Acadia!

December 01, 2016

Acadia National Park

We've had Acadia Nat'l Park on our radar for some time now.  Many years ago, when we were first married, we made a trip out to the maritime provinces of Canada, following the Saint Lawrence Seaway out through Quebec to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Isle.  When we finally pointed the car west again we realized that we had only a few days to get back for a friends wedding, and we were now 1600 miles from home.  So we hot-footed it back home which allowed for only a cursory look at Maine at around 70 miles per hour.

Most of our vacations have involved western trips to Wyoming, or Colorado or similar locales.  So while friends have told us how much they liked Acadia, we had never gone that direction again.  Well, now that we're on wheels, we decided that our first major destination should be Acadia.

We knew a bit about the park - how it came into being with large donations of land from John D. Rockefeller Jr. and that there are biking/hiking roads throughout the park, but really didn't have a good picture in mind when we went there, nor did we have a good idea of what all we would do.  So here's a summary of our time there.  Basically, there is spectacular shoreline scenery, "mountains" (hills if you're from the west) that you can climb, shopping, lobstering, and carriage roads for walking, biking, or horseback.

The shoreline scenery is hard to beat.  Here's a typical picture, but we found ourselves taking a lot of pics that look a lot like this in a lot of different places.

There are mountains.  Hills really, because they are 600 or 900 feet above sea level.  But they make for some good hiking and great views.  The trails that were developed here are often much steeper than the western trails that we are used to.  Here, if they wanted to go up the side of a mountain, they just did, no matter how steep the trail got.  But as we are always near to sea level, we are not dealing with thin air or snow or any real severe conditions.

Shopping.  Not my thing, but Jane likes to do it for entertainment.  The town of Bar Harbor is practically within the park and has some of the trendier shopping.
Lobster.  Now that IS my thing.  We just usually don't spend that kind of money, but it's much more reasonable right here where they catch it.  And you can watch them working the lobster traps all over the place.  Or watch the boat come in and unload.  And everywhere you go, it seems there is another lobster place.  Like this:

 
Carriage Roads.  Acadia has these roads which were built in the 1930s for horse drawn carriages.  They go up and down and around all the hills (mountains) and criss cross the park.  Now most people bicycle on them (no cars allowed) and very quickly you are away from highways and noise and from most other people.  While these were made for carriages, they still can be quite steep and strenuous.  

Overall, I'd say that Acadia lived up to its hype.  And the first week of October, which is when we were there, is a pretty good time to go.  The crowds are gone, the leaves are turning color, and the air is starting to get crisp at night.  Most days that we hiked the temperature was in the mid 60s, which is pretty much ideal.  Acadia now has a new section of the park, which was recently added, called the Schoodic peninsula.  It's about a 45 minute drive away and so we took one day and explored that new area.  I'll write some thoughts on that next.

Steve

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2 comments

  1. We lived in New England for 25 years but sadly never made it to Acadia. Now thanks to your photos and description it's on our list too. Thanks for the helpful post, Steve.

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  2. We were there this summer & ended up staying two extra weeks - ended up camping at Bass Harbor at Bass Harbor and used the bus a lot. We considered this location one of the best places on our six month RV trip. Wish we'd blogged about this place as nicely as you just did!

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