We woke up and found that our yurt wasn’t a big pool