BLOG - Acadia In July

When I was leaving CT a week ago, so were my sister and her husband. I was heading home to Maine and they were driving through it on their way to the Canadian coast for a few days. Then to spend a few days with us, JR's first time visiting Maine. Technically he crossed the border a few years ago just to say he'd been here but that really doesn't count. On the Friday they arrived, Jaime and I had enough time to hit some yard sales. In the pictures of a storage unit sale I saw the night before, I spotted an Ewok Village playset and got there right at open. I walked out a happy little ewok with my playset, which yes I already own but for some inexplicable reason needed another, much to my wife's chagrin, and the giant Ninja Turtles Krang Android figure I've been wanting since 1991. Excellent start to the weekend.

The next day, we braved the weekend traffic and went to Acadia, no real plan in mind, we just decided we'd park where we could and figure it out from there. After writing four hiking guides for the island, I never run out of cool places to bring people. First we stopped at the brand new welcome center.

Onto the island we went, and with not a single car parked at the Great Hill pull-off, we hit our first trail. Well, abandoned trail in this case but the perfect introduction to Acadia. All four of us meandered up the small mountain, picking blueberries the entire way, which happen to be one of the items on my very small list of foods I can currently eat. About a month ago I had my first major flareup of hives in a couple years, it's been bad, very limited diet, but I never let it stop me.

We hopped onto the one way section of the Loop Road and stopped at Sieur de Monts Spring, knowing we wouldn't get a spot but some in the car had to pee. Jaime was manifesting a spot for us and I'll be damned, it worked, a car left in the second spot in the lot right in front of us. So we said screw it and I brought them up the staircases of the Homans Path and down Emery, so JR could experience the work of the original path builders.

While we were there, we decided to take a stroll around the Wild Gardens, where we found out the blue berry Julie ate on the trail because she was convinced it was a huckleberry, really was a huckleberry. We didn't know we had those here. Her and JR see them all the time out west where they worked for years but I'd never seen one in the wild. We figured out some of the plants in our yard and even found a marsh sign, which is what we call our yard due to our romance author moniker, Elli Marsh. Our yard is very much not a marsh. The only water would be our multitude of bird baths.

After a little lunch in the car, mine being an apple and plain Chex, two of the only things I can currently eat, we continued along the Loop Road with the goal of Sand Beach. That didn't happen, they were parked in the right lane all the way to entrance booth, hands down the busiest I've ever seen it. So we kept driving until finding a parking spot not too terribly far from Thunder Hole. Despite the crowds, we all did the Ocean Path, which felt more like Times Square during the holidays. So we hopped off onto the ledges every chance we got.

On one particular ledge I'd never been to before, I spotted what appeared to be a hole in the cliff, leading down to a deep chasm below. Got a little closer and yep, natural stone bridge over a giant crack in the cliff. Doesn't look like much from this angle with the sun washing everything out but I had to get down there, amazingly I scouted what appeared to be an easy route from above.

My sister joined me and we made it down into the chasm with less difficulty than I'd imagined, and at low tide the ledges were dry as could be. The chasm with the natural granite bridge probably would have made it into one of The Acadia You Haven't Seen books had I stumbled upon it a decade ago.

A young teen and her father saw the arch above the chasm while we were exploring it and she wanted to go down too, so I led them down the safe route we'd found, adding a little extra excitement to their vacation. It wouldn't be a day in Acadia without me directing people to cool places they'd never have seen otherwise.

We continued down the crowded highway to Thunder Hole, where it seemed like the whole world chose to congregate at once. She wasn't thundering much at low tide on a calm day but it's always been my sister's favorite so she had to bring JR there. She also wanted to bring him up one of her favorite hikes, Gorham Mountain, which obviously wouldn't have any parking spots. But Jaime did her manifesting thing again and miraculously got us a spot. My wife might be a witch. I ate the other half of my apple and some more dry cereal so I'd have a little fuel for the hike, and we headed up Gorham Mountain, obviously taking the Cadillac Cliffs Trail because it's awesome.

It was crowded but nothing compared to the path along the road, and the views were spectacular along the entire ridge.

I sat down on a boulder while they took photos at the summit, a bit drained due to my lack of food these last few weeks. It's not bad if I'm sedentary but hiking in the summer sun on close to no food is a bit draining.

Never one to let something like that slow me down, we headed over to a small height of land known once upon a time as the Peak Of Otter, home to the site of the Naval radio tower that received the signal from across the Atlantic that the first world war had ended. They're big history buffs so standing on that granite outcropping seemed like something they had to do.

Felt weird leaving Acadia when it was still light out, when I go, I'm usually racing against the sunset while coming down my last trail. We brought them by Stephen King's house on our way home, then hit the grocery store to pick up supper. For them that meant delicious lobster rolls, which Jaime also manifested for them, there are typically none left so late on a weekend, but they had just enough. Supper for me meant plain chicken and a sweet potato, I had a single bite of lobster roll too since my hives were already bad. I hate when they make it to my eyes because it obstructs my vision, but today they were mostly just on my body. Before bed, Waffles our raccoon friend, brought her three babies by so Julie and JR got to feed them from the door.

Despite being a bit hungry and itchy the whole time, it was a great day. Sometimes it's nice to do the more touristy stuff, not that we did much of it but I'm typically bushwhacking or following long abandoned paths all day, it was a pleasant break from my norm. And I still managed to find something cool I'd never seen before, now I just need to go back to the seaside chasm when the sun isn't too bright for photos. Tomorrow, we're heading up to Baxter State Park to hike South Turner Mtn, a first for all of us.