chasing inner tubes around!!

We also have some good news and bad news for those visiting this summer. It seams that many of the Peregrine falcons nests did not produce viable eggs this spring so the park has started to open up some of the trails that are normally closed this time of year. They have already opened the Jordan Cliffs trial and trails on Flying Mountain. The Precipice trail may open as well once the repairs are completed from the damage caused by the earthquake we experienced last fall. We hope that the birds recovery is not slowed down too much by this setback. It is still a thrill to see an Eagle, Osprey or Falcon fly over head and if you are lucky enough to see them in action that is amazing!! Lately we have been seeing the Bald Eagles fighting off bunches of crows!! We have seen the Eagles flip upside-down in flight to fight the crows with their talons!!

We will likely post some more photos we took during our reunion next month. Maybe some from our other activities and some more wildlife shots!! We hope you all are enjoying your summer?!! We are!!

6/11/07 - Well, we kind of have a wildlife theme going this month!! We have been seeing the seal almost every other day in our cove and the Bald Eagle just as often on the pond just up the road. We have also seen the Bald Eagle flying over our cove several times a week. We spotted the Osprey just as it came in to land on the top of the tree. We tried to zoom in as close as possible but we need a bigger lens (if I keep on saying that maybe Julie will let me get one ...?!). The Crows seem to like to harass the Eagles and we have seen them dive bombing the Eagle. They come very close at times but the Eagle is usually very stoic and just leans a little bit to get out of the way if necessary!!

The weather here has been great and for the 5th year in a row the black flies never got very bad!! Temps are bouncing all over the place like usual so, if you are heading up here be prepared for anything. Just about everything is open now and the free shuttle buss will start up on June 23rd. Please see our FYI pager for links to their web sites.

We learned that the late storms we had in April destroyed a number of Eagle Nests and the high winds actually blew the Eagles off their nests!! You can find a story about the damage at: http://bangordailynews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=150037&zoneid=500 The Falcons were also affected but the park service said that they may lay another set of eggs so the usual trails are still closed.

We will be hosting a family reunion the last week of June with 85 relatives expected to attend!! I may be a little late with my update next month since I may need a week or two to recover from the gang!! I will still be checking our email every day but we may be out doing things during the day and night so please be patient if you leave a message for us. We will get back to you ASAP!!

5/13/07 - We were hit by a pretty big storm the middle of April that washed away just about all of the snow! We took a drive into the park to see the waves crashing against the shore. It turned out that the wind was blowing the wrong way and the swells did not reach the 20 foot heights that were expected. Still, they were pretty big and Thunder Hole was booming! A little further down the road the spray from the waves was coming up over the road and the cars driving on the road. We got some shots of the cars in front of us but they can't show the car shaking as the spray hit us. Julie and I had our niece with us and she thought it was great fun!!

The storm was accompanied by the highest tides of the year and hit us from the north. That brought the waves right into our cove and it smashed our float against the shore. We spent about a week repairing the damage to the float! We basically had to take it apart and put it back together again! That job is finished and it is back in the water again!! There were only a few burst pipes so opening went fairly smoothly. The cleaning ladies are finishing up the last of the cottages now so we will be ready for the big memorial day rush (we only have two cottages left for that weekend!).

Since the storm the weather has been great! We even had a few days with temps in the high 70's and low 80's. We have a few guests in already and the season is off to a great start! We have opened up a couple of weeks for daily rentals so check our availability page if you want to pop up for a couple of days. We have seen Bald Eagles almost every other day and even had a palliated woodpecker here a couple of days last week.

4/5/07 - Well, we are normally out raking our 5 acres and opening up the cottages but we just had a little snow storm that dropped over a foot of snow on us!! We will still be open The first week of May but now we will have to work extra hard to get things finished! Our peak months of July and August are becoming very full but we do occasionally get cancelations so check out availability chart to see what is available.

As soon as the snow melts we will be working on the cottages most of the time so please contact us by e-mail or if you call us give us the best times to call you back that day or the next if we don't get in until late in the evening. You can call as late a 10 pm if you want to talk to us. We will get back to you but it might not be until the next day depending on the times you give us to call you back.

The papers say that a few of the trails have been closed already because the falcon's have returned to nest. They will not open up again until either the young falcon's leave the nest or it is determined that there are no viable eggs in the nest. The barriers on the park loop road were removed last week as the park got ready to open it for the summer ... I guess that the foot of snow we just got will close that up again!! We will try and get out to take some photos with the snow. We tried today at noon but many of the roads have still not been plowed and there is no place to park.

We have heard from some of our regulars that they have been hit by this storm from New York state on up so we are not alone! We hope that you all stay warm and spring gets to you pretty soon!!

2/3/07 - Sorry that we haven't updated in awhile! This winter has been very strange! The temps have been very warm and there has been very little snow! The temps dropped below freezing a couple of weeks ago and have finally stayed there! But now we need some snow to go with the cold weather! We have not been taking many photos because of this, without the snow the photos just show bare trees and rocks. As you can see we did get a little snow but it was followed by some rain that made everything icy. We got an inch of snow on top of that and that made everything real slippery. We went out for a hike along the park loop road a few days ago. We started just before Otter Cliffs and went to the Causeway. We both put strap-on spikes on our boots to stop from sliding off the road! We saw the Bald Eagle just as we were getting ready to turn around. Once we got to the causeway we stopped for some hot chocolate on the cooping stones and headed back.

Next Summer is filling in nicely so grab a place while you can! We usually check email twice a day so can get back to you within 24 hours. If you call and we are out please let us know how late we can call back that evening or the next day. If you don't get a response please try again! We have had some calls where we could not understand the phone number so we could not call back. Some emails have been mistyped so we could not respond or your spam filter might reject our response.

