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Acadia National Park

We drove up the coast and arrived on Mount Desert Island about 9pm on Tuesday night. We arrived at Blackwoods campground, on the south side of the park at about 9:50, ten minutes before the park office closed. Whew.

For some reason, you couldn't register for more than one night of camping. This park ranger was a little odd and warned us vehemently that we should come back just as soon as the office opened in the morning if we wanted to secure our campsite for the next evening, as there were very few sites available. We did not heed his advice, but took our own sweet time the next morning, and yet it was alright.

Wednesday, we biked all over Mount Desert Island, 23 miles in total. By far the farthest I've ever ridden my bike in one day. We headed down to Seal Harbor and played some on the beach there, and then biked to the gardens nearby, Thuya and Asticou.We also went to Northeast Harbor where we sat and ate our lunch while watching the docks.
Then we headed back into the National Park and spent sometime biking on the carriage roads. There were some lovely views. My memories are growing foggy. I do remember that it was really hilly and that once, we biked too far and on our way back down the ridiculously steep hill we had just needlessly pedaled up, there was a sign warning truckers that there was a steep grade and they should use low gear.After our bike ride, we hopped in the car and headed to Sand Beach. (What a clever name.) We lay on the beach and read for awhile. Our goal the whole time was to get in the water, but we wanted to warm up first. We should have noticed that the only people in the water were small children. The adults had enough sense not to get in. I also recall looking around and seeing that 2 out of 3 people were still reading Harry Potter. We finally managed to get in the water, but we had waited so long that the sun was beginning to set. Whoops! We did manage to get totally soaked though and probably stayed in the water for 10 minutes. I don't feel like I ever need to get in the ocean in Maine again though.

After our beach adventure, we drove into Bar Harbor, looking for ice. We decided to find the store where Lauren's mom (the girl we had met at Moosilauke) worked. We did and met her and bought our ice. She was kind and generous to us, offering to let us borrow a pot big enough to cook lobster in if we wanted. Sadly, we didn't have a stove big enough to hold such a pot!

That night, we made a campfire and cooked bananas with chocolate chips for dessert. Quite tasty. While we were sitting at the fire, a man approached us, asking where Fulton County was. We were quite alarmed at first, given last summer's experience when the scary man asked us to watch a movie with him and his son and the fact that this man was difficult to understand. But then we figured out it was because of Kate's license plate and that he was genuinely being friendly. Still, don't approach random campsites in the dark!!

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 10:46 AM 0 thoughts