Acadia Revisited: Schoodic Peninsula

The Schoodic Peninsula, visible from Bar Harbor, is four miles away from the rest of Acadia (as the crow flies) on the main land.  It has far less commercial development in the area.  In fact most of the nearby village shops and restaurants were closed for the season.  Driving over took about 45 minutes on this beautifully clear day.

While leaving Mt. Desert Island we stopped at a small bakery and coffee shop for some delicious breakfast sandwiches.  Their deserts looked irresistible so I purchased a whoopie pie for later.

The peninsula has a single main one-way loop road that winds through the woods and along the coast.  There is a relatively new campground that must be wonderfully quiet even in the middle of summer.  This is the part of the park you want to visit when your goal is avoiding the massive tour buses and cruise ships.

Since this was our last full day of vacation we spent most of the morning and afternoon stopping at overlooks to take in the scenery.  There are many trails hidden inland and we walked along one of them, starting at a parking lot for Schoodic Institute.  The school is a nonprofit research and learning institution that looks amazing.  We saw a few recreational fields and large dormitories.  Along our hike we found many plants had hand-written identification tags, clearly remnants from a class nature walk.  The school isn't just for kids, too.  It has a fellowship program for K-12 teachers so they can become more proficient in science!

Scenes like this really reminded me of John Hodgman's description of Maine's deadly natural beauty in Vacationland:

"[...] The waters of Maine are made of hate and want to kill you.

The ocean in Maine is traumatically cold.  If you make the mistake of going into it, 

every cell in your body will begin shouting the first half of the word "hypothermia" into your brain;
the second half will simply be frozen tears.  

And the beaches of Maine offer no relief as you launch yourself back onto the shore, 

because the beaches of Maine are made out of jagged stones shaped like knives."

Well, at least the seabirds don't mind!

Whoopie!

In the afternoon we treated ourselves to some juicy lobster rolls 

at a road-side lobster pound on Route 3.

After a bit of last wanderings around Bar Harbor we relived past vacation memories at our favorite bar in town, Galyn's.  Their drinks were so lovely and they prepared a blueberry cosmo for me even though it's no longer on their menu (funnily enough our server said that it is still listed in their computer system).  For dinner we decided to get take-out pizza from a cute Italian restaurant (Epi's) and head back to the camp site so we could start packing.  The pizza was absolutely delicious but we did not have much time to sit and enjoy because taking the camp site down took a lot longer than expected.  I built a large fire with our leftover firewood, which resisted the rain that came later.  It turns out that greasy pizza boxes are REALLY flammable lol.

The air truly felt like it had transitioned into the fall season as we crawled into the tent for the night under a light drizzle.  The next morning all that we had to do was toss sleeping bags into the car and throw the damp tent into a bin.

We had another scrumptious breakfast at 2 Cats before driving a solid 12 hours all the way back to Maryland.  Along the way we stopped at a store in Portland and purchased an embarrassing amount of beer to share at home.

I sincerely hope that we have another chance to visit Maine in the future.

Acadia Revisited: Trails and Treats

The rain stopped some time in the night but the air temperature was at its coldest so far, hovering at around 50°F.  Hans cooked the rest of the spam with the camp stove so we could get the taste of Stevia-sweetened oatmeal out of our mouths.

We loaded up the bikes and drove to Jordan Pond House.  From there we biked an 11-mile loop around the base of Day Mountain, up some sneakily tall hills through absurdly green forests, past sparkling Bubble Pond, around part of Eagle Lake, and then back down a large hill to Jordan Pond.  I never had to walk my bike but I definitely spent a lot of time in my lowest gear.  At one point a much more fit cyclist sailed past me while going uphill.  I hated that guy.

Breakfast of champions!

I climbed down from the trail to check out Deer Brook Bridge, completed in 1925

Jordan Pond

To warm down from our ride we walked a short way along Jordan Pond and up to Jordan Pond House.  The morning was growing late so we drove back around the island to Southwest Harbor and over to Biel's Lobster Pound!  We each selected our 1.5-lb seabugs and didn't even see them long enough to get to know them before they were whisked away to be steamed for lunch.  Their gloriously red bodies were delivered on blue plastic trays with coleslaw, corn, cornbread, and plenty of butter.

I dismantled mine quickly.  Hans took a bit longer because he hadn't eaten a whole one before.  We enjoyed our meals but also agreed that lobster rolls are the easier way to go in the future.

After using many wet wipes and clearing away our trays we drove further south to the Wonderland Tidepool Path.  We had fun using the camera to take some underwater shots.  The sun came out just as we were leaving so I got some great pictures of Bass Harbor Light on the way back north.

While driving around we saw a sign for a pet boarding business that said "Dogs have owners, cats have staff".  So true.

Outside of Bar Harbor there is a small winery (Bar Harbor Cellars) that has been in operation for 15 years.  The man who runs it does not look old enough to have been in the business for 15 years and he has been trying to get a small vineyard going for over a decade.  However, the climate has not been very friendly to his grapes.  Instead, he imports grape juice from Europe and ferments them in Maine.  The grape wines that we tasted were actually very good but our favorite sips were the New England fruit ones.  The blueberry wine had some nice spiciness due to tannin in the blueberry skins.  The cranberry wine, made with fruit from Cape Cod, was my favorite.  If only Ocean Spray could get on board with the concept!  For dinner we ate at Atlantic Brewing Company, which absorbed Bar Harbor Brewing Company some time ago, sadly.  Our food was okay but the beer wasn't too bad.  Their English bitter inspired me to brew one this fall.

