How do you make a 3 hour car ride home with little kids feel longer?…stop along the way for another 3 hours. Sounds like a terrible idea on paper but we didn’t plan it that way and sometimes those are the best memories. We wouldn’t have mapped out a layover as long as the ride but, it just worked out that way and in the end it was a wonderful way to wrap up another Maine staycation. Where did we go and where did we stop?

It was a fun family fall weekend in the Bar Harbor region with day visits to Acadia National Park last October. Our stop on the way home might be Maine’s best 2 for 1 deal…Fort Knox and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory. Now that we’ve hit all of the Maine State Parks in the last 4 years, we figured we’d chip away at many of the historic locations and public lands. Given all of the time we spend Downeast on these trips, this roadside attraction has been on our list before we had a list. Like many who don’t live in the area, you just drive through. Same thing would happen to us every time we started to drive over the bridge, we’d say “How have we not planned a visit here yet?” Well we are telling you now, make time to stop! 

Our crew rolled in a bit tired and with zero expectations, mainly because we were only 50/50 on stopping about an hour before leaving Bar Harbor. It worked out timing wise and it was a beautiful crisp fall day. One of those days where you take your jacket off in the sun but need a winter hat in the shade. Based mostly out of curiosity, we made a beeline for the observatory to see what we could see. After a short elevator ride to the top you may as well put the camera away because unless you are flying a drone you can’t capture the view. There is a lot of great information on site about how tall it is, like it’s “the tallest public bridge observatory in the world.”

The staff was so knowledgeable and friendly. For the kids, there is enough to look at and that kept them quiet, and for us adults it was wild to look back toward Cadillac Mt. in the distance and think back on the sunrise we just witnessed there early in the morning. 

Because of Covid, we had the sights to ourselves and because of Covid we couldn’t stay too long so others could get a piece of the pie. With kiddos, it was more than enough time and to be honest it was already worth the stop after 15 minutes in the tower. After that, Fort Knox could have been made of a couple bed sheets and a few pillows and we wouldn’t have cared…but it wasn’t. The gift shop is a must stop and it is impossible to spend less than $30. Once we were geared up in the right mindset, we reported for duty inside the Fort. 

As always, we don’t pretend to be historians but you don’t need a degree to realize you are on holy ground here. The pamphlet we scored labeled this place as the “Protector of the Penobscot.” Walking through and looking out on the water, I’d hate to be a ship trying to sneak by. No, there isn’t any gold here that we saw, like the other Fort Knox, but the staff must treat it with the same value because the property is in pristine condition. It wasn’t until recently that we learned both forts are in fact named after one of Maine’s most famous transplants, Henry Knox!

The history of this fort is pretty wonderful and well documented so we will tell you more about the grounds. It’s a dream birthday party location for all ages! Why? One million picnic tables and as much grass and trees that you’d ever need for entertainment. We didn’t plan to have lunch here but we had a little bit of everything left over in our cooler from the weekend so why not? It certainly beats a Subway sandwich in a parking lot. There are bathrooms galore, even temporary bathrooms while work was being done on the regular ones.

We laughed, walked, ate, peed, blinked and 3 hours passed. Without trying, time flew by and none of us wanted to jump back in the car for the second act. The property here is immaculate and deserves an afternoon, no matter the season. Though it appears they are only open from May-October. We are slightly embarrassed that for the last 4 years we have been traveling to all these state parks and we have driven by this location on several occasions. Never again, because this will be our lunch stopover from now on. Maybe we won’t go to the observatory and inside the fort each time but most certainly a picnic in the park. If you’ve been before, we recognize we are preaching to the choir but if you haven’t, you should either build it into your next trip to the area or make it the trip. 

The popular but controversial Ruby rating scale will be retired with the state parks but we still plan to write about our visits to Maine’s historic sites and public lands! Thank you all for following along over the years and we look forward to this new but similar chapter. Just getting outside as family and trying to take in as much of Maine as we can.