Days Three and Four

* This time I wrote the post and Karol edited/gave input and also has some comments in parentheses.  We are still fiddling around with formats for the blog.  Honestly we might never be consistent, sometimes one of us doesn't want to write or sometimes we both really want to write, so yeah it will be random. *



Day Three (Friday, September 2^nd)

Acadia National Park

It was cloudy and looked as though it might rain when we woke up, and we just decided to de-camp and hit the road. Acadia was roughly an hour away and we were hungry. Unsure of where we could use our stove for oatmeal, we decided to splurge and have breakfast at a restaurant. I googled what was nearby and found a place called 2 Cats in Bar Harbor. 

2 Cats in Bar Harbor, ME

The hostess was very nice and we sat outside (immediately realizing it was a little chilly but I got our sweaters and we ordered tea (which didn't completely help)). She joked how it was cold for us but to the locals not at all - she was in a t-shirt and perfectly comfortable. Unfortunately, our waitress was far from cordial. She did not make eye contact and used as few words as possible. She was also clearly irritated that she had to come back three times to get our order (sorry not sorry, everything on the menu sounded great). She seemed hungover or something (Karol thought). Oh well. There will be unhappy people wherever you go in this world. The food was redeeming.  Between us we had corned beef hash, eggs, spicy hash browns, biscuits, and a side of strawberry butter (YUM). Everything was delicious and we felt well nourished (LOL funny phrase -Karol) for the day ahead.

We drove to the Visitor's Center of Acadia National Park and went to purchase our America The Beautiful Pass, another suggestion from my friend Jabir who told us about freecampsites.net. It was only $80 and it gets you into all the National Parks for a full year. Some of the more popular parks have a $25 entrance fee, so just three visits will get you your money's worth. We would be visiting way more than three parks so this saved us a lot of money (another HUGE thank you to Jabir). Acadia National Park provided a shuttle bus that takes you around the park to many of the major sights and trail heads. We hopped on one and, per Karol's suggestion, got off at the first stop, the North Ridge Cadillac Mountain trail. He had been to Acadia before and said this was a great hike. He wasn't kidding – 

Making our way up Cadillac Mountain

I loved this trail and when we got to the summit after a few hours (I think it was less than 2) I looked around and smiled. It was such a gorgeous view. Here's a video that might not work at all:

There were a ton of people at the top, most of them drivers, not hikers. One of the popular things to do is to drive Park Loop Road – a 27 mile road that patrons (heh) can drive along with parking lots at some of the most popular sights. The peak of Cadillac Mountain was one of the stops that you could drive up to and the parking lot was full at noon when we had reached the top. 

We looked down upon the land as we ate some snacks and hydrated, then looked at a map to see which trail we wanted to take back down. We preferred not to return the way we came, and we found a trail that would take us down to Bubble Pond where we could hop (like rabbits) back on the shuttle bus. This route required that we first get on the South Ridge Cadillac Mountain trail (we could have taken this all the way back down but it would have been longer than the trail we just hiked) and then take the trail that split off to Bubble Pond. It would be shorter than our ascent so we thought it would be perfect to have time for another short hike afterward. Wrong. So wrong. While it was in fact shorter (well, allegedly, I didn't track the mileage myself) it was extremely difficult. It could hardly be classified as a hike in my opinion, it was closer to rock climbing. And we were going down, so there was a lot of sitting and then hopping down off of steep rocks. 

Scooting down the rocks

A little after we started our descension we caught up to another couple and we ended up finishing the “hike” together. The guy was from Spain and she was from England, but they both lived in London. His combination Spanish/British accent was really cool, I had never heard anything like it before. Not that hers was not, I admire the sound of a British accent on its own very much. They were both really friendly and I was glad to have stumbled across them on the hilariously difficult climb down the mountain. 

She even offered her hand on several occasions as I struggled to get down, and I couldn't help but think that many Americans would not be this kind (terribly small sample size, yo). They were visiting New England for two weeks, which was roughly only a third of her vacation time. She heard that Americans receive little paid time off and when we confirmed this and told her exactly how much time off we got at our previous jobs she couldn't believe it. She had like 40 days. We appreciated the humor in our situation the whole climb down. One of us periodically commented on just how ridiculous and unexpectedly challenging this descent was. It took us a grueling 2 hours to go less than a mile and a half (going DOWN the mountain!) but we finally reached the beautiful pond. We only stayed long enough to take a few photos and we proceeded to wait for the shuttle together – we were taking different routes so we said our goodbyes and wished each other best of luck when their bus came first.

