Day 3

Heading to Acadia

We woke up today to a nice morning. Clear, sunny, and cool. We showered, packed, and were off to Acadia. Rand McNally let us down a bit here. There are too many roads here and the map is too small. We were driving around trying to find Route 1 and it seemed like we were driving in circles. Eventually we started in an easterly direction and came to Lisbon and a sign for ME 196. We found this town on the map so we were able to find our way back to US 1 by driving south to Brunswick and I-95. Not the most direct way to do it, but I knew we couldn’t get lost this way.

We were actively seeking out a place to eat breakfast but there was nothing. We were in Bath and Woolrich: nothing. Finally, we came across Wiscasset about 20 miles later. This town is here for the tourist. Clearly, it was once an fishing town but now it has been cleaned up and transformed into one of those quaint Maine coastal towns. The town sits on a hill sloping into a long inlet.

We decided to park the car and walk around, and assumed there had to be a place to eat somewhere in this town. We happened to park right in front of a small restaurant, but it was packed. The whole town was packed actually. Since it was the holiday weekend, a lot of people were traveling and in New England, Maine is where everyone vacations, Maine is vacationland after all.

Route 1 was so congested in this tiny town that they had a cop directing traffic at the one big intersection. We decided to wait for a table inside the restaurant since we saw no other places to eat. The place was so hectic and understaffed that we were waiting a while for our table to be cleared. It finally was and we were probably in this place for an hour just for a late morning breakfast, but we weren’t in a hurry. You had to feel sorry for these people, they were working really hard to keep the place from utter collapse. This must be the only place in town because people were waiting outside on the sidewalk for a table. The woman who waited on us also bused tables and was a hostess all at the same time, and she was able to remember everyone and the order in which they arrived.

We left town and crossed the long bridge over the inlet. Went through many small towns that still relied on fishing for survival. It’s nice to see these among the majority of towns along the coast that are here for tourists.

Once we got to Rockland, traffic was getting sluggish. These were tourist towns—B&Bs are everywhere. By the time we got to Camden we decided to take a detour. We picked up ME 105 to ME 235 which paralleled US 1. These were beautiful roads, at times completely shaded by the thick forests. We were back on Route 1 in Belfast and continued north to Bucksport and then Ellisworth. By the time we were in Ellisworth, the traffic was stopped by a series of lights. This is where the turn-off for Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park is. The traffic was sluggish throughout this road, which is the only way onto the island and to the park, unless you want to take the ferry from Nova Scotia.

There are two types of parks in the National Park System. One type is designated for the historical events that occurred there, the other for the uniqueness and beauty of the land. Many of the parks in the east are of the former flavor, while the West is known for its spectacular nature, the latter type. Acadia is a rare gem in the Northeast. It is a park designated for the preservation of the land and nothing else. I like these parks because usually when you drive into them the scenery changes dramatically to a beautiful, majestic place. Would this be the case for Acadia?

Arrive in Acadia

We took ME 3 to the Visitor Center and arrived around two in the afternoon. This place was packed with people; thank god this is the last full day of the holiday weekend. Hopefully everyone will be going home tomorrow. We only had one mission at the center—to look into camping options while we hoped the park still had room.

As of 1:30, Seawall Campground had 40 walk-in sites open. This was good but it was now going on 2:30 and the campground was on the other side of the island, about 15 miles from here. We decided to drive down there and check it out. We could only hope that there would still be openings, I didn’t want to pay the prices that the privately-owned campgrounds were listing. The funny thing about this park is that it is in patches around the island. The entire island isn’t owned by the park. There are towns, houses, and businesses everywhere, all crammed on the land not owned by the park. So the answer to the question I asked above is no, there is no dramatic change in scenery here—the entire island looks similar whether it’s part of the park or not.

The only roads that would get us to the Seawall Campground were ME 233 to ME 198 to ME 102 to ME 102A. We arrived at the campground to learn that there were sites left, so we took one, No. 99. All of these sites are walk-in, and we took one that wasn’t too far from the car.

Acadia’s west side

We had planned to see this side of the island today, and the other side tomorrow. So we set up camp in the mosquito-infested forest and took to the road.

Seawall

We first visited the site for which the campground is named: the seawall. The seawall is just what it sounds like, a wall of rocks shielding a lake behind it. However, it is not a shear vertical wall, but a strip of land, all rocky, no vegetation, that separates the lake from the sea.

