It was an easy 200 mile trip up to Bar Harbor (pronounced Bah Hahbah), the home of Acadia National Park. We are statying at a very nice RV park ("Narrows Too"). The only drawback is that we are so far north and so close to Canada that our Verizon cell phones and internet access goodie don't work very well. For internet, we need to go to the nearby McDonald's and use their high-speed wireless. We went into the harbor area soon after arriving. No surprise: There were a zillion people there, and the usual array of hotels, restaurants, and shops. But the harbor area is very picturesque, with lots of islands, yachts, and other scenery. There was a huge cruise ship (the "Caribbean Princess") anchored offshore.
Its thousands of passengers flooded the harbor area, no doubt to the pleasure of the local merchants.
The next morning, we went to the park, a dazzling 42,000 acre preserve, containing, among other attractions, Cadillac Mountain, only 1,530 feet high but it nevertheless has the distinction of being "the tallest mountain on the Atlantic coast east of Brazil" according to the literature.
The park is actually very pretty and quite a treat. We had lunch at the restaurant on Jordan Pond, a lake located in the hills of the park. Very nice.
There is a lot of history to the creation of the park, including the donation of 10,000 acres by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., along with his donation of a lot of money to construct the extensive carriage road system in the park. (Motorized vehicles are banned from the carriage roads.) Bar Harbor was the summer playground for Rockefeller and his wealthy pals, and they, and a lot of locals, all contributed to the creation and expansion of the park. That history, with the resulting high quality of the facilities, makes it quite distinct from the other national parks we have visited.
Early on Thursday morning, Becky and Pat bicycled to the park and the harbor, and Bill and I picked them up and had breakfast at the harbor. At that early hour, the place was blissfully free of the tourist horde. On Saturday, we returned to the park to attack the carriage roads on bicycles. I don't understand the geometry, but somehow every inch of the road was uphill.
After about two miles, I gave up and went back to the visitor center. The key to my decision was that, at one point, Pat had to get off her bike and walk it. Pat's legs are as strong as those of a Chicago Bear running back (though much shaplier) and I figured if she couldn't make the hills I shouldn't even try. An hour later, Bill joined me at the visitor center and told me I was the smart one for quitting when I did. The girls arrived a half hour after Bill.
A very popular food item here in the northeast is the lobster roll. It consists of a piece of toast, folded over to simulate a hot dog bun, and filled with pieces of lobster bathed in a mayonnaise-like sauce. I tried one the other day, and was seriously disappointed. The lobster was too chewy and the sauce was too bland. So much for local favorites.
Our neighbors at the RV park have a delightful part-Rhodesian Ridgeback who bonded quite well with Daisy (and vice versa).
Acadia NP consists of several distinct parts. The main part of the park is on Mount Desert Island (where Bar Harbor also is); a second part is on a different island whose name I have forgotten; and a third part is on the mainland (the Schoodic Peninsula). We went to the peninsula on Sunday. It was mostly coastline, with pink granite everywhere, all carved by glaciers. Beautiful.
One thing tourists are urged to do is walk from Bar Harbor to Bar Island, which is about 1/3 of a mile across the bay (with no bridge). You can only do this at low tide (Duh!), and we did it on Tuesday. Yawn.
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