June 26 – July 1, 2016: White Mountain National Forest, NH to Acadia National Park, ME

After an enjoyable stay at Dolly Copp Campground in White Mountain National Forest, we anxiously broke camp at 8:35 AM EDT on June 26 to travel to Acadia National Park in Maine.  Maine was the last state on our list of states not previously visited which means we hadn’t visited Acadia National Park either.  We arrived at Seawall Campground in Acadia at 2:30 PM EDT.  This is another park where we would be dry camping.  We spent our first day there getting set up, grilling some food and enjoying a campfire.

There are shuttle buses provided by L.L. Bean that transport visitors along different routes in the park.  We could have taken a bus from our campground and eventually transfer to one of those buses.  Instead, on June 27, we drove to Hull’s Cove Visitor Center in the truck to pick up a bus.  It was simply a time-saver to do it this way.

This is the shelter in the parking lot for Hull’s Cove Visitor Center where the buses pick up and drop off visitors. A museum and information center with park rangers is further up the hill (about a 100 steps).

The bus route we selected this day was the Jordan Pond bus route.  This isn’t the main Park Loop, but the route did take us to different locations in and around the Park with its final stop at Northeast Harbor, ME.  Northeast Harbor isn’t as well-known, or as visited as Bar Harbor, but still has the charms of a little seaside village with pretty scenery.  We stopped to grab a sandwich in the village and then took the shuttle bus back to Hull’s Cove Visitor Center.  Little did we know that it was lunch time for the bus driver, so we only made one stop, from the village to the harbor itself, and then had to get off the bus so the driver could eat.  Oh well.  We got some pretty pictures of Northeast Harbor while we waited.  It was simply a gorgeous day.

A view from Northeast Harbor, ME.

We made it back to Hull’s Cove Visitor Center and then back to the campground.  One of the things we wanted to do while in Maine was to eat Maine lobster, so that evening, we drove a short distance from the campground to a town called Thurston, ME and had lobster at Thurston’s Lobster Pound.

Outside the restaurant, lobster traps were stacked along the wharf.

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Inside the restaurant, we could select a specific lobster had that been our intention. Since my knowledge of lobster is really limited, I just chose the “size” of lobster I wanted. I couldn’t tell you which one of the lobsters in the photo was mine, but it was one of them.

After placing our order, we found a table.  This place kind of reminded us of The Freezer Tiki Bar in Homosassa, FL that we had visited in March of this year.  Florida didn’t have lobsters, but the setting was kind of similar.

The temperature was dropping (hence the hoodie by my side), although the sky was still fairly clear. This is the view of the harbor from our table. With scenery like this and a little wine, what isn’t to like?

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And here is my lobster. It was really tasty and a very good end to a very good day in Maine.

Even though June 28 was cloudy and a bit rainy, we wanted to take a shuttle bus ride on the Park Loop, the main loop around Acadia National Park.  We got off at one of the stops called Sieur de Monts.  Maine was once part of New France and Sieur de Monts is named for a 17^th century governor of New France.  The stop itself is really a monument to George P. Dorr, Acadia’s first park superintendent.  The stop includes a house built by Dorr over the Sieur de Monts spring, a museum, and the Wild Gardens of Acadia.  Unfortunately, both buildings were closed while we were at the park, but we did walk through the Gardens.  The Gardens focus on native plants and habitats in Acadia.

I’ve forgotten the name of this flower, but it is endangered. The folks at Sieur de Monts were happy to see this plant flourishing in their garden.

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Pink and white lady slippers.

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A busy little bee going about its day’s work.

The gardens were beautiful, but I wish it had been sunnier.  I think the colors of the flowers would have been more vivid.  Nevertheless, we hopped back on the shuttle and continued on the Park Loop.  We got off on a couple more stops, including Sand Beach.  Much of the coastline of Acadia National Park is rocky, but as the name implies, the coastline here is sandy.

The beach looks inviting, but the water here is chilly, even on warm, sunny days. It was cloudy this day. The people in the ocean are young and are probably unaware that they should be cold. 😉

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In less than a half hour after our arrival, the fog decided to roll in. This is the same beach, just looking the other direction…into the fog.

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The rugged, rocky coastline of Maine is really quite beautiful, but can be dangerous. Apparently, a schooner called Tay ran aground in this cove over a hundred years ago. Occasionally, the wreck can be seen with the tides, but we weren’t that lucky.

Because it was foggy and rainy, we didn’t get off on many stops after Sand Beach.  Still, it was good to ride the Park Loop to get a feel for what we wanted to see when the weather improved.  Since it was still rainy and foggy on Wednesday, June 29, we would have to wait until Thursday to do more exploring.

Early Thursday morning, June 30, we took the truck in for an oil change.  It didn’t take long, but we had to get work done first.  You know how it is.  After we “completed” our work, we drove to Hull’s Cove Visitor Center and hopped on the Park Loop bus.  The weather was a little foggy when we first started, but it cleared up nicely.  We were able to get some nice pictures of the Loop for all to enjoy.

