Acadia National Park, ME

I have decided to mix things up a bit and being influenced by the book a friend gave me for Christmas, Dear Bob and Sue by Matt and Karen Smith, who write about their travels to 58 National Parks, AND being well behind blogging about our Fall tour of northeastern Canada and the US, I will jump out of sequence and just blog on…

Blurry due to car window camera shooting.

Early October 2018-Acadia National Park is on the northeast coast of Maine. It was always on my bucket list and pretty much on our path so we made the stop.  It is a beautiful park, not terribly hard to get to but a very popular, very crowded destination.  We had reservations at the Acadia Inn (no fooling around trying for the seat-of-your-pants destination). It was very comfortable, breakfast included, snacks in the afternoon-including hot cider and coffee/tea 24/7, play area for kids, smore’s and some other entertainments.

It was a short drive into the park, and we learned that while we wanted to see it all, maybe take a few hikes, we could, but the biggest lesson we learned was…get there early as parking is at a premium and tours dump their passengers off and everyplace is crowded.  The nearest town is Bar Harbor, once (maybe still is) the home of wealthy folk from the bigger cities down the coast-a playground if you will on the ocean which is also here known for sailing and fishing  It’s a great town to poke around in and has all the touristy and non touristy items for sale.  Bar Harbor will be another blog…I promise.

So, Acadia is well worth the visit and because it was October on the coast of Maine, often drizzly to rainy, but we were prepared.

People stopped everywhere to catch a bit of fall color.  We determined we were not, absolutely NOT “peepers.” But that’s what folk were stopping to see..leaf color! I thought it had passed, but it was just getting going.  Oh and those are rose hips, we saw HUGE ones and they are beautiful.  All of the nature here was. Okay, we found a sort of used path away from other folks crowding to see the line of color in the distance, so we had a chance to make a nice selfie.  Some guy followed us, but didn’t get in our way. This is what I think of as Acadia…natural down all the way down to the coast.

There is a spot, way at the top of Cadillac mountain that everyone goes to for an almost 360 degree view.  We went too, but couldn’t stop as there was no parking and getting out in the middle of the road is dangerous, rude and well…just shouldn’t be done. We were polite, and cruised slowly to see it all. When we were sure there were no folks trying to pass, or cross, we did stop for a quick look and understand perfectly how magnificent it all is. We appreciated it and have good memory.  But we learned a valuable lesson…get out and go to where you want to go EARLY, no later than 9 am, maybe 10 if you’re hiking in, but if you have to park..and enjoy what you can see. I know, I am repeating myself, but the trip up the mountain reinforced that lesson.

Here’s some photos from Sand Beach. We went 3/4 of the way down, not all the way, I was getting the cold thing from all the wet…typical me, so Himself took the camera and set off for a few more views; the photos came out amazingly well…hard not to be.

JORDAN’S POND  a 3.4 mile circle hike and although Wiki says “lightly” traveled. As the morning went on, got more crowded, but everyone friendly, nice and willing to wait for those who don’t scramble as fast over the boulders, or got off into the mud (yay, didn’t see snakes-too cold) while crossing over the plank walks. You could start either the west or the east side. I think we started on the easy side before boulders and planks.

This visit was where we employed our lesson of getting going. We had seen huge tour buses the day before and too many people trying to see it all,  so we got a great parking spot allowable on the side of the road, not in the circle lot. We got out, poked around and decided we would take the hike around the “pond,” but that was before I decided I needed another layer, mittens and headband.  Plenty of parking still and it was 10 am. We were pleased with ourselves.

Jordan’s Pond is swimable in the summer but as you can see, foggy on our day and a bit chilly.  Layers was the way to go and off we went. This was different for me…walking through water, hiking over boulders, a bridge and over stones with water crossing.

I was so pleased with myself when we finished, (mostly because we didn’t pay attention to how long the hike really was until we were finished) and was ready for a lunch. The sun was out and people were relaxing in the Adirondack chairs spread around the huge lawn area as we headed to the lodge restaurant. Drat, we thought we had beaten the crowd. NOPE! an hour wait. We headed back to the car and pulled out our water, snacks and other edibles and enjoyed a great picnic sitting in the open trunk.

This is what you find in grocery stores in Bar Harbor.  Not a very lobstery taste, but definitely fun for the try.

By the time we had gotten back to our car, the parking lot was full, people were circling for spots, people were STOPPING in the middle of the lot road hoping for a spot. (Now that’s just rude, builds a line and seriously? no way to get around.) We were asked three times if we were going to leave soon, this with the obvious: us enjoying our lunch and watching people go by.  Had anyone offered us a bit of money, we might have considered it. Nope, wasn’t going to give up our spot, there was no time limit, so we took full advantage. Once done with lunch, we walked around some more of the area, spotted bicyclists, wagon drawn rides and some old buildings. Finally we left after a really, really good day!