Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Thursday we began the drive towards Canada! The sun was shining as we made our way up Route 1 through the Maine coastal towns. We really wanted a good seafood restaurant along the water for lunch. Unfortunately, all the interesting looking restaurants in the waterfront towns had narrow streets and no parking for our rig. We continued on until it was after 1 pm and we found The Helm on the side of the road. No water view, but with a name like that and a good amount of cars it had to have decent seafood. We struck out this time. French and American food with today's special of fish and chips. Greg got that. I got the salad bar and we moved on. Usually we check for restaurants on line with the smartphone, but there was no data signal for a long stretch, so we took our chances.

Even Liquor Stores sell lobster rolls!

On the way to Acadia we stopped at an overlook to see a new unusual bridge spanning the top of an inlet at Bucksport. When we pulled in we saw a cool homemade RV that looked like a house on wheels. We struck up a conversation with the owners. He had a long salt and pepper beard and short ponytail. She had long salt and pepper hair and was wearing a vintage sleeveless cotton shift and sandals. Honestly, it wasn't warm enough for that. They had a car following behind and a big pit bull with a large transmitter on his collar. I guess he wanders. The man built the RV himself in 1999. They winter in Terlingua which is the hippie conclave outside of Big Bend National Park and summer in Maine where he is from. We commented that we had been to Big Bend last winter and will be going back next winter. He told us we wouldn't find him in Terlingua because he is off the grid. He has a solar panel mounted on the RV. We discussed the border crossings in Big Bend that have been closed since 9/11 and the one that reopened just after we left. He said there wasn't much over there. It was just a good place to get weed, but that he doesn't do weed anymore. (Guess he got nervous and thought we might be Narcs!) He asked where we were going and we said Acadia and I felt so mainstream. Guess we lost our “old hippie” cred with that answer, but Greg said we lost it when we drove up in an RV with a Mercedes emblem!

Home built RV

We arrived on Mount Desert Island at Acadia National Park only to find the Visitor's Center closed as well as the Loop Road through the park due to Sequestration. Thanks to our Congress “at work”... We'd already accessed the website for the campgrounds so we drove on to Blackwoods Campground and hoped they were open. Yes, they were, but the Seawall Campground that we'd camped in several years ago wasn't, so we got a site in Blackwoods. It turns out that there's a short trail to the cliff side at the ocean, so we walked down there before dinner.

We're camped in a classic grove of evergreens and birch. The sun filters through on and off as there are some clouds here as well. The temperatures are pleasant, in the 50's and 60's. The last two nights got into the 30's. Yesterday, Friday, Greg decided to ride the 27 mile Loop Road around the park. He took a detour onto the gravel carriage roads in the center. After checking out the hills, he decided that I wasn't going to be able to ride them, and there's no way from here to get to the somewhat flatter carriage roads without a long hilly ride, so I settled for a spin on my bike around the campground. Our choice not to pull a tow vehicle (called a toad), leaves me sitting in camp more than I'd like. My fitness level will never be the same as long time biker Greg's, but we made a decision to avoid the expense and hassle of a toad, and get a smaller more energy efficient rig. We're currently having a discussion about getting me an electric bike.


I still had a decent day yesterday. I needed a day to inventory food, plan menus and rearrange the storage spaces. Leaving some extra stuff behind at Kaylin and Eli's freed up more space in the trunk, so I was able to move some odds and ends in there and make things less cluttered in the house. Greg brought back a load of firewood strapped to his bike, so last night we had our first campfire since Manatee Springs State Park in Florida last December. Every place else we've been has had burn bans or $10 for a very small bundle of wood (California). Because of the prevalence of insect borer diseases being carried from place to place around the country, everywhere we've traveled has banned wood from anywhere but the immediate area. Greg is a woodstove “Guru”, into the efficient use of wood for heating, but we felt like we were finally in a campfire kind of place in the Maine woods, so we enjoyed it in all its inefficiency!

Today Greg is riding again and then we'll go into town for a walk around and some lunch. Lot's of interesting restaurants in Bar Harbor. We've been here twice before, but never with an RV that we'll have to park way out on the edge of town and walk in. The streets are picturesque, but narrow.

Saturday afternoon-

We drove in to Bar Harbor after Greg's morning bike ride and parked in the designated RV parking by the ball fields. After a short walk we decided on Cherrystone's for lunch. Greg enjoyed the fried clams. The sun was out but the wind was brisk even in town. It was in the 50's, so we had our layers on as we walked around town and the waterfront. Because it was so clear, we could see way off across the harbor to the mountains in the north. After wandering around town and into a few shops we headed back to Blackwoods. We've decided to stay two more nights, so we will be here a total of five nights.