We parked the TravelerBlues van at the Portland airport and flew to NOLA for Lisa’s parents’ 60th wedding anniversary celebration at Ralph’s on the Park.
On the way back to Maine, our first leg stopped at Washington DC’s Dulles airport. If you like to fly, making a landing in Dulles is fun. If you are afraid or uncomfortable with flying, you may want to make your stopover somewhere else. We really enjoyed seeing the DC sites, like the Washington Monument and the Congressional houses from our descending Embraer jet; swooping over the town, feeling like you are close enough to look into buildings’ windows, like aerial spies looking into the Watergate hotel; and finally landing on the short runways that, over the years, a few planes had found too curt. Our final air leg brought us back to Maine’s Portland airport safely after touring its lush coastline from above.
After landing we decided to, wait for it, not yet, okay, go, go get a lobstah roll. We drove to Red’s Eats in Wiscasset. We had stopped by there on our first visit to Maine, but found the line and the afternoon sun to be too much. This Sunday evening, we still had an hour wait, but we eventually got the goal. As we reached the ordering window, dusk had enveloped us and the blood thirsty mosquitoes begin to attack causing Lisa to jump, twist and slap on the sidewalk like some abridged version of River Dance. We got our rolls, some additional fried road shrimp and fast-walked to the van. We decided to head towards a Walmart near Bangor, Ma to boondock for the night in order to make our drive easier into Acadia National Park in the morning. As usual, the Apple phone as a GPS let us down and while taking the backroads, it lost connectivity and basically “ralphed” on us off and on through-out the night. Anyway, some snaps from Red’s:
The next morning we headed to our first stop, Acadia National Park’s Blackwoods campground. Being Labor Day, there was a steady stream of Vans, RVs, and cars loaded down with camping gear leaving the park as we entered. Since we were able to setup camp early in the afternoon, we decided to ride our bikes from Blackwoods to the main Acadia National Park Hulls Cove Visitor center. It didn’t look that far in the free map they gave us at the entrance- Just hop on the road a little, then onto a carriage road and before we knew it, we would be there. Well it turns our the freebie map has some small print on it stating that you shouldn’t use this for hiking or traveling the Carriage roads, but instead buy a proper map at the visitor’s center. So our little bike ride, including carrying our bikes on some hiking trails, and going up and down mountains ended up taking several hours to go fifteen miles. We made it and we were beat.
Carriage roads: The Carriage Roads and stone bridges in Acadia National Park were financed and directed by philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., between 1913 and 1940, for hikers, bikers, horseback riders and carriages. The network includes 57 miles of woodland roads free of motor vehicles, of which 45 miles are within Acadia National Park.
Dusk was coming when we left the visitor’s center and we were tired, so we decided to hop on the free Island Explorer bus with our bikes and take the easier way back to camp. The Island Explorer is free to you and me and LL Bean company picks up the tab. What a great thing to do. It keeps more cars off the narrow winding roads and lowers pollution. While my mountain bike fit on the bus’ bike rack, Lisa’s was too long for the rack so we locked it up for the night and planned to get it in the morning. We took the bus to the town of Bar Harbor, did some exploring and then took the last bus back to the Blackwoods campground.
It was a deep sleep, but an early morning since we wanted to try and catch sunrise on Cadillac mountain, the highest point on the north Atlantic seaboard. We were a few minutes late, but still enjoyed it. Next stop in the morning was Sand Beach, an unusual Pocket Beach (see photo of sign below). We met another couple who were traveling in a Travato and we had an impromptu meet and greet. Then we stopped at the Thunder Hole where the crashing waves have eroded caves and can cause a thunderous sound depending on the waves and tides. It was pretty silent when we were there since the tide was out.
Finally, we headed back and pulled into a scenic view pull-out and setup camp and cooked up some eggs and lobstah, got Internet connectivity, and enjoyed the morning until after noon. We shared our pull-out with a guide who worked for a company named Backroads https://www.backroads.com/ who with his co-workers were supporting about 20 cyclists visiting the park.
We made it back to our camp and recovered a bit from our early morning and then did a short coastal hike and then drove back to our favorite spot for sunset and snacks. A really nice end to the day.
The next morning we decamped and headed to another park location. More on that in the next blog entry.
