Day 07 was our day to leave Bangor, visit Acadia National Park, and then start making our way towards Boston (photos 1-2). Jacob had planned our trip to the Park, and it did not disappoint.

We drove over a big bridge from Bangor to Brewer, near where we had visited the waterfront park the day before, and headed for Bar Harbour. We eventually crossed over another bridge to Maine Desert Island and the tide was low (photos 3-12). We drove around Bar Harbor, which had a resort-town feel. It was very crowded for a Friday, with no parking anywhere in the downtown area. We ate lunch at a nice seafood restaurant on the water, just outside Bar Harbor, with great lobster rolls and lobster mac and cheese (photos 13-16).

We drove into Acadia National Park and made a tactical error — we didn’t stop at the Info Centre to get a map, since we had GPS. The park has a road that does a loop around it, and not a lot of good signage. Essentially, although we didn’t know it, you can do a clockwise loop only — we assumed we could do either way as the opening section is bi-directional. As we drove along, there were lookouts with a bit of parking, all of which were filled. We stopped at an area where you could walk down to Jordan Pond, but I ended up doing about a 30-minute circle in the three adjacent parking lots while Andrea and Jacob walked down (photos 17-44). The photos show a beautiful lake surrounded by hills. There is no swimming allowed as it is a local source of drinking water.

We drove on and saw the road divide into the uni-directional route (the opposite way), and ended up going out the South West Gate. We saw a bit of the island coast and then re-entered the park, retracing our route to Cadillac Mountain (photos 45-50). We had debated going up the Mountain or not, there was a separate charge for it over the park pass, you had to schedule it, etc. But what the heck, we pulled up to the checkpoint and said, “Soooo, what’s the deal, how do we do this?” We had to buy our spot online, which was only about 15 minutes from then, so we pulled over on the main road to do that, then back into the short line and up the mountain. It was the absolute best part of the visit, and I can’t believe we almost didn’t do it.

There were amazing views on the way up and at the top. The summit had nice walkways and viewing areas, natural-looking, a big open area that wasn’t too crowded (although the parking lots were full). We visited the gift shop although that was primarily to get some cold water — it was a warm day, particularly on top of the mountain with no shade anywhere. The mountain top itself is pretty rocky, and we could see lots of boats, islands and ships (photos 51-159).

We had picked up a map at the gatehouse to the Mountain route, and could now see the uni-directional loop and where it started. As much as we would have enjoyed doing the loop too, we didn’t even do the Mountain part until 3:00 p.m. and it was now almost 4:30 p.m. with a long drive ahead of us still. We weren’t sure if we were missing much though as we could see all of the island from up top. Still, it would have been nice. But time waits for no tourist! Off we went, driving the same route to get off the island and to see it at high tide now (photos 160-166).

After that, we headed down the coast of Maine. We had hoped that a nice leisurely drive down the coast would present almost one continuous view looking out over the ocean. Of course not. That land is too valuable for mere roads; almost all of it is has houses and buildings on it, with the view from the road often limited to trees or gaps between trees. We saw some larger interesting bridges and a few beach / marine areas, and a nice sunset, but most of it was uneventful (photos 167-181). We had dinner in Rockland at a McDonald’s, and Andrea had booked us a Fairview hotel in Brunswick. The hotels in that area (Portland) were very expensive (and fancy), but the main thing I noticed was that it was almost pitch black on the roads getting to the hotel itself — I could barely FIND the turns.

But we made it. We drove 354 km for the day, and took a ton of photos — 574 in total, curated down to 181, including 1 video. A small Easter egg in the video is that as Andrea pans around, she captures the bird that I’m taking pictures of in burst mode. Another great day, planned by Jacob. I think we’ll keep him around.

2023-07b July – Day 07 Acadia National Park

181 photos