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.