Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine

Acadia covers two fifths of Mount Desert Island, the third largest island in the continental US. Where scenic pink granite, deep glacial ponds, cobblestone beaches, ocean side cliffs and mountains meet the sea & deep woods. Separated from the mainland by only a few hundred yards of water at high tide but we can drive across a short bridge anytime. Somes Sound, the only fiord on the east coast and Cadillac Mountain (1,530 ft.) the highest point on the east coast north of Brazil. Bald Eagle, Osprey, Peregine Falcons, plus seals, porpoise & seabirds fish the cold waters of Frenchman Bay & beyond. In 1919 Acadia became the 1st National Park east of the Mississippi. When you go there PLEASE do not allow just 1 day to drive the 27 mile park loop road and leave. The fog can move in that day and you can't see 100 ft. in front of you, missing a large part of the park experience, the view to all the little tree covered islands around it. Popular activities are hiking the more than 100 miles of maintained trails, varying from easy oceon side to steep cliff side climbs up iron ladders. Walking, biking (you can rent them there) around Eagle Lake or carriage ride on this 50 miles of scenic gravel carriage roads with beautiful stone bridges built & donated by John Rockefeller, Jr. The parks had to promise to keep as built with no cars drive on them! Kayaking the deep lakes & ponds. This was once the bottom of an ancient oceon 500 million years ago. Glaciers shaped the mountains 18,000 years ago. Trees on the island differ because of a fire burning out of control sweeping across the island in 1947, burning 10,000 acres of Acadia. Sun loving Birch & Aspen replaced the spruce & fir which had dominated the landscape. Today it's a mixture of Spruce, Fir, White Pine, Hemlock, etc. Beautiful fall foliage. Some of the many things to do while enjoying the beauty is visit Hinkley Yacht & Sail boat shop. Ride along on the Mail Boat to Cranberry Island don't be surprised at what you see on that boat like a refrigerator, or whatever the residents need at the time that live there. At Bar Harbor Sail on the Margaret Todd 151' 4 masted schooner in Frenchman Bay. We left the dock as the fog creep into the bay so thick all we could see or hear was fog horns sounding around us as we slowly moved away from the dock. Once we got out into the bay the fog on the water had blown away and we could see all the small dome-shaped cloud caps directly above the tree tops over each of the small Porcupine Islands in Frenchman Bay. We did get hung up on a couple lobster buoys in the fog & trying to get loose the lines broke so our sailboat owner would have to pay for a couple lost lobster traps at $400 each. Each lobsterman has his colors licensed so they can only pull in their colors out among the many, many, different colored buoys marking the traps below. I hope Captain Hyde (5th generation fisherman) who's worked these waters for 35 years at Somes Sound still takes people (5) along with him to check his traps. It was one of the highlights of my summer. We road with him on his working lobster boat (Trawler) while he checks his 10 lobster traps. We got to help him take lobster, sea cucumbers, star fish, sand crabs out of his trap & throw everything back in the sea except the lobster he measured that was the size allowed. He baits his trap with mesh bags of little herring fish & returns them to the sea. I did see him fill a bucket of sea water and go below at one time. When we got to the Northeast Harbor he stopped & told us to turn around with our chairs facing the side and he brought each the most delicious lobster I've eaten, and I ate alot while we were there. Cooked fresh in sea water, throwing the shells back into the sea, you didn't need lemon butter. We could look up on the coast above us at the summer homes of Martha Stewart, Nelson Rockefeller, Edisel Ford's, etc. 150 year old Bear Island Lighthouse with seals playing around it. For this old Kansan it just don't get much better than that experience. End of page 1