This seawall is wide enough for the road to pass over it and people to park their cars on it. We parked here and walked on the rocks to the sea. The entire coast was rock, no sand here. I took my shoes and socks off and walked out into the water. Sergio had put his hand in the water and didn’t seem to think it was too cold, but I knew my feet were freezing—the type of cold that is painful for a few minutes before you get used to the temperature.

I told Sergio to take his shoes and socks off and join me in the water. He was reluctant at first, but eventually took the plunge. I could tell by the expression on his face that he experienced the same bone-chilling temps that I did. There were several types of seaweed in the water and tons of tiny snails in little, tiny shells. One type of seaweed here is called Rockweed and has air bladders all over it to keep the weed floating near the sunlight. The stuff feels like rubber. Nearby was an Asian family frantically picking a certain type of seaweed which looked like grass. I don’t know what they were going to do with it, but they were collecting it in large piles.

Ship Harbor Trail

We moved on, continuing our tour of the western half of the island. We stopped at the Ship Harbor Nature Trail. This is a 1.5-mile trail through the forest out to the water and Ship Harbor.

The forest is like the rainforests of the Northwest. Moss hangs on everything and trees grow by any means necessary. Many trees that had fallen down due to storms would begin growing through one of its branches rather than the main trunk. The branch would become the new trunk. There were a lot of red and white spruce and apple trees. The apple trees were once part of a farm here before the land was donated to the park between 1916 and 1929.

The trail is really beautiful, but the forest is not quite as thick as a typical forest; I guess because it lies near the ocean. On our way back we found a tiny shoe for a baby, a little sneaker sitting in the middle of the trail. I carried it back to the parking lot and luckily caught the woman who was about to go search the trail for it. She was overjoyed at the sight of this three-inch long sneaker.

Road touring

We continued on our journey and went through Bass Harbor and Bernard on ME 102. Along this road were houses and trees, not too much for extraordinary scenery. The ranger at the campground told us that a guy spotted some seals off Indian Point so we tried to find this place, but the maps we had were not good enough to tell us the name of the smaller roads, so after a while of driving through the woods on these back roads we came back to route 102. Oh well, next time perhaps.

We decided to find a place to eat since it was dinner time by now. We filled the tank and asked if there were any restaurants nearby that are cheap and wouldn’t care about how we were dressed. They weren’t too helpful and as we drove into Southwest Harbor, the only large town near the campground, we didn’t see too much. We looked at a few places but they weren’t right—either too expensive or too formal.

I thought we would have to return to the Seawall and begin picking seaweed, but finally we settled on a nice place off the main road. I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was pleasant and our waitress was very nice. She knew a lot about this area and when I asked, “Do you live here year ’round?” she replied, “No, I’m not that crazy!” So she was an extended tourist and had a lot of information about the many things to do in the area.

She liked the ferry to Nova Scotia. It’s a six-hour ride with a stocked bar, gambling, karioke, and what sounds like a raging party. Well, this was not on our agenda so we passed on that. Dinner was nice and the beer tasted great after a long day in the heat, my face was already beginning to turn rosy red from the sun.

Bass Harbor at sunset

I thought it would be nice to go to one of the lighthouses around sunset. So after dinner we headed for the Bass Harbor Headlight. This is a rocky point on the southwest part of the island where the lighthouse is located. Of course, all the headlights are automatic now, no one is needed to run them each day, but it appears as though there are people still living in the house adjacent to the light.

A lot of people had the same idea we had and were out hiking on the huge granite boulders that stand between the forest and the sea. Some were just sitting on the rocks, some were setting up tripods for the pictures that may someday make the postcards. We left before it was totally dark. The sun had already descended below the trees so we decided to head back to camp. Keep in mind, any time that we’ve spent outside the car today we’ve used most of our energy fending off the hoard of mosquitoes that fill the air.

Once back at camp we did a second coating of bug spray and did a lot of planning for the next few days. The mosquitoes in this place are unbelievable. Tonight we basically ruled out Fundy National Park in Canada. I would like to have gone there but it really wasn’t feasible timewise. I slept much better tonight with the cooler temps. They say it may go into the upper 40s tonight (about 5-10°C).