Acadia and Down East

Acadia and Down East

October 24, 2006

Last week we drove Highway 1 up the coast of Maine heading for Acadia National Park and “Down East.” The trees may have been more beautiful than the trees on our tree peeping tour to the White Mountains. Even the red oaks and pin oaks were deep red and copper. The Maples that were first to turn had dropped leaves starting from the top down (where the wind blows harder, I guess). Some Maples, fiery red, were still scattered on the hillsides, and the aspen, more profuse the further north we went, painted great swaths of yellow across the hills.

We camped three nights at Black Woods Campground in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island. They had already closed the other campgrounds, and only a little piece of Black Woods was open. The ranger taking our money at the entrance told us that even Black Woods would close November 1. Not only do the camp grounds close many businesses and restaurants were “closed for the season.”

Despite the closures, early October would be the perfect time to visit Acadia. Annie sat at the picnic table early in the morning wearing three layers of jackets and gloves waiting for the coffee to perk. The sun came through the spruce and warmed her face. There was no wind. The air was crisp. It felt like fall should feel. The crowds; up to nine thousand visitors check in each day at the visitor’s center in the summer; were gone.

Acadia is Lakes (ponds in Maine), rocky coastline, mountains, the view of painted forests the ocean and strings of islands from Cadillac Mountain, a year’s worth of trails to wander, and the “carriage roads.” Between 1913 and 1940 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. designed and built carriage roads all over the park so that it could be enjoyed with out “disturbance from the automobile.” This may be my new favorite old man’s place to bike. There are forty miles of packed crushed stone roads meandering over hills, through valleys and around lakes. I road a wonderful loop around Jordan Pond, by the end of Eagle Lake and past Bubble Lake.

Incidentally, we discovered another good thing about getting older; I bought a life time pass to US National Parks for $10.00. From now on we get into parks free and also get one half off camping fees.

Down East is what they call the most easterly part of Maine. It is also called the Sunrise Coast because the sun lights it’s rocks before anywhere else in the lower forty-eight. The most easterly point in the lower forty-eight is West Quoddy Head outside Lubec, the most easterly village. We walked a trail along the coast and Elmo climbed the rocks down to the water where the only part of the continental US to the east is in the Aleutians.