Lobstah Like No Othah!

After thorough amounts of leaf peeping in New Hampshire, it was time to head north to Maine and Acadia National Park for more leaf peeping, hiking, and seafood dining.

It all started with lunch in Augusta, at a little local spot called the Red Barn. For $10 you can get one of these:

Look at all that lobstah! Heaped onto a Texas toast bun with lettuce and a tartar-mayonnaise sauce. Ryan and I couldn’t believe how delicious that crustacean was, and it certainly boded well for our dinner that night…

We drove up to meet some cousins of mine at their lake retreat known lovingly as “camp” before touring a bit around Acadia (they served as wonderful tour guides), then heading to what’s known as a Lobster Pound. At this type of restaurant establishment, they have the catch of lobsters from the day swimming jauntily around some tanks waiting casually for you to order them up for dinner, when they then grab the lobsters out of the tank and plunk them right into one of the steaming, boiling pots before being delivered to your table five minutes later. So this little guy was alive just a few minutes before he showed up in front of me:

And he was delicious. Ryan and I have never experienced lobstah like that – so sweet, so tender and so fresh. But of course the thing with Maine lobstah is you have to dissect it and dig out the meat yourself, which can be quite intimidating if you’ve never tackled a whole lobstah before. Luckily, we had my cousin there who is seasoned in all things lobstah and he showed us these easy steps to enjoy the meaty insides of your hard-shelled new-found friend:

• Step 1:  Twist off front legs with claws from the body and crack the shells open for claw and arm meat.
• Step 2: Twist off the tail from the body segment, which will expose the green, mushy liver (do your best to ignore that part and just scrape it into the dump pile with all the shells). You can eat the liver, my cousin informed us, but both Ryan and I obstained from this practice. You may also find bright orange organs, which means you got a female! Woo hoo! Don’t eat the orange stuff either. Just don’t. 
• Step 3: Place the tail between your palms with your fingers together, like the lobster tail has somehow inserted itself into your evening prayers, then push your palms together to crack the outer shell of the lobster tail.
• Step 4: Once the shell is cracked, pull the shell open from the fleshy underside section, to reveal the thick meat of the tail, the best part of the whole meal.
• Step 5: Locate the vein of the tail, sometimes buried near where the tail would normally connect to the body, (typically around where you scooped out the liver), and pull this out, like you would if you were deveining a shrimp.
• Step 6: After devouring the tail meat, the only other meat left hidden to you are in the little legs of the lobster, which you can attempt to get out by loosening with a pick and then sucking like a straw.
• Step 7: Dissect the body, not because there’s much meat, but because it’s fun! Ok, so this wasn’t really a step my cousin recommended, but Ryan was curious, so he went investigating and found the brain cavity and all sorts of interesting little things. We’re maybe not the best dinner guests.

In any case, my cousin did such a good job of explaining the process to us, we were able to replicate the steps with Ryan’s family a few days later when we ordered lobstah with them. New life skill accomplished!

After our Maine lobstah adventure, it was a full day in Acadia to see the sights of the East’s most visited national park. We started out by biking on a portion of the winding carriage roads of the park, installed by the Roosevelts when they owned the land. The packed gravel roads are too narrow for cars, but are ideal for bikers, hikers, and the carriage rides that are still available through private companies. They wind around hidden lakes and through hills covered in glowing trees, and beautifully constructed bridges take the roads over brooks and streams heading towards the Atlantic. It was not hard to imagine dainty ladies and regal gentlemen covered in furs conversing while their carriages took them from one sprawling manor to another. Rough life.

In the afternoon, Ryan and I hiked “The Precipice” trail, which winds its way up the side of a cliff face, exposing great views of the ocean and the tree covered hills of Acadia. The best part was the technicality of the climb, with bars and railings to help hikers scramble up the rock during the climb. It made for not only great views, but an interesting hike too. There were a couple places where Ryan’s fear of heights made him a little anxious, but overall, we really enjoyed the hike.

Ryan was not crazy about this part...

Afterwards, we headed down to the beach where we hiked to an outer point of the island and admired our second ocean of the trip. We’ve officially been from one coast to the other. Crazy.

And then of course there was sunset that night.

 
Overall, our trip to Acadia was wonderfully memorable. Between the food, the views, the hikes, and the beer (we discovered the Bar Harbor Brewing Company through my cousins), we certainly understood the appeal of the national park, and truly enjoyed our time there. It was over too soon though (like most of the trip), as we headed south again for more adventures, these on the quaint island of Martha’s Vineyard where (as my dad says), the “poh folk live.” Stay tuned!

People from Maine are so funny.