Quite a beautiful photo of Bubble Pond courtesy of Karol Cyrklaff

When we got back to the visitor center it was around 3 and we were pretty exhausted. Our plan to do another short hike seemed overly ambitious and we decided to find where we were going to sleep that night instead and just drive there. We could go back to the free beach campsite we stayed the night before, but it was an hour away and we were going to come back to Acadia in the morning. We were eager to shorten our drive to wherever we would be sleeping. The free campsite map listed a Walmart parking lot where people were welcome to park their RVs. It was only 25 minutes away and we figured we could handle one night sleeping in the car to avoid 2 hours of driving to and from Acadia. There were lots of RVs parked and it seemed legitimate to stay there so we parked in the way back and laughed. We were going to sleep in a Walmart parking lot! 

It then occurred to us that it was pretty early in the evening and we had about 4 or 5 hours until our new bed time (9 o'clock) – we now sleep 9-5, not work 9-5. We were quite hungry. We had already eaten out that day, but the thought of cooking in the parking lot was not particularly appealing and we also had time to kill. Google to the rescue again, we found a restaurant called Ruth and Whimpy's not too far away. I am pretty cheap and was panicking a little about eating out twice in a day, but Karol reminded me that after Acadia we would be spending two weeks at family friends' and would probably not be spending a whole lot of money. We would just be eating all of their food (sorry L & D). It would be nice if we could have a dinner out in each place we visit just to sample the local cuisine. I felt a little better and the food was of course exquisite which also made it feel worth the money. We had some beers (super cheap and delicious, only $3 each). Mine was a blueberry beer and Karol had a different kind of light beer (light in color, I don't drink shitty beer -Karol) and both were excellent. We started with calamari and lobster chowder. 

Calamari was good, not exactly noteworthy, but the chowder was soooooooooooo(oo00o00oo0oo00oo -Karol) good. It was creamy and delicious with potatoes and big, succulent pieces of lobster. For entrees I had pulled pork with thin, crispy onion rings (more like onion straws) and Karol had the Surf and Turf burger, a burger with lobster on top (oh my god so good -Karol) and curly fries. I definitely recommend this place if you're near Acadia. The menu was huge and had something for everyone, even if you don't like seafood. But you know, you're in Maine so you should probably try some seafood (obv -karol). Too full to try their blueberry pie (it seems that blueberries are a big thing, I saw blueberry everything advertised on the drive to the Walmart), we drove back to our sleeping spot. There was some light left and we played Boggle until we could no longer read our words – 

we then slept not so soundly in the boatmobile. Yeah I woke up like 65 times (or maybe just twice) – krl (fuck it, no more capitalization and no more vowels or punctuation)

Day Four (Saturday, September 3^rd)

^{More Acadia / L & D's}

We were up at around 5:30 and went into the Walmart to use the bathroom, brush our teeth, and wash our faces. We considered cooking oatmeal in the parking lot but we weren't particularly hungry yet so we just drove back to Acadia. This time, we thought we would drive the Park Loop and stop at places we wanted to hike or see. There was another really cool trail I read about online that Karol had done already called the Bee Hive trail. 

We parked in the Sand Beach parking lot which was right near this trailhead and had some crackers and power bars. There was a woman cleaning up trash in the parking lot and she brought up the irony of people wanting to come see these beautiful parks but trashing it. The Bee Hive trail is even less of a hike than the Bubble Pond trail we descended the previous day. It really is a climb, but I at least knew this going into it and that was part of the appeal to me. 

Climbing Bee Hive

I almost fell just kidding

There are metal rungs appropriately spaced around this mountain and you had to climb them much like a ladder at times. Other times you just had to work with the rocks to get up to where you needed to go. 