This is a view from Otter Cliff. There is a walking trail along the cliff and my husband snapped this photo from that trail. As you can see, there was still some fog in the area.

Otter Cliff rises 110 feet above the sea and is one of the highest headlands on the East Coast.  The view certainly is pretty.

This is a view of Otter Point. According to geologists, this section of coastline marks the spot where hot magma and bedrock met during the formation of Acadia’s mountains. That apparently happened 420 million years ago. Even though I’m getting on in years, I wasn’t around to see that. However, this view is rather nice now.

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This is just another pretty view of the area. We both really liked the combination of rock, trees, and blue ocean water.

Continuing on with our exploration, we hopped back on the bus and then made another stop where we could do a little hiking.  The trail that we followed was Bubble Rock Trail.  According to the park information, the trail is only 0.7 miles long, but we would have to climb 340 feet.  It didn’t sound too bad, although I was reconsidering that decision during the climb itself.  However, once we reached the top, I decided the climb was worth it.  Strangely, we don’t actually have a photo of Bubble Rock, but we do have photos of the view from the top.

This is a stitched photo (sort of a panoramic photo) from the top of the mountain. That’s a lake in the foreground.

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Then, if you turn in the opposite direction, you will see another lake and eventually, the ocean and some islands near the coastline. The road to the left of the lake is a section of the Park Loop.

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And just to prove that I did actually hike up the trail, here is a photo of me at the top with the ocean in the background.

By the time the photo was taken, I had pretty much recovered from the climb up the mountain and thankfully, the hike down was a piece of cake.  We got back on the bus and then stopped at a point where we could see Bar Harbor, ME.

Again, this is another stitched photo. The town of Bar Harbor is on the right side of the photo.

Bar Harbor got its name because of the sand bar that appears at low tide allowing visitors to walk from the town to the island in the center of the photo.  (You can see the sand bar in the photo above.)  We didn’t actually go to Bar Harbor because it tends to be really busy with tourists. However, we were getting hungry.  Our hike made us hungry, to say the least.  So, after the bus dropped us off at Hull’s Cove Visitor Center, we made our way back to the campground, stopping in Southwest Harbor, ME.  We enjoyed some very good food and drink….and scenery.

The view from our table at the restaurant called The Upper Deck. What a nice way to relax after our hike.

Ah, this was a good day and so was the following day, Friday, July 1.  On Friday, we visited Schoodic Peninsula, another section of Acadia National Park.  There are actually three separate sections to Acadia National Park.  The Acadia National Park I’ve discussed so far is located on Mount Desert Island, the main part of Acadia.  The second section is Isle Au Haut which can be reached by ferry.  Isle Au Haut is southwest of Mount Desert Island.  The third section of the park is Schoodic Peninsula, almost directly east of Mount Desert.  To reach Schoodic Peninsula, you can either take a ferry or drive north of Mount Desert and then east to the peninsula.  It’s about a 50 mile drive from our campground to the entrance of Schoodic Peninsula.  To give you a better idea of these sections, you can click on the Acadia National Park map provided by the National Park Service.

We wanted to see Schoodic Woods Campground, a new RV campground with full services, located in the peninsula.  It is a nice campground if anyone is interested, but we didn’t take any photos.  The only problem with the campground is the distance from Mount Desert.  There certainly aren’t as many restaurants or shops on Schoodic Peninsula, so keep that in mind when camping there.  After seeing the campground, we continued our drive and stopped at Mosquito Harbor.

A view of the tide going out at Mosquito Harbor. There is a picnic area on the left side of the photo near the walkway. There were a few locals enjoying this area on the day we visited.

We drove a little further and spotted an island with a lighthouse.  The lighthouse, built in 1856, going into service on January 1, 1857, is situated on Mark Island.  Mark Island is only about four acres, so we’re talking about a speck of land here.  Obviously, the island was large enough to survive any storms.

The lighthouse was replaced by a light buoy in August of 1933, and the property has been privately owned since then. As you can see, the property looks to be in pretty good shape.

There certainly aren’t as many visitors in this section of Acadia, but you can tell tourism is still important here, too.

The water was full of buoys and the buoys were attached to lobster traps. I wonder how many lobsters are caught and eaten each day in this area?

The coastline of Schoodic Peninsula is just as rocky as Mount Desert and just as beautiful.  We made a number of stops just to catch a glimpse of the scenery.

Someone was sailing on this beautiful day.

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A rather long outcropping of rocks disappearing into the ocean.

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We were able to catch this view on our last stop on the peninsula.

Schoodic Peninsula is a wonderful place to visit and stay if you want to get away from it all.  The pace is certainly slower.  There’s just something about waves crashing on the rocky coastline, all that blue water and the blue sky that gives you a sense a peace.  You just slow down and reflect on the beauty of it all.

We would be leaving Acadia National Park the next day, July 2, and would really miss this place.  We’ve seen many beautiful places in our travels and expect to see more this summer, but Acadia was unique to us.  There’s beauty in mountains, flowers and trees, waterfalls, etc, but I think what was special to us was the beauty of the coastline, the perimeter of Acadia, images that we captured in some of our photos.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we return to this place again.