Bar Harbor, Day #2

The Opera House internet cafe in Bar Harbor, Maine. (Click any image in this blog entry for larger version in new window.)
The Opera House internet cafe in Bar Harbor, Maine. (Click any image in this blog entry for larger version in new window.)
 I ate breakfast this morning at a place called Two Cats, which those who know me will find most amusing.View from the dock at the bottom of Main Street in Bar Harbor. Note cruise ship in the distance.Surf breaking on the rocks at Otter Cove in Acadia National Park.My fold-out chair at Otter Cove. This is where I read The True Meaning of Smekday (shown in chair) today.
Footbridges like this span the park loop road that winds through Acadia National Park. Main Street, Bar Harbor at night. Alternate view of Main Street, Bar Harbor at night, featuring the lobster in front of Ben & Bill's ice cream shop.Interior of the Opera House internet cafe in Bar Harbor.

Just when I thought Bar Harbor couldn’t get any better, I discovered the Opera House internet cafe, whence I am now blogging. My day began with breakfast at a decidedly hippy coffee house/inn called Two Cats. Then an hour or so reading (which always involves the fold-out chair when done outdoors) on the dock at the terminus of Main Street where cruise ships, tugboats, john boats, lobster boats and other boats (even a four-masted sailing ship with all its sails furled) bobbed among puffy islands across the bay.

After a rather disappointing lunch (Avoid restaurants with the big, flashy signs, folks. They’ve put all their money into marketing.), I drove down Highway 3 to Otter Cove in Acadia National Park. There I sat for hours, half reading and half watching waves blast the rocks below.

The sun was down by the time I’d driven the short distance from Otter Cove back to Bar Harbor, eaten a salmon filet at Rupunini and strolled on to the Opera House. Yes, Internet access at the Opera House costs $10/hour. So what? It’s a quasi-honor system anyway and the only music they play is opera! All Internet cafes should play only opera and there should be a licensing board empowered to enforce this requirement.

The Opera House decor is early Ivy League frat house, heavily influenced by the National Park Cabin school of design. Old desks and chairs, some upholstered. Dozens of computer stations of various ages and capacities. Rugs on the parquet floor and exposed beams above tacky little lamps and walls crammed with framed everything frameable. And the Opera House serves espresso in little paper cups, which is one more reason that my love for this place is almost more than I can bear.

Owing to Otter Cove, the Opera House, the Villager Motel, Two Cats and two straight days of clement weather, Bar Harbor is now my preferred long-range adventure destination on the Eastern Seaboard. So I’ve decided to stay here all week.