For those of you who like to visit in the fall, Bar Harbor has been hit by several earthquakes since last October. The quakes caused some rock slides that damaged the Precipice Trail. The rangers have not been able to tell us when it will be fixed. If it was not finished in the fall they will not be able to resume work until August when the falcons leave. It may be awhile before it is opened up again! You can see some photos of the damage and read about the quake on the Acadia National Park site at:

http://www.nps.gov/acad/photosmultimedia/earthquakephotos.htm

There is also a link for trail closures there that gives some more information:

https://cms.ner.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/temporaryclosures.htm

We have had some aftershocks after the first quake but do not know if they added to the damage. We felt the quake but did not sustain any damage at our place. We did have some relatives visiting and had planned on taking them up the precipice the day after the quake (I do think they were relieved!).
Enjoy the rest of your winter and if you have lots of snow please send some our way! We just got a couple more inches of snow so hopefully we will get out before it melts off. If we do we will snap some more photos. If not we may have to resort to reusing some old winter photos!

OLDER POSTS THAT MAY INTEREST YOU:

11/5/06 - Well, another year has come to an end! Now the real work starts! We have drained the pipes, pulled up the dock, winterized everything and ... oh yea ... started taking new reservations for 2007!! So, if you would like to join us next year drop us a line and we will see what we can do for you!

We hosted a mini reunion for some of Julie's cousins and an Aunt and Uncle the first week of October! That gave us a chance to get out and explore some new things in the area. We took a ride out to Scoodic Point which is on a peninsula just up the coast from Mount Desert Island (the island we are located on). There is another part of the part on there that we took Julie's gang to see. While we were out there we stops in at two places on the same peninsula. The first was US Bells where we watched them pour some brass bells and coat hooks! They use sand casting and the process was very interesting to watch! You can check them out at:

http://www.usbells.com

The second place we went to is the Bartlett Winery. We made arrangements for some tasting there and picked up a number of bottles to drink during the rest of the reunion! We have a number of our regular guests who stop by and pick up some bottles every time they stay with us so we decided to check it out! You can check them out at:

http://www.bartlettwinery.com/

Of course we had to show Julie's cousins some foliage and the park! There were some very nice colors under the Duck Brook Bridge just a few minutes from Bar Harbor. Some of Julie's younger cousins were exploring under the bridge so we had them take a shot of us there by the brook. They found a baby snapping turtle in the brook that could easily fit in my palm!

We were hit by one of the largest earth quakes in recent years while they were visiting and they all were amazed that we had them up here! Then, the week after they got home Hawaii was hit by one that was much larger than the one they experienced here!!

Not to be out done, we were hit by a little winter storm about a week ago! The winds got up into the 60 mph range and some parts of the state recorded 70 mph gusts! That didn't bother us too much but the utility poles coming on to the island were blown over and ended up lying across the bridge. We were heading off the island to visit some friends and just made it out before they shut down the bridge completely for 5 - 6 hours while they put the poles back up! The island was without power for most of the day and some remote areas did not get power back for several days! Just a little excitement to keep everyone on their toes!! We hope you all enjoy your winter and that we see you up here next summer!!

5/2/06 - Well, the count down begins! We are back from visiting family and friends in Hawaii and will open the cottages in less than two weeks so we are scrambling around trying to get everything finished before then! If you drop us a line or give us a call please be patient and we will get back to you as soon as possible! We check e-mail every morning and in the evening when we get back from working on the cottages. If you call please leave an evening number in case we get back late.

Those of you who have visited the area will see quite a few changes.
1. The construction on Route 1A is finished and there are now four passing lanes traveling each direction (they added two passing lanes for people traveling west) and took out a lot of the curves and smoothed out the hills.
2. They are currently paving Route 1A from East Holden too the passing lanes. They have been at it for over a week already and seem to be putting two layers of new tar down.
3. The "widening" on I95 is finished and there are three lanes from the state line all the way up to Portland where I295 branches off.
4. There is a new exit off I95 that will get you to Route 1/3 without going through Augusta.
5. The Verona Bridge along route 1/3 is being replaced so you can expect some delays until that is finished. You can find some information on the Maine Dept. of Transportation site at:

http://www.511maine.com/default.asp?display=construction&area=ME_BarHarbor&date=&textOnly=False

Our reservations are a little strange this year ... summer and fall look good but this spring is a little slow. Bad news for us means good news for you!! We have extended our May rates a week and extended the off season rates until June 24th. Anyone who has already booked a week will get the new lower rates as well! You will see the new rates on our availability chart

We have seen a Bald Eagle sitting by the pond just up the road as well as flying over our place. I saw one feeding in our cove one morning as I was walking around the cottages. Once we open we should have some more time to hit the trails again and will get some new trail photos up. Well, got to hit the sack so we can get back to work on the cottages tomorrow!

8/22/04 - Things have slowed down some and we are catching up on things. You will find a new set of downloadable directions in the download section of our FYI page. It gives mile makers, distances and exit numbers as well as a few photos to help you find your way up here from the Maine/New Hampshire state line.

5/26/04 - The exit numbers have been changed on most of the Maine Turnpike and I95. They did place small signs on the new signs that give the old exit numbers as well. You may want to pick up a new map before you head up this way if you plan on stopping along the way up. The exit numbers now match the mile markers so the exit off I95 heading down to Bar Harbor is now exit 182A which is 182 miles from the Maine state line.

10/01/02 - Change of address - The town of Bar Harbor has assigned us a new address, please note:

Woodland Park Cottages
3 Woodland Loop
Bar Harbor, ME 04609

http://www.woodlandparkcottages.com

e-mail: paul@woodlandparkcottages.com

Woodland Park Cottages, 3 Woodland Loop, Bar Harbor, ME 04609; (207)288-4016
copyright Paul Mun 1998