Acadia National Park

Along with Vermont, Maine was one of our favorite stops, particularly Acadia National Park and the surrounding area of Bar Harbor. I must say, however, that I was taken aback by the sheer numbers of people visiting Acadia. At first it seemed more like an amusement park than a national park, with lines of people on the trails and overflowing parking lots. Clearly August was peak season, and we soon figured out that middle of the day was peak time for all the day trippers. So instead of trying to enjoy a trail with a million other people, we decided to just first get a feel for the park by driving the loop and stopping to check out some of the sites, such as this beach. It's a very beautiful strip of sand with lovely turquoise water sheltered in a rocky cove but as I'm so clearly demonstrating in this photo, it's not all that well-placed...it's just a bit too cold that far north for swimming.


In this picture of Jeff, you can see the beach in the background, and way across the way you can kind of make out a bunch of birch trees. Along with pine, Acadia is home to many birches, which I find to be particularly beautiful with their tall, thin, white trunks. We took some pictures of the birches but none really do them justice, so you'll just have to go see for yourself.


After completing our loop, we headed into Bar Harbor for lunch and to spend the afternoon wandering around. We found a couple of good places to eat, including Lompoc Cafe, which is very casual and cool with paper mache animal sculptures and a bocci court, Gringo's, which does a variety of burritos, and Morning Glory Cafe, where it was nearly impossible to choose a dessert although we were able to decide on a chocolate peanut butter bar, a chocolate chip cookie, and blueberry pie on our multiple visits. Mmmm.

Like Acadia, Bar Harbor was busy, but it was a pleasant town to walk around.


Camping was the name of the game again, so we set up our tent before heading down to the less explored section to Acadia, the western peninsula of Mt. Desert Island. We first stopped in Somesville to check out this bridge, which reminds me of one Monet might have painted.



We then headed down to Wonderland beach to check out the tide pools since it was low tide. There were many pools, but not much in them besides zillions of snails. I was hoping to find a starfish or other such sea creature but no luck. We did find lots of neat rocks though.






From Wonderland (great name, huh?) it was on to Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse right at sunset. The lighthouse itself wasn't that impressive, but the sunset was a cotton candy pink and purple, and we spotted two porpoises and two seals right off shore (despite the park ranger at our campsite saying there was very little chance of seeing any large sea life unless we went out in a boat).




Before bed (and a campfire for smores) we did see a little more sealife...on our plates. What's a trip to Maine without some lobster? Neither Jeff nor I had ever had a whole lobster before so we went for it. Can't say I'll be going for it again. The claw meat and the tail meat was good (but not all that fabulous in my opinion), but we made the mistake of taking the mallet to the center of the shell and looking at the insides where the green gunk from the excretory system made both of us immediately lose our appetites. I'm still shuddering thinking of it.


On day two, we woke up early (is it possible to sleep in while camping?) and had what seemed like the entire park to ourselves. It was glorious. Absolute serenity. So we took advantage and hiked the popular BeeHive Trail, which involves climbing up steel rungs on exposed cliffs. Pretty awesome.


The view from the top, which was ours alone, wasn't bad either. In many ways, the scenery reminded both Jeff and I of the San Juan Islands.


Turning the hike into a longer one that filled our entire morning, we connected to two other trails, which were also deserted, before summiting (via car) the overly popular Mt. Cadillac and then leaving Acadia behind as we proceeded down the Maine coast.