10/4/07 to 10/8/07 (Columbus Day Weekend)

I had suggested this trip to my old friend JB as kind of a reliving of our younger days. We hadn’t travelled together in a few years, and I hadn’t been to Acadia since 2003. A young person I knew spent a weekend in Acadia in late August, and telling him about the place made me realize how much I missed it. So this was to be an active trip, hiking, bicycling, and paddling, not to mention lots of photography. It was to be just me and JB, no families, no kids, no significant others.

Lots more after the jump …

Pre-trip: Wed 10/3

JB drove from his home in NY to my home on Wed 10/3. We got some perishable foods at the supermarket and then packed up the car together.

Thurs 10/4

On Thursday morning we loaded on the last of the gear on the car: Canoe on top and bicycles on the back. JB is very precise and thorough with the gear, and makes sure everything is tight as a drum. At the last minute I manage to break the glass of my propane lantern. No matter, I figure I can pick up another at the LL Bean store in Freeport, which is where I got the last one.

Surprise, the Bean store does not carry Coleman products anymore, but we do find a replacement glass at Wal-Mart in Ellsworth. Strangely, right around our entry to Ellsworth the Subaru starts shifting strangely. A worrisome sign but not necessarily a trip-destroying one.

We arrive at Mount Desert Campground at around 5pm. It’s the same campground we had stayed at in 2000, and after a quick scout around we chose the same spot we had shared seven years ago: Campsite A21. It’s a nice spot perched on the edge of Sommes Sound, with a beautiful view. I set up the tent while JB started dinner. He made a nice chicken and pasta dish, and it complemented well the Riesling I brought.

Fri 10/5

I awoke to the sound of the road across the Sound at 4am. Funny, we hadn’t remembered the road being so noisy. I didn’t get much sleep after that, so when I realized it was 6am I figured I might as well head to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. Sunrise was not far off.

Spotted four deer on the road on the way to the lighthouse. I was the first one to arrive at the, but I was not alone for long. Several people were around between 6:45 to 7:30, including young couples in love and old ladies toting point-and-shoots. And one enigmatic guy toting a Hassleblad mounted upon a tripod. This guy leaves a big tackle box on top of a rock, spoiling the view for the rest of us. Thanks, guy.

The sky dawned clear and cloudless. Not a complete loss, but not very interesting, either.

Upon returning to the campsite, JB and I discussed what to do with the car. The smoke from the leaking oil was a known problem and, I figured, rather minor. But the shifting was now acting up. I had discovered a workaround to the problem that would allow me to shift gears, but I was worried that it might worsen to the point of not being driveable. I called the Subaru dealership in Trenton, and that settled the point: they had no time to look at the car anyhow. We would have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

JB made an epic breakfast of bacon, eggs, toasted bagels, plus instant oatmeal. We got out of camp around 11am and headed for Eagle Lake.

EAGLE LAKE

Eagle Lake is described in my “Discover Acadia” book as being remote and pristine. Since it is enclosed entirely within the park there is no development along the shore.

And so it was. The water was crystal clear, the area quiet and remote. We saw a few other paddlers, but not many at all. We started at the North end of the pond, it was a little tricky finding the put-in from the main road (there is a big sign “Carriage Road” and a tiny sign signifying boat put-in). JB was intrigued by a photographer who was a the South end, using a tripod to shoot scenics. It was nice that the canoe holds so much, we were easily able to haul a whole cooler of food on it. After lunch we saw a rock sticking out of the water that intrigued JB. He had me get out of the canoe and pose in all sorts of weird positions on the rock. I happily obliged, knowing I would ask him to pose for me soon.

On the paddle back to the car, we headed straight in and paddled ferociously. We spotted a bald eagle soaring overhead.

I convined JB it was worthwhile to head next to Jordan Pond, where I had him pose in the canoe in front of the famous “Bubbles”, a pair of breastlike hills. Then we did a little exploring in Northeast Harbor, seeing if we could get a view of the Bear Island Light, but we did not. If we had been more adventurous, maybe we would have put the canoe in the water.

That night JB made a superb rice and beans dish. Afterward we sat with our neighbors in campsite A20. If anything, A20 is an even sweeter spot than A21. It has an enormous fire pit nearby. That couple burned more wood in an hour than JB and I burned our entire trip. Anyhow, they were a nice couple from New Hampshire who told us of the neat things they saw when they kayaked Sommes Sound. It sounded like something we couldn’t pass up.

SATURDAY 10/6

JB woke before me, a quite curious situation. I decided to go to the bathroom and check out the weather. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the sky was filled with swirly clouds, a much more interesting situation than the previous morning. As JB prepared for his morning shower (5 minutes of hot water for $1, cold water free) I told him I wanted to shoot Bass Harbor Head Light again, and asked him to come along. To his credit, he decided to hurry his morning routine and accompany me. Since this was my 2nd trip to the lighthouse, I had some ideas of what I wanted, and the shoot went relatively quick.

