Friday, September 23 through Saturday, September 24
We woke up early on Friday (Sept. 23) to overcast skies and a forecast of rain for the day…again. I made coffee on the camp stove outside and then Patty made oatmeal which we ate at the campsite table, rushing a little to finish, before the rain actually started. And it started just when we finished. The campsite also had a dish washing room so I was able to do that inside before we showered and hit the road.
We crossed back into Maine at Lubec and drove a short distance to the West Quoddy Head Light which is the eastern most point in the United States. It’s painted with a distinctive, red and white, candy-striped paint job. There was a small museum that we visited but we were not able to go up into the tower which houses a third order Fresnel lens – similar but smaller than the first order lens on Seguin. Not being lighthouse devotees, like many folks we met this summer, we were surprised how nice it flet to look up at a Fresnel lens. The rain let up briefly while we were there so we took a short hike out to an observation deck looking out over the Quoddy Narrows separating the US and Canada.
From there, we made our way south, on a mission to find new pillows. I think I forgot to mention in our last post that we left our nice, but VERY old but comfy, down pillows at the Airbnb apartment in Halifax. After roughing it with some camp pillows, we really wanted to find “real” ones. (Patty’s comment here…I should not have been the one to do the ‘idiot check’ in my still spinning condition. I thought I was better, but somehow walked past the pillows in a pile several times before locking the door and declaring us totally packed!). Ellsworth was the closest “big” city so that was our destination with two possibilities, neither of which gave us much hope. The first was a department store called Reny’s, sort of a cross between Mast General Store (in the Asheville area) and K-Mart, or an LL Bean outlet. We struck out at Reny’s. Although they did have pillows, the three or four dollar pillows they offered weren’t nice enough for our Goldilocks-like needs. LL Bean had lots of really nice pillows though – like $262 nice. We dug through the big bin of pillows and scored with two in the $30-$40 range. Happy Campers again!
We considered staying in Ellsworth overnight for the Chowder and Beer Fests on Saturday but we couldn’t find anything close to the park where the events were being held and traffic was really bad on just a normal Friday afternoon so we made the call to move on. It had been raining off and on all day, and we just couldn’t decide where/what to do. As we drove, we kept looking for the elusive moose. We thought the terrain looked perfect for a sighting. We finally figure out that due to the weather, they must all be hanging out in their lodge!
We made for Acadia National Park, a short distance away and found a nice campground, Bar Harbor Campground, just two miles outside of Bar Harbor and four miles from the park entrance. We went downtown to the Hannaford’s grocery store to get stuff for the next couple of days and then setup back at the campground. For dinner, we grilled a tuna steak (very rare) and had it with wasabi sauce and soy sauce along with potatoes, grilled mushrooms, and asparagus. A nice, good, healthy meal after a few days of less than balanced and healthy eating. We also learned a lesson about wasabi in a tube…it is way stronger than any other we’ve ever had. Patty declared her vertigo gone for good, chased away by a bite of tuna with way too much wasabi.
On Saturday morning (Sept. 24), Patty made eggs and some of that bacon with tortillas for breakfast along with coffee and then we caught the free Acadia shuttle bus from the campground to the Acadia National Park Visitor Center to get tickets for the park. We had no idea but apparently Sept. 24 is National Public Lands Day and all parks and public lands are free! No fee for us. Patty is feeling almost normal and a free pass for the day – we are back! A little bit further on the bus, we went to the Beehive and Bowl Trailheads and hiked those two moderate to difficult trails.
The weather was nice and Patty was still feeling good so we extended our hike from the end of the Bowl Trail to the Gorham Trail, down to Otter Point where we could catch the shuttle again. The beauty of the shuttle is not having to backtrack to a car but just hiking on to another place on the loop road to get on the bus. Along the Gorham Trail, we stopped to eat PBJ’s and an orange and got to chatting with two young ladies, ages 20 & 21. One had a Clemson t-shirt on and I asked her if she went there – it’s not too far from Brevard. She said no, she just had the t-shirt and was from NC not SC. Really? Where? Mills River! Another small world moment… Mills River (home of the second Sierra Nevada brewery, by the way), is between Brevard and Asheville, only about 15-ish miles from where we live. They were visited Acadia for the first time and planned to hike all the summits, five by their count. They had already done Cadillac Mountain before we met them on the Gorham Trail.
After we finished the Gorham Trail, we took the bus to Jordan Pond and walked around there a bit but it was really windy and cold on that side of the park so we didn’t stay too long. We shuttled again, this time to Bar Harbor where we walked around and had a few beers a couple of different places.
We headed back to the campground on the shuttle with a lady wearing way too much perfume and were happy to gulp down lots of fresh air when we stepped off the bus. We grilled pork chops with potatoes for dinner and then hunkered down under the covers on a chilly night.
Happy Ramblers 