We got a little earlier start today but it probably made no difference because we basically followed yesterday morning’s course through Mt. Acadia NP except we were bright enough to omit the utterly mind-numbing foray into the vehicle-trapping one-way grid through downtown Bar Harbor. We kept to the loop road followed yesterday along with some side-trips down roads we were not too sure we should follow. Every one of them turned out okay, though. We made another trip to the top of Cadillac Mountain where the weather was again very cooperative by being absolutely clear with the exception of some tiny puffy clouds directly above us. We took another spin through Otter Cove where there is a very sturdy-looking stone bridge passing over stone culverts with a vigorous tidal flow from the upper lagoon to the sea. We stopped in a visitor center for the park that did not have two thousand people rummaging through the merchandise where Peg picked up some artwork postcards of a type we have been able to get in other national parks.
This place is great to visit with amazing views around each bend in the road. You should get used to the idea that you will not be able to maintain a speed much over about 20 miles per hour because there is just too much to see and keeping your eyes on the road is difficult when the surrounding views are so stunning. Our return leg to the campground took only roads we had not traversed the day before and we ultimately ended up back at our new favorite lobster joint at the Trenton Bridge. This time we just ordered lobster and one ear of corn-on-the-cob and the price for the two monsters was less than $40. We pigged out. It was disgusting and we loved every minute of it. We bow our heads to the unfortunate but very tasty brave lobsters who gave their lives for us. We salute them….particularly their meat.

We slept pretty well last night after our wimp-tiring long drive here. We woke up late, took showers, made a big breakfast and then popped into Charlotte for our first Mt. Acadia foray. We got started down Hwy 3 towards Bar Harbor, which is pronounced “BahHAHbuh” by the locals. The road is a nice drive through some wooded areas with little quaint motels alongside the highway. There are several lobster places in case you ever get hungry passing along this stretch of road. The entrance to Mt. Acadia NP is in Hull’s Cove, right before you get into Bar Harbor. We took the Mt. Acadia turn and arrived initially at a visitor center parking lot where every parking space seemed to be filled with cars pointing in all directions. We bravely chickened out and went directly for the loop road.
Despite our initial, ultimately correct selection of the loop road as our route, we stupidly decided on an alternate plan that would allow us to drive into Bar Harbor to drop off an envelope at the post office so the letter could be postmarked as originating in BahHAHbuh and arriving at Peg’s sister’s house with the spiffy postmark. We were idiots. Straying from an original, perfectly sound plan to engage in a whim is not the recipe for success.
We arrived on the very first street in town and were immediately trapped within a one-way grid that has streets entering some blocks as two-way and emerging on the other end as one-way. The roads are very narrow and there are places where you go in but don’t come out. Alongside the substandard sized streets are myriad businesses which sell cleverly-packaged Chinese-made official Maine and Mt. Desert Island curios and souvenirs to the tourists who are not busy clogging the miserable streets with mindless, almost zombie-like meanderings within the traffic non-flow. Even the U.S. Post Office Building downtown has a drive-up U.S. Mail drop box that can only be approached by official USPS vehicles maybe due to the very-real concern that ISIS might blow up a lobster house or post office.
After some spirited discussions about whose fault it was that we were trapped in Hell, we found a road that exited town and we returned to the Mt. Acadia NP loop road vowing never to return to Bar Harbor, at least in the summer. Once back on the loop road, we ascended to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in Mt. Acadia and maybe all of Maine. This place has absolutely magnificent views 360 degrees around and the surrounding vistas of islands, forests, rocky shorelines, the sea and inland lakes is stunning. Parking, however, is not too available because of the volume of visitors so we ended up parking in a lot about 300 yards from the top where we ate fruit and nuts and marveled at the views. Weather was very cooperative.
Descending Cadillac Mountain, we again picked up the loop road around the east half of the island except where we strayed onto roads that would allow us to skirt the coastline. There are some short sections of sandy beach but I think the most spectacular sections of this place’s coastline is those parts where the multi-colored granite cliffs drop directly into the sea. There are gorgeous stone arch bridges you pass over and under strewn about the roads and most of the roads out here were either one-way loop or uninhabited two-lane blacktop routes to nifty little communities, coves and hidden harbors. There must be a big boating crowd because there are a shitload of boats tied to buoys around the entire island, most of them in little coves with less than 50 boats. Most of the pleasure boats appear to be made of wood and quite pretty. Lots of lobster fishermen are tied up at the spaces in between the nice tourist cruisers. Not a lot of big, ostentatious mega-yachts were noted; mostly just well-made (and I imagine very tough) wood pleasure boats 30 feet or less.
We tried a different lobster joint today called Lunt’s Lobster Pound where Peg got a lobster roll and I went with fried clams and a haddock sandwich. The bill was a bit smaller than the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound but it should have been. The food was certainly nominal but we liked the other joint better.
Just a little travel tidbit here – we started our trip in Charlotte Taylor Wilson, our truck, towing the Barbarian Invader, our fifth wheel trailer, 53 weeks ago. We seem to enjoy it more every day and hope to continue until we can’t do it anymore. We had no idea whether or not we would like this lifestyle when we started this back in June, 2014. Strangely, both Peg and I have found this form of retirement very relaxing and great fun. It is not too expensive if you can keep the camping costs down and we have both seen bucket list grade stuff almost to the point where it is overwhelming. We have been fortunate enough to enjoy the different treasures in 25 states and the District of Columbia in the last year. If we continue according to our extremely hazy projections for the next 5 months, we will visit 14 more states before we return to our home in San Diego for some RV maintenance. This has been great fun so far and we don’t foresee a downturn unless one of us gets real sick or craps out. I hope we get quite a bit more of this because it is terrific.

We pulled stakes at Portsmouth, NH, and bit the bullet and drove up the toll road into Maine. It is I-95 from the NH border to Bangor where we turned off on a secondary road for the last hour before arriving at Mount Desert Island, home to Acadia National Park. It was a long drive for us wimps since we have not had to travel more than about 2 hours from one campsite to another and today’s drive was about 5 hours. Our timing was impeccable because we packed up in the rain, drove all the way here in the rain and arrived at Mount Desert Narrows RV park close to Bar Harbor, ME, in the rain.
Even though this an Encore park and supposedly affiliated with TT, the rates here are high compared with what we have recently paid, mostly because of our TT & RPI memberships. We have recently been paying $0 per night to stay in TT parks and $20 a night for RPI parks, all allegedly part of the TT system. Encore, however, charges $86 per night to normal folks and gives us a discount where we get in for about $49 per night. The good news is that the park is quite nice and we have a drive-through campsite with full hookups and CATV for the price.
The little bit of Mount Desert that we saw on the way in today was gorgeous. Mount Desert is an island with a two-lane causeway back to the mainland about 3 miles from our campsite. Sharp-eyed spouse and crony, Peggy, spotted a lobster joint on our way in and we returned there (Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound) for a couple of lobsters for din-din. This is the joint – lobster is served by the pound, selected live, thrown onto a scale to check his/her weight, inserted into a mesh sack and popped into one of about 6 or 8 big cauldrons full of vigorously boiling water before being retrieved and handed over for dismemberment and consumption. Cooked lobster is $9.95 per pound and we killed a bit under 4 pounds before waddling away happily. The price seemed okay and the lobster was great. I suggest you forgo biscuits but the corn on the cob was tasty. Drinks, both leaded and unleaded, are pricey here so just go with the lobster. BYOB.