Day 8 - Acadia National Park

Day 8 (beginning of week 2)

We were up early today trying to beat the crowds at Acadia National Park.  We had coffee and breakfast outside the camper then arrived at the Acadia Park Hulls Cove Visitors Center just before they opened at 8am.  After looking through the visitor's center, I purchased a National Park senior lifetime permit for $80 (yes. I know they used to be $20 and didn't get one then.).

I also purchased a map of the park and a new hat.  How do you like it?

Laura and I then drove the park loop road for a few miles before stopping at one of the overlooks.  Here you can see Bar Harbor and, because it's low tide, the actual bar connecting the two islands.  Get it?  Bar harbor...

We drove to one of the parking areas about 15 minutes down the road and parked for our hike.  We hiked to Gorham Mountain which was quite a bit tougher than I thought it would be.  Mostly over rocks and ledges, we were pretty winded when we arrived at the summit almost 1,000 feet higher.  It was only a mile in each direction.  The view was our reward and I took this panorama from the top.  Click on the picture to zoom in and you will see some of the details from our view.

We then hiked back down the Cadillac Cliffs trail which I thought would be easier but turned out to be much steeper and over bigger boulders.
We made it back down the mountain and actually felt pretty good when we got back to the parking lot.  We drank lots of water and waited a bit to cool down before continuing our drive.

Here is Laura working her way down the very steep trail.  The picture below shows how the trail was marked.  Little piles of stone with the top one showing the direction of the trail.  I hope someone doesn't move them around.  She also took a short movie of me navigating a tight spot.  You can check it out on YouTube at - Hike down Cadillac Cliffs

We left the park road at Seal Harbor and continued our trip around Mount Desert Island following Rt 198 and Rt 102 to Bass Harbor.  There we stopped for lunch at the Seafood Ketch restaurant following Doug's recommendation from yesterday.  We were early for lunch having arrived around 11:15 but were both hungry after an early breakfast.  I had one of the Atlantic Brewery beers and toasted Doug and Barb with my first sip.

Laura and I split a New England Chowder (it was excellent!).  I had the haddock BLT (their special of the day) and Laura had to try the lobster roll.  Both were delicious and up to our expectations for the Maine coast.








Here was our view from the lunch table.  Doesn't this look like a harbor in Maine?

From there we continued our drive around the coast and we arrived back at our campsite around 1:30pm.  I did stop for gas along the way since we didn't have the trailer behind us.








Day 8
     66 miles (non towing) - 742 miles total
     $216.90 today - $893.55 total
          $80.00 - National park senior lifetime pass
          $  5.22 - map
          $42.18 - hat
          $71.00 - lunch
          $18.50 - gas