Acadia National Park, ME

September 10, Traveling from Portland ME to Acadia, we decided to take the scenic route- Rte 1, which pretty much follows along the ocean. Along the coast of Maine there are a lot of small, picturesque towns with small harbors. They were too small to accommodate the Everest, so we didn’t stop. Instead, we stopped at Moose Point State Park, which is right on the water, walked around for a bit, and had lunch. We stopped later at Fort Point State park just to stop for a bit. If I had had my camera out I would have been able to get a picture of a fox. September 11th, we started the day by watching a history channel special about Sept 11. After an hour or so we shut it off. I was feeling sucked in- it’s the type of show that once you start watching, it goes on all day. Very interesting information, but too much. We had read literature about Acadia last night, and I had made a preliminary list of what looked interesting to us, but we decided to start off by heading to the visitor center to get oriented. I am glad we did. We got the map of hiking trails and general information about the park. More importantly, we watched one of those short videos that showcases the park. Ordinarily I don’t like those videos but the Ranger suggested we watch it, so we did. Interesting to find out that Acadia is the only National Park that is solely made up of donated lands. In the early 1900s, several wealthy individuals started buying up land in order to turn it over to the government. John Rockefeller Jr. donated and built miles of carriage roads in the park, with the stipulation that no motorized vehicles be allowed on them. We plan to rent bikes for a day to tour some of the carriage roads- I want to rent a bicycle built for two, but when I suggested it, Paul looked at me sideways…. The most important thing the movie pointed out is that Acadia is not a park of “superlatives”. There is nothing here that is the “best, biggest, loudest….” or anything “est”. Its pointless to run around looking for “the” thing to do. This is more of a place to be absorbed and experienced. My friend Sue said it too…the park looks like all of the rest of the Maine coast, its all beautiful. That realigned my thinking back to where it needed to be. The whole point of this trip is to absorb and experience things, not to run from one thing to another. After spending the last week eating, sitting and eating, I was anxious to get moving again, so I picked a trail to hike that was in the “strenuous” section of the trail guide. We drove up Cadillac Mountain first, which is the highest point on the east coast. The View was AMAZING. Impossible to capture it in a picture. Maybe someday I will learn how to stitch pictures together to form a panoramic, but not now. There was a Hawk Watch set up, so we talked to the ranger for a bit, but he said the wind was wrong to see hawks that day. It needs to be a Northwest wind. Maybe we’ll go back another day, but I am more interested in going through the fiord where eagles are routinely spotted. So, it’s on to Beehive trail. Now, had I thought about the shape of a beehive, or actually looked up at Beehive trail, I would not have climbed it. I am really glad I didn’t look because right now I really feel like I accomplished something! The pictures will give an idea of what it was like…but it was, at times, straight up. No guardrail, only rocks, an iron handhold, or a pathway about 3 feet wide, sometimes less. Twice I had to stop and regroup mentally. I was ok looking down if I looked off into the distance, but not if I looked straight down. Once we got to the top, the view was worth it!! When we got to the bottom and looked around, Paul pointed out a "hill" and I said there was no way I would climb that one-the one we had just done was high enough. He laughed because he was pointing out Beehive and I had already climbed it... Today my muscles want something that isn’t a hill- so we’ll see whats out there!