We did some quick exploration of Southeast Harbor and returned to the campsite for breakfast. JB made another epic meal of bacon, eggs, etc. Since this was our last day at the campground, and I suggested we consider staying another night or two. But the weather forecast wasn’t pleasant: evening showers and falling temperatures wouldn’t be the most comfortable way to spend camping. So we packed up the car.

SOMMES SOUND

Based on the recommendation of the neighboring campers, we decided on a canoe trip of Sommes Sound. It was a different experience than Eagle Lake, and no less rewarding for it. While Eagle Lake was freshwater, Sommes Sound was salt. Eagle Lake was surrounded by pristine parkland, Sommes Sound by development, rich people’s homes. Eagle Lake was mostly devoid of boat traffic, Sommes Sound had a marina.

It was a lovely and interesting paddle, as JB thrilled to see the exquisite boats in the marina and I thrilled to see quite a few loons. They weren’t exactly the first loons I’d ever seen, but it was certainly the most loons I’d ever seen in one place and the closest I’d ever gotten. At one point a loon was clearly close enough to identify, and then to cement the deal she cooed out a loon call. Very neat.

JB had some fun photographing me around a rocky shore and then we had lunch. After lunch we headed back; I didn’t want to go too far out into the sound since it was our second dayof paddling. During our trip the tide had gone way out, and we wound up dragging our canoe about 500 feet in the muck.

BIKE AROUND EAGLE LAKE

We had a few minutes to kill before the hostel opened for check-in, so we did that perrennial favorite, a bike ride around Eagle Lake. I’ve done this ride at least three times before, and it’s a quick, flat, scenic ride that really says “Acadia”. JB played daredevil as he photographed me from the bicycle, while going at absurd velocities.

BAR HARBOR HOSTEL

We arrived at the hostel shortly after check-in time. The Bar Harbor hostel is very small but cozy and clean. It’s in an excellent location, about a five minute walk to the heart of downtown Bar Harbor. Linens, blanket, towel and pillow are supplied. Interestingly, shoes are not allowed in the hostel but slippers are encouraged. Too bad I brought pillows and towels but not slippers!

The decision to spend two nights camping and two nights hostelling was made months ago. However, it turned out to be particularly gratifying because a front came in a few hours after we checked in, bringing light rain and cooler temperatures. I think we could have managed OK, but it would not have been a very pleasant camping experience.

JB made some of that boil-in-a-bag Indian meal with too much rice. He decided to make rice puding with the leftovers. While he made the rice pudding I took a walk downtown to pick up postcards, gifts for the kids, and a bit of (forbidden) wine to help me sleep.

The rice pudding was delicious, and completely impressed the other hostel residents. JB likes to impress with his cooking!

SUNDAY 10/7

Today was a classic Acadia day, which to me means a hearty hike. We were a little slow to get started — JB is a classic slow riser, taking long showers and complicated breakfasts — but we were out well before the hostel lockout time of 10am. We packed our lunch and cameras and headed for the Bubble Pond parking area. The plan: a hike up scenic Pemetic Mountain.

Unfortunately, the Bubble Pond parking area was full. But as we continued futher up the road we discovered plenty of space at the Bubble Rock parking area. JB had the brilliant idea to get on our bicycles and ride to the trail head at Bubble Pond. This turned out to be a magnificent idea, because it allowed us to easily change our route to a more interesting return along Jordan Pond, which took us back to the cars (from where we could drive to the bicycles at the trailhead). This was preferable to the original route which brought us back along a dull ravine and the much smaller Bubble Pond.

We weren’t on the trail long — in fact, we hadn’t really started at all — when we saw a neat photo scene of kayakers in Bubble Pond. Unfortunately, the light was not ideal, and the lens I had brought was not quite lon enough (having left the big lens in the car up the road!).

Pemetic Mountain is classic Acadia. We had a moderate hike to great heights, with generous helpings of ledges along the way with beautiful views. At the summit we could see all around: Cadillac Mountain, Eagle Lake, Jordan Pond, the Tarn, Bubble Pond, Frenchman’s Bay, Southeast Harbor, Northeast Harbor, and down the Maine coast. I even saw a mountain in the distant North that I figured was Katahdin, though JB doubts it.

MONDAY

Monday we woke at a leisurely pace, bid adeiu to the hostel and the travellers we met there, and drove home.

Yes, that’s the whole family in the canoe, paddling Cliff Pond at Nickerson State Park.