Rungs on Bee Hive

Climbing Crazy Eyes

 

It was quite scary when you observed how little space there was from the pathway you were on to the mountainside that you could so easily tumble down. (i was kinda shitting myself a little -kl)  I hadn't had an adrenaline rush like that in a while and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As much as I enjoy hiking, I am certainly not in great shape at the moment and I found it the perfect level of difficulty - challenging but not so challenging as to make it frustrating and unenjoyable. I think this is currently my favorite trail (that I've hiked, not just at Acadia) - though I have a feeling that will change in the coming year. There were several people at the summit and we sat down just as the other two couples had, but far enough away to give them some space. 

Bee Hive Summit

View from Bee Hive Summit

A father/daughter duo came running up from the other trail (the one we'd be taking to get down). Karol and I talked about how scary it would be to have your kids do this Bee Hive trail, but this little girl seemed like a hiking pro (i imagine they might have competitions with each other to see how fast they could sprint up a mountain -k). After a few more minutes and some gulps of water, we got on the trail going down. We knew that we would cross to The Bowl trail and that that was the way to return to the car. As we stood assessing and confirming the correct direction we needed to go, the father and daughter bolted down to where we were at the sign. They glanced at the sign for only a moment before sprinting off in the direction we intended to go. 

Switching to the Bowl Trail

I was quite impressed. They already passed us on their way back down and we lost sight of them immediately. We got to the car and drove on to Thunder Hole, another popular destination along Park Loop Road. 

At high tide (around 3pm) the ocean crashes into a cavernous hole and causes a monstrous wave. 

There is a staircase leading down so you can stand right next to the hole. We were not expecting any thunderous waves since it was morning, but it was still a beautiful spot. Karol and I climbed up onto a rock and watched the ocean while the others stood looking into to the very not thunderous hole. I laid down in the sun for a while - the temperature was perfect and the sun felt warm and inviting. 

Next to Thunder Hole

Looking like a goober basking in the sun

Some cool looking green fuzzy stuff in the hole

Very unlike the sweltering humidity we were dealing with in New Jersey before we left (yeah fuck that guy what a smelly boy -k). After a few more minutes of basking we went back up the stairs and decided to walk the Ocean Path down to Otter Point instead of driving. I was really glad we did this because if you went left off of the pathway you could walk on the huge rocks that littered the shoreline. The pictures Karol took here are some of my favorites thus far.

Blurry Ocean

Off the Ocean Path

Gorgeous cliffs off the Ocean Path

Including the silly and ridiculous "Charlotte does yoga" sequence.

I'm really just stretching

definitely not doing yoga

no yoga here

still no yoga

Returning to the Ocean Path, we walked briskly along, trying to pass some of the other strollers (babies -) taking their dandy old time and not being aware of the fact that they were holding many people up (not just us). We successfully went around them and quickly got to the Otter Cliffs and then up to Otter Point. The view was really nice, but honestly I enjoyed the rocks we climbed on along the way to Otter Point much more.

Otter Cliffs

More Otter Cliffs

We walked back to the car and figured we could have some lunch at the visitor's center and then drive to Lorette and Darrel's house (family friends I've known since I was born) who live further north in Maine. We found a picnic table at the visitor center and used our camp stove to make some pasta. (then we played a game of fly bits or pepper! -) Spoiler alert it was fly bits and we ate it anyway.

Pasta with fly in it

We filled up our water bottles before departing and cued up Dune for our three and half hour drive to Mars Hill, Maine. (fuck yeah 75 mph speed limits -)

Highest speed limit on trip thus far

We stopped on the way to get a view of Maine's tallest mountain, Katahdin (which we found out was like 4 times higher than cadillac wtf -).

Mt. Katahdin (or, as the locals say, Katahrdin)

We arrived around 5 and it was so great to seem them, it has been a long time since I saw them. I was an angstful teenager the last time I had been at their house and obviously I've changed a lot. I now greatly appreciate their lovely farm house and the beautiful land they maintain.

Tons of apples

Mushroom ball, half as big as it grew to be

View of the road, fields for days

Garden rays of sun

Beautiful trees

All the world is green

They showed us our room and the spa-like bathroom that we would be able to use (jacuzzi tub, ohhh yeahhhh). We took a bath first thing since we hadn't bathed in 3 days and then enjoyed the bolognese pasta Lorette made for dinner. After eating we watched Pineapple Express before retiring to bed.