Acadia Revisited: Threatening to Rain

This morning we decided to take it easy and treat ourselves to hot showers and breakfast in town.  Hans gets the Restaurant Choice Home Run Award for selecting Two Cats Cafe.  My insanely delicious (and cheesy) omelette came with a home made blueberry biscuit and whipped strawberry butter, which was so decadent!

2 Cats Cafe had a lovely garden and a brightly-colored dining room.  

We ate on the balcony in the fresh air.

With some coffee and ibuprofen in my system I packed a light bag and we trekked across the water to Bar Island at low tide.  Actually it was nearly low tide.  Not to be outdone by Hans, who'd charged through the shin-deep water in his sport sandals, I took off my hiking boots and socks and proceeded to trudge through the last bits of tidewater.  The cold wasn't so bad but the thousands of tiny sharp rocks and bits of broken shells were excruciating.  By the time I'd come to this conclusion I was a third of the way across and not about to turn back and face the dozens of other forlorn tourists who were patiently waiting for the waters to recede.  Hans hoisted me by the armpit as I put my socks and boots back on in a most undignified manner.

We climbed up onto the main bit of Bar Island and followed a short trail to a sort of overlook from where we could see Bar Harbor.  Two other people had been ahead of us so after they left Hans and I had the overlook to ourselves for about five minutes.   Back on the shore a constant stream of other hikers was moving quickly across the tidal flat.

More and less adventurous hikers crossing at low tide, view from the island

I immediately almost fell on my face like a prat

Tiny underwater worlds

Beautifully gloomy shore and sea

Hans waded around the in water and I caught up on this journal.  Even though I could hear many people passing along the island path behind me nobody was overtly loud or disruptive.  When we'd had enough exploration time we walked back to town and did a little bit of shopping.  

For the rest of the day we decided to eat camp food and play a board game.  As it began to get dark I thought it might be nice to have a fire but that's when the rain did decide to show up!  I tried to shield the kindling that was starting to burn but then a torrent of rain began to fall so I darted back under the tarp and gave up.  For the rest of the evening we played cards and did some reading.  I gathered the extinguished and partly burned firewood, moved it over to our shelter, and went to bed.

Hans failed to defeat my feline kingdom!

Hello, rain

Acadia Revisited: Vacationland

I was pretty stiff and sore in the morning.  After breakfast we did a "light" 3 hour hike from the campground along a relatively new trail that runs through an old quarry and takes you to Otter Cove.  From there we took a short connector trail over the skinny peninsula to Monument Cove.  This is where the trail joins the Ocean Path, which Hans and I walked back in 2011.  Instead of starting the Ocean Path at Sand Beach to the north, we were at the approximate midpoint and so we headed south to the most dramatic feature of the trail, Otter Cliffs.  The trail ends at Otter Point, overlooking Otter Cove, which makes one wonder how all those Acadia otters got so much of the park named after them!

This seagull did its darnedest to convince us that we should give up some of our lunch 

After returning to the campsite we had some leisurely snack time.  For the rest of the afternoon we decided to drive around.  The section of Mount Desert Island (MDI) to the south of our campground is primarily private land.  As we made our way to Northeast Harbor we could see the the back of many beautiful Victorian homes, several of which are operating as inns.

After a short map check in town we drove the back road up Somes Sound, through Somesville, and stopped at Southeast Harbor (my favorite town on the island).  I was suddenly very sleepy so we got some truly disappointing coffee at a bakery.  Even though it tasted awful the caffeine gave me a much-needed boost.  I did a little shopping at the artist co-op and then we continued our afternoon drive through the working-class parts of the island, which are my favorite.  The land is less mountainous but the wide marshes and meadows are peppered with modest homes and local businesses that appear to be more in the service of locals rather than visitors.

As the sun began to set we drove past Great Long Pond.  Back in town we parked the car and went for a pre-dinner stroll.  I noticed some back neighborhood roads that we never wandered in 2011.  It turns out that they lead to some very pleasant discoveries.

The road we walked ended at a small park and picnic area that is part of the Shore Path which winds around Bar Harbor from the main dock to the hospital.  Having seen the path from Main Street I always assumed that it ended at the edge of the harbor.  Not so.  Here today we were at the midpoint of the path so we followed it to the end, past beautiful grand old "cottages", inns, and hotels.  One was even for sale!

We had dinner at a fairly touristy (a common theme) Irish pub that I must sadly report replaces the old grouchy lobster roll shop that used to be there.  Then again, all of the food at this new place was decent and their cocktails were very strong.

Back at the campsite we chatted under the tarp for a while and I did not light a fire because we were supposed to have rain and thunderstorms during the night.  In the end we had only a few sprinkles and I saw silent pale flashes of distant lighting through the tent ceiling.

Some animal knocked over our empty beer bottles very loudly at midnight as it tried to break into our plastic camp totes.  To be fair, there were marshmallows inside one of them.