Acadia!

It seems to be past time for the Acadia update, and more importantly, pictures! Two weekends ago (August 9-11; ) we ventured from home base in Dover, NH up to Mount Desert Island on the Maine coast, about a 4 hour trip north. Our destination: Acadia National Park.

We arrived Thursday evening, having left after work. We quickly packed the car and made the venture up with no stops in order to arrive there on time (10 pm; we made it to the minute on time). Once we arrived at Blackwoods Campground, we quickly set up tent with aid of headlamp and flashlights, and settled in to sleep for the fun weekend ahead.

On Friday morning, we woke up and got our first site of the campground. After having camped there, we would certainly recommend it. In spite of the campground being filled to capacity the weekend we were there, it was extremely quiet and the sites were nice, clean, and all tucked in between the trees and woods, and in a fantastically convenient location to great hikes, bikes, and the ocean!


After breakfast, we decided to familiarize ourselves with the area a bit by taking a short walk from the campground on the "Ocean Path" which conveniently enough led to...dun dun dun...the ocean! Acadia is a beautiful location and so unique from any other place we've been before. It is still difficult to believe how different Acadia is from Seacoast, NH and much of Maine, despite being relatively close. For one, it was extremely foggy and at least 15 degrees cooler in Acadia than home (confirmed by both the weather channel and lab mate witnesses).


After the ocean, we saddled up with water and maps for some hiking. We decided on the Bee Hive Trail, allegedly one of the most popular hikes in the park. Short, but steep, the trail climbs to the 520' high top of a beehive-shaped dome, with some sections that require climbing on iron rungs and scrambling up rocks. The views were great, with spectacular vistas of Sand Beach and Great Head Peninsula. Once to the top, we took the Bowl Trail and part of the Gorham Mountain Trail back to the bottom.






Once to the bottom, we ventured over to Sand Beach and dipped our feet in the chilly Maine waters.

We then set out to take a peek at Thunder Hole, an area where the rock has been eroded and formed a crevice where the waves cause a booming noise when the water hits it just right. Though we did not hear any big booms (likely due to low tide), we did get to check it out and explore the tide pools.




We proceeded with our day by returning to camp for lunch and then taking the free Island Explorer bus to Bar Harbor to explore the town. Among our activities in Bar Harbor, we walked to Bar Island on the sandbar during low tide. There is a roughly three hour window (90 min before and after low tide) where the island is accessible, so we took advantage of it, and from Bar Island, we got great views of Frenchman Bay and the Porcupine Islands with the fog forming over them.

We sampled one of Bar Harbor's oldest icecream shops. In addition, we walked the Shore Path along Frenchman Bay, after first stopping in at the Terrace Grill at the Bar Harbor Inn for a mojito and lemon drop.

We returned to camp for a dinner and enjoyed the the dark stillness,crackling campfires, and quiet conversations happening throughout the campsite. We awoke the following day (Saturday) to extremely foggy weather! We started the day by a trip up Cadillac Mountain (by car, sadly). We will definitely climb it on our next visit, but as you can see, we didn't miss too many vistas by not hiking it. We never did see the view from the top of Cadillac but the fog was a spectacle in itself.
After Cadillac Mountain, we hiked on the Bubble Rock Trail up to Bubble Rock, a famous glacial erratic, perched seemingly precariously on top of South Bubble.


We headed back for a quick lunch and then to Bar Harbor, as our plan was to go whale-watching off the coast. As it turned out, no tours were leaving from Bar Harbor that day due to the immense amount of fog. Instead, we returned to camp, grabbed our bikes and went biking on the carriage trails around Jordan Pond and Eagle Lake.

(In red is an attempt to highlight our bike route)



After a beautiful bike, we ended up at the Jordan Pond House, just in time for afternoon tea! The specialty: popovers! We could definitely see why they are the specialty.


We stopped by Seal Harbor and beach-combed for a while...




And then back to Bar Harbor for an evening out on the town. Our first stop was the College of the Atlantic, a beautiful small campus right on the water.





And then it was time for dinner. After walking up and down the streets a few times, we found an awesome, hip, funky restaurant called Cafe This Way where after a decent (and well-worth-it) wait, we savored an unbelievably delicious celebratory meal.



The following morning, we woke up to rain and were told that the rest of the day would continue to be rainy so we took down our tent and packed up to check out. We took several detours along the way, including a drive to Northeast Harbor to look at numerous fancy-shmancy boats (lots of Hinckleys!) and then a stop in Freeport to check out the L.L.Bean flagship store.

Acadia National Park was a fantastic vacation and trip away from New Hampshire and we hope to return again soon and climb some more mountains and bike some more trails! We'd love you to join and explore with us, too!