Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine
We continued up the coast of Maine, making a quick stop at Moody’s Diner, which had come highly recommended by several friends when I mentioned we were Maine-bound this summer, for some lunch and pie before making our way to Bar Harbor.
Bar Harbor is the gateway town to Acadia National Park and also where we met up with our second set of special guests on this summer’s road trip: my parents.
Fun fact: all fourth graders are eligible for a free family pass to the US National Parks, so we cashed in on Ben’s status as resident grade schooler to score free admission. I was very impressed that when we passed through the entry station the ranger asked Ben to confirm that we were his guests in the park and that he’d make sure we all abided by park regulations.
We spent a day with my parents exploring Acadia’s Mount Desert Island, which is where many of the biggest park attractions are located, along with the biggest crowds. We were able to successfully navigate our way (and park the car!) at Sand Beach, Otter Cove Lookout and Jordan Pond.
We left Toby with my parents for a short time to take a more rigorous hike up to the Beehive Summit, one of Acadia’s featured trails with both drop-offs and iron wrung ladders. Both kids did well and it was a fun adventure, despite foggy weather preventing us from having the pay-out of big views from the top.
The next morning, we took advantage of the Island Explorer bus system to shuttle our bikes to an entrance to Acadia’s Carriage Roads. These forty-some miles of trails were originally built by the Rockefellers to facilitate moving through the park, but now serve as walking, biking, and horseback trails. We opted to do a three-lake loop, logging a very hilly 13.5 miles. I’d say three of four Finkels gave the outing a thumbs up.
That evening, despite rain, fog, and wind, we cashed in the pass I had reserved online and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain. The whole thing was a fool’s errand as it was clear from the start that there would be no mountain-top views to be had. But, hilarity ensued as it was reasonable to question whether conditions were so terrible, it was poor judgment to be driving on the road at all.
My mom, aka Grammy, was most insistent about the whole thing being a bad idea and declared, “I’m not getting out” at the lookout in protest to the whole outing and our insistence on taking a selfie to top to cap-off the whole thing. We included her anyway by adding her to the picture, as seen below.
Our third morning, my parents, Ben, and I went to another section of Acadia National Park called the Schoodic Peninsula, where a scenic drive revealed some beautiful seashore views and some solid wildlife spotting in the tide pools.
Then, finally, after three days of overcast and fog, the skies cleared (hooray!) We bought tickets for the sunset sail on the Margaret Todd, a four masted schooner that took us for a meandering tour of the bay.
The kids snagged their Junior Ranger badges and we made one more stop at Jordan Pond for their famous popovers and some other Maine goodies – a whoopie pie and blueberry soda – and closed out the US chapter of this summer adventure.
Quick honorable mention for the KOA Bar Harbor, Oceanside, which - although I didn’t manage to score an ocean front spot - provided many opportunities for beautiful views of the sea, right from our ‘front’ yard.
