New England trip report - Fall 2015
My family has made many trips out West but our last long trip together was somewhere entirely different, New England. My husband and I met up with Dad in New Jersey where we visited with a relative t...
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Part 4
OCT 3
We awoke at Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park to find the skies had cleared and it was the start of a beautiful day. Dad, the DH, and I hopped aboard the free Island Explorer shuttle and traveled to the Nature Center at the Sieur de Monts entrance. After browsing through the center we took a walk through the nearby wetlands and woods.
Returning to the Nature Center, it was still a little while before the next shuttle so we had time to check out a garden with its many labeled examples of the native vegetation.
The next shuttle carried us along the Park Loop Road. We hopped off at the Sand Beach. In the South, sandy oceanside beaches are everywhere. Evidently that isn’t the case in Maine as I read Sand Beach is “one of the few cold-water, shell-based sand beaches in the world.” Cold water such as that off the coast of Maine tends to dissolve sea shells. But at this site an offshore rock, called “Old Soaker,” diverts a strong current into a glacially formed pocket which captures the shell fragments which get ground up to form the beach.
Further down the Park Loop Road we stopped at Thunder Hole. Here there was a large parking lot and a small gift store which was once a park visitor center.
But the feature that attracts everyone’s attention is the rocky shore and, more specifically, a narrow cleft in the rocks. Incoming waves plunge into this cleft and are magnified into a rushing stream that eventually smashes up against the end of the cleft. Depending on the level of the tide and the strength of the waves, the resulting spray ranges from minor to spectacular. At the time of our visit it was at the minor end of the spectrum.
Later that evening, after eating supper back at the campground, Kohldad and I decided to see if we could walk to the ocean. There was a dirt road that led from the campground to the Park Loop Road. From there we were able to clamber down onto the rocks along the shore. The area faces east and was already losing the light of the sinking sun but we enjoyed the company of a single cormorant and the sight and sound of waves crashing on the rocks, so different from the light slap of waves rushing up onto sandy shores we’re used to in the South. It was nice having the place all to ourselves.
We agreed to return at daybreak the next morning and walked back to the campground passing this chipmonk, or “mini-bear” as my DH calls them, along the way.
OCT 4
I’m not a morning person but the chance to catch a sunrise on the beautiful, rocky Maine shore had me up, dressed, and out the door in the wee hours of the morning. Kohldad joined me and, both of us bundled up against the cold, we made the walk over to the ocean. The sky was just starting to brighten the sky as we set up our cameras.
Hey, what’s that? Two cruise ships heading in to the port at Bar Harbor! The sunrise was gorgeous but was made even more interesting as we watched the ships sail across the horizon. The timing was perfect as the first ship crossed between us and the sun as it rose out of the sea.
Ship 1 exited the scene then Ship 2 moved to center stage before it too finally disappeared behind an intervening point of land.
With the ships gone and the sun up, we turned our attention to the shore beneath our feet. The rocks seemed to glow as they began to soak up the warmth emanating from the glowing orb to the east.
On our way back to the campground, I snapped a pictures of some foliage that would soon be gone and other foliage which would last through the winter.
Back at the campground, we ate some breakfast then prepared to pull out. We had one more place we wanted to go in the park before we turned inland.
Cadillac Mountain is the highest point in the park. Its granite peak provides an excellent point from which to get a good view of the area. Kohldad and I were tickled to see anchored in the bay off Bar Harbor the two cruise ships we’d watched earlier that morning. Luckily we were still early enough to have arrived at this popular destination before the tour buses full of cruisers arrived.
As I read on this plaque, the top of Cadillac Mountain is rocky but still provides a foothold for a wide variety of vegetation. Even the rocks themselves were splotched with colorful lichens.
There’s a lot more of Acadia we’d like to see but with our trip limited to two-weeks we wanted to keep moving. This was as far north as we could make while still allowing time to explore along the way.
As we traveled inland on Hwy 1A the land was rolling and cloaked with trees.
Approaching Bangor, we split up so each group could do their own thing. We didn’t visit any attractions and the only picture-worthy site I saw was the juxtaposition of a Baptist church over a Whoopie Pie café which I found to be very funny. Is that just me or do you find this funny too?
We stopped for the night at a small campground alongside US 2, Two Rivers Campground at Skowhegan. Nothing spectacular but we had quiet sites along a small run-of-the-river lake. There was enough room to stretch our legs before settling in for the night. While there’s plenty of opportunity to dry camp in Maine, Dad prefers campgrounds with electricity and there were plenty of those still open.
To be continued …
OCT 3
We awoke at Blackwoods Campground in Acadia National Park to find the skies had cleared and it was the start of a beautiful day. Dad, the DH, and I hopped aboard the free Island Explorer shuttle and traveled to the Nature Center at the Sieur de Monts entrance. After browsing through the center we took a walk through the nearby wetlands and woods.
Returning to the Nature Center, it was still a little while before the next shuttle so we had time to check out a garden with its many labeled examples of the native vegetation.
The next shuttle carried us along the Park Loop Road. We hopped off at the Sand Beach. In the South, sandy oceanside beaches are everywhere. Evidently that isn’t the case in Maine as I read Sand Beach is “one of the few cold-water, shell-based sand beaches in the world.” Cold water such as that off the coast of Maine tends to dissolve sea shells. But at this site an offshore rock, called “Old Soaker,” diverts a strong current into a glacially formed pocket which captures the shell fragments which get ground up to form the beach.
Further down the Park Loop Road we stopped at Thunder Hole. Here there was a large parking lot and a small gift store which was once a park visitor center.
But the feature that attracts everyone’s attention is the rocky shore and, more specifically, a narrow cleft in the rocks. Incoming waves plunge into this cleft and are magnified into a rushing stream that eventually smashes up against the end of the cleft. Depending on the level of the tide and the strength of the waves, the resulting spray ranges from minor to spectacular. At the time of our visit it was at the minor end of the spectrum.
Later that evening, after eating supper back at the campground, Kohldad and I decided to see if we could walk to the ocean. There was a dirt road that led from the campground to the Park Loop Road. From there we were able to clamber down onto the rocks along the shore. The area faces east and was already losing the light of the sinking sun but we enjoyed the company of a single cormorant and the sight and sound of waves crashing on the rocks, so different from the light slap of waves rushing up onto sandy shores we’re used to in the South. It was nice having the place all to ourselves.
We agreed to return at daybreak the next morning and walked back to the campground passing this chipmonk, or “mini-bear” as my DH calls them, along the way.
OCT 4
I’m not a morning person but the chance to catch a sunrise on the beautiful, rocky Maine shore had me up, dressed, and out the door in the wee hours of the morning. Kohldad joined me and, both of us bundled up against the cold, we made the walk over to the ocean. The sky was just starting to brighten the sky as we set up our cameras.
Hey, what’s that? Two cruise ships heading in to the port at Bar Harbor! The sunrise was gorgeous but was made even more interesting as we watched the ships sail across the horizon. The timing was perfect as the first ship crossed between us and the sun as it rose out of the sea.
Ship 1 exited the scene then Ship 2 moved to center stage before it too finally disappeared behind an intervening point of land.
With the ships gone and the sun up, we turned our attention to the shore beneath our feet. The rocks seemed to glow as they began to soak up the warmth emanating from the glowing orb to the east.
On our way back to the campground, I snapped a pictures of some foliage that would soon be gone and other foliage which would last through the winter.
Back at the campground, we ate some breakfast then prepared to pull out. We had one more place we wanted to go in the park before we turned inland.
Cadillac Mountain is the highest point in the park. Its granite peak provides an excellent point from which to get a good view of the area. Kohldad and I were tickled to see anchored in the bay off Bar Harbor the two cruise ships we’d watched earlier that morning. Luckily we were still early enough to have arrived at this popular destination before the tour buses full of cruisers arrived.
As I read on this plaque, the top of Cadillac Mountain is rocky but still provides a foothold for a wide variety of vegetation. Even the rocks themselves were splotched with colorful lichens.
There’s a lot more of Acadia we’d like to see but with our trip limited to two-weeks we wanted to keep moving. This was as far north as we could make while still allowing time to explore along the way.
As we traveled inland on Hwy 1A the land was rolling and cloaked with trees.
Approaching Bangor, we split up so each group could do their own thing. We didn’t visit any attractions and the only picture-worthy site I saw was the juxtaposition of a Baptist church over a Whoopie Pie café which I found to be very funny. Is that just me or do you find this funny too?
We stopped for the night at a small campground alongside US 2, Two Rivers Campground at Skowhegan. Nothing spectacular but we had quiet sites along a small run-of-the-river lake. There was enough room to stretch our legs before settling in for the night. While there’s plenty of opportunity to dry camp in Maine, Dad prefers campgrounds with electricity and there were plenty of those still open.
To be continued …
