Acadia National Park, Maine

June 16, 2024

The previous few days had been on-again off-again rain, and the trend continued on moving day. Fortunately, our take-down occurred during one of the "off-again" cycles, but as soon as we pulled away it started to drizzle.

Keeping with our New England habit of not driving very long until we hit a new state, Maine came up pretty suddenly after we got on the road.

Is this a passive-aggressive attempt at telling tourists that only the residents are welcome here? 😉

These horses must be part dog

Julie liked riding through the quaint small towns; Rick was not thrilled about towing a trailer through them.

Our first glimpse of the ocean since April

Back where we come from, they don't tear up the entire road all at once when replacing it. (But maybe it's quicker this way.)

Our home for the next week was an RV park on Mount Desert Island, not too far from the entrance to Acadia National Park. Aside from its convenient location, we weren't expecting much from the RV park, and it delivered in spades. Our site did back up onto some greenery, so that was a bonus.

It's an RV park--about what we expected

Acadia is the fifth most-visited national park in the country and, as such, can get quite crowded in the busy season. We did encounter lots of people in certain areas, but early June is not quite "high" season yet, so parking lots filled at around 9am instead of an hour before sunrise. We figured that the weekend would be the most crowded, so we planned most of our "must do" activities for Tuesday-Thursday.

Tuesday was the big day hike around Jordan Pond and up Pemetic Mountain. The morning started out bright and clear, but when we got to the trail parking lot (which thankfully had plenty of open spaces), it looked like a cloud was settling over the mountain we were going to climb. Fortunately, by the time we got to the top, the cloud had more or less moved on.

The trail around Jordan Pond

The two mounded hills in the background are known as "The Bubbles"

Into the woods to begin the climb up Pemetic Mountain

The trail's slope became more serious

And then the trail basically turned into a boulder field

We got a kick out of the sign, "Please stay on trail"

Looks like we need to make a decision here...

...We chose the "Ravine" option, featuring two ladders and piles of rubble to climb!

Not quite at the top yet, but the views were wonderful

The clouds at times looked threatening, but it eventually all cleared up

Almost to the very top

The official peak of Pemetic Mountain

The trek down was continuous views for a good portion of the trail, but the steep slope was hard on our knees after a while

This was a great hike!

When we finally got back down to Jordan Pond, Julie had had her heart set on getting a fresh baked popover at the famous Jordon Pond House Restaurant, because it is the thing to do. Alas, the carryout counter was not yet set up for the summer for making popovers, and the restaurant wait to be seated was over an hour and a half. That was longer than we wanted to wait, so we just wandered around the grounds a while, our dreams crushed.

Pretty setting for the Jordan Pond House Restaurant

Since it had turned out to be such a beautiful day, we weren't ready to head back to the camper just yet (even though we were a bit tired out). So, we drove around the island for a while to see what we could see.

First stop was the Asticou Azalea Gardens

We happened upon a field of lupine outside the national park boundary. This non-native species is considered invasive and is not permitted to grow inside the park.

Driving along Somes Sound

Somes Sound

On Wednesday, we took a break from hiking and rode our bikes on a good portion of the extensive carriage trail system throughout the park. These carriage roads were financed by John D. Rockefeller who owned a large estate on the island. From the National Park Service:

Forty-five miles of rustic carriage roads, the gift of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and family, weave around the mountains and valleys of Acadia National Park. Rockefeller, a skilled horseman, wanted to travel on motor-free byways via horse and carriage into the heart of Mount Desert Island. His construction efforts from 1913 to 1940 resulted in roads with sweeping vistas and close-up views of the landscape. The roads were built to preserve the line of hillsides and save trees, align with the contours of the lands, and take advantage of scenic views. Approximately 16 feet wide, the carriage roads are an example of broken-stone roads commonly used at the turn of the 20th century. Gate lodges act as impressive welcomes to the carriage road system, stone-faced bridges span streams, waterfalls, motor roads, and cliff sides. Granite coping stones used as guardrails line the roads, affectionately called "Rockefeller's teeth."

The weather was mostly sunny, but considerably chillier today

The first of several stone bridges

Climbing up the mountain--glad we have ebikes!

The rock edging is known as "Rockefeller's teeth"

This was a very substantial bridge over a large ravine

This bridge went over a stream, and there were steps leading to a charming little waterfall

This picture turned out better than the one Julie tried to take of the little waterfall

Yet another stone bridge--they were all unique

Historic Brown Mountain Gatehouse

Bubble Pond

Wow, ducks that aren't mallards!!! Had to look these up--they are called common mergansers

Here is a much better picture (ripped off the internet)

We stopped for a little stroll near Bubbles Pond

Eagle Lake

We could hear lots of croaking in several of the lakes

This frog had no fear of the camera!

Witch Hole Pond

This is a serious beaver dam

Fog coming in over Frenchman Bay

We enjoyed riding the carriage roads immensely (Rick said this might be his favorite ride yet this year), but by the end of our trip it had gotten windier and quite nippy. When we got back to the camper, we actually turned the heat on to warm up a bit.

The next day was quite a bit warmer, and we flipped from jackets to shorts and t-shirts for our hike along the coast. We combined the Great Head and Ocean Path trails for a total of a little over 5 miles. We got to the parking lot a little before 9:30 which apparently was on the late side, as it was full. Fortunately, parking was allowed along the park loop road, so that is what we did.

We needed to walk along the beach to get to the trailhead

The Great Head Trail

After a quick jaunt up, we were treated to our first views of the beach below

The "Beehive" Mountain

The Ocean Path Trail

One could walk the path alongside the road the entire 2 miles to the point (shown in the upper left), but we opted to walk on the rocks along the shore when it was reasonably passable.

Directly across the water is Big Head, where we just were

Not too far after this, we decided to turn back since we are middle-aged and were getting tired. We figured the scenery wouldn't be vastly different at the point than what we had seen already.

Looks like the Park Service missed some rogue invasive lupines

Apparently, Rugosa roses are also considered invasive here, but these beauties have been allowed to grow for some reason

Fog was beginning to roll in as we were leaving

On the way back, we stopped by the Wild Gardens of Acadia. It was a garden consisting of plants native to Mount Desert Island. It was a fairly small garden and didn't have many flowers in bloom, so we didn't spend much time there. Julie didn't even take any pictures (she did like the ferns, though).

Friday was a much-needed down day, with Rick making bread and puttering around doing "camper things" while Julie worked on the blog and did research on entering Canada through customs with an RV 😱. Saturday wasn't much different, as the weather wasn't spectacular, and we were still a little tired out from all the physical activity. We did a load of laundry at the very nice campground laundry facilities that we could walk to. (What a luxury!) Afterward, we did a little shopping and went to Church.

A phone booth in the laundry room! Once ubiquitous, you hardly ever come across a new one these days.

On Father's day, we had a nice video chat with the kids and then headed out for a bike ride on the roads near the campground. It was a pleasant low-key ride on a very quiet side of the island.

The small beach about 1/2 mile from our campground

We saw several lodging properties on the island with cute little cottages for rent

It seemed that every mile or so there was firewood for sale. Wish it was this cheap everywhere!

The day finished up with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc on the deck followed by grilling some rosemary potatoes and yummy Bavarian bratwurst on the grill to round out Fathers Day. (Because for Rick, Father's day is not complete without some sort of tasty potatoes.😁)

We were amazed at the incredible variety of Acadia National Park. In a small area, you get mountains, pretty lakes, rugged coastline, and tons of great trails for exploring--both easy and challenging. We could probably spend several weeks here and find something new to do each day (if we had the energy of a much younger person 😉). But, onward we go.

Next stop--Canada!

Rick's corner--blog tips

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