Here’s Son getting all tied up:

Daughter picked a water lily flower from the pond:

Ice cream in Wood’s Hole:

For our first camping trip with the popup, we ventured to the Connecticut River Valley for a weekend trip. We didn’t have much of an agenda planned, my only goal was to do some pupup camping and check out Gillette Castle. I had wanted to visit Gillette castle for many years, it seems to be one of those cool and mysterious places that shouldn’t really exist.

Friday

As we arrived at the campsite around 4p.m., we could see a storm moving in. This was not a surprise, we had seen it on the radar before we left home. The plan was to unhitch the camper and leave it closed while we went off for a nice restaurant dinnner.

The storm hit during the drive to the restaurant, and it was a torrential downpour. The restaurant itself saw the lights dim a few times and come back immediately. Not a very good sign, nor were the many downed trees and resultant closed roads that we encountered. But when we got back to the campground, they still had electricity.

It didn’t last, though. The power cut out in the night, and we spent a humid, hot night in the camper with no fans. It’s rather ironic that among the benefits of owning a camper are the availability of running water and electricity, and we had neither (my hose turned out to have a bent nozzle, so it couldn’t hook up). The kids slept fine, but us adults proved that air conditioning had softened us to the ways of nature, and we did not sleep but a few hours.

Saturday

The next morning the kids rose at 7, and when you share a popup there isn’t any such thing as waking quietly. We enjoyed a simple breakfast and as the kids went off to catch enormous frogs in the campground pond we learned the hard facts: there was no electricity and thus no ice, no pool … and no Gillette Castle. The castle was on the same power grid as the campground, and it would be closed until power was restored.

(below: friendly campground kid holds two giant bullfrogs)

No Gillette Castle? Um, time to improvise a backup plan. Wife knew that the Dinosaur State Park was nearby, which features one of the largest sets of dinosaur footprints ever excavated. Well, Son loves dinosaurs, so that sounded like a great bet.

There wasn’t much to Dinosaur State Park, but what there was, was pretty impressive. A bunch of old footprints are housed under a giant dome structure. There are a few exhibits, but really, that’s it: a bunch of old footprints. But what footprints they are: five hundred footprints of giant extinct creatures, over 250 million years old, frozen in stone. Whatever, I wonder, do the creationist/ID crowd make of this?

We spent a nice leisurely time at the park. We took a short walk along the surrounding trails and gardens and got back into the car. While driving back, we had a quick discussion of other opportunities and hit upon the Essex Steam Train and accompanying Connecticut River boat ride. That would be fun, but there was one hitch: the train was due to leave Essex in about 20 minutes.

We made a mad dash for Essex, and guess what: we made the train, and got the last slots on the boat. We enjoyed a nice, low-key scenic train and boat trip. It was a nice trip in a grand old wooden train car, pulled by an authentic steam locomotive. The scenery was not as spectacular as the Conway Scenic Railroad in New Hampshire, but it is a lot more interesting / authentic than the narrow-gauge railroads I had been on in Maine and elsewhere. I was surprised at the number of international travellers among the passengers; apparently they were travelling together on some sort of bus tour. It’s not exactly a world-class attraction, I wouldn’t think, but maybe it’s convenient for the bus tour set, being right off I-95. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend a lot of time looking at the rail yard, it was getting late when we got to the station, and we had a decision to make.

It was Wife’s feeling that, if the electricity was not restored, we would face another hot, sleepless night, with nothing to do Sunday morning (Gillette Castle would still be closed) but drive back home. Might as well get an early start and depart Saturday evening.

Which turned out to be the case. The children were massively disappointed not to get a second night of camping, but it was a wise decision. We hightailed it back home in time for a much-needed air-conditioned slumber.

Photo gallery.

A few weeks ago, we got an itch we just had to scratch. Basically we woke up one day and realized that the time had come for us to get a pop-up camper. The Wife had spent many an idyllic youthful camping trip in one. For me, it was a logical step up from a tent. Son is old enough, and Daughter is more than old enough. Neither of them will be young enough for very long. So we went out and got a new (OK, used) pop-up camper.

Ironically, we are not really planning to use it a lot this year. But we will definitely take it for a few spins before summer is over.

Daughter and I enjoyed a short (overnight) camping trip to Franconia Notch. I introduced her to my favorite kind of outdoor travel, with a taste of hiking and bicycling. We tented in the Fransted Family Campground, which was nicely quiet in October. We toured some of New Hampshire’s beautiful natural wonders including the Flume Gorge and the Basin. We bicycled down the Franconia bike path with daughter on the Trail-a-bike. Note: this is not necessarily a safe bike path for children because of steep grades and blind curves.

We spent a lovely weekend camping in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, and visiting with some old college friends. Here Daughter and Son enjoy morning breakfast at the campsite.