Thursday, June 21, 2018
Posted from: Smuggler's Den Campground - Southwest Harbor, Maine
Miles Driven: 68 miles
Total Miles: 3145
3:15 am Eastern Daylight Time is really early.
We woke up, made coffee, packed breakfast to go, dressed in warm clothes, and grabbed blankets and the camera. We had a 25 minute drive and wanted to have time to find parking and a good place to sit. We managed to accomplish both.
The sky was on fire.
Everyone was Grace’s buddy because she had a warm red blanket.
The sky just became more beautiful as time went on.
Acadia is a bit broken up throughout a few islands. It is the only national park made exclusively of donated land, so travelers are constantly passing into the park and out of the park into little towns. Bar Harbor is the biggest and most popular town. Our campground is 20 minutes from Bar Harbor. That was another nice thing about this area. Everything is relatively close. You could drive to many different locations and not go many miles.
These bridge/tunnels are courtesy of Mr Rockefeller who built the many miles of carriage roads through the park that still exist today.
After leaving Cadillac Mountain, we tried to drive the Park Loop in the early morning before it got busy, only to find that much of it is a one way road...and we weren’t going that way.
Plan B: We drove into Bar Harbor to a cafe Matt had found that opens at 6:00 am. We didn’t order a lot of food, but their pancakes were so darn filling. Sadly, we did not come close to finishing the pancakes.
We wandered around Bar Harbor when it seemed to just be waking up. We window shopped a bit. The kids thought this surf and turf bag was funny with a lobster and moose.
I picked this guy up on the beach.
The kids skipped rocks.
We arrived back at the camper around 8:30 am. Matt was very concerned about a noise he was hearing on his truck. It sounded like a bearing going out. So he spent some time diagnosing his truck. He found the bad bearing and phoned-a-friend (thanks Bill!) to put heads together on whether it needed to be fixed immediately or could possibly get us home. They decided it would likely get us home...commence prayers.
So finally around 1:00 pm, it was nap time!!
After we woke up, we decided to drive to the Acadia visitor center near Bar Harbor. We picked up the Jr Ranger booklets, watched a video about the park, and talked to the rangers about programs we could attend. There weren’t a lot of options since their busy season (thus when they are better staffed) doesn’t start until July. We were okay with this. This was a fun casual park we could explore on our own.
After shutting down the visitor center (they close at 4:30 pm), we decided to drive into Bar Harbor since we were so close. We explored a bit and then found a place with a nice patio. We ordered lobster cheese macaroni and fish and chips to share since we planned to grill at the camper later tonight.
We returned to the camper and enjoyed grilled hamburgers (the last of the hamburgers we brought from home).
A long but good first day on Mt Desert Island. Happy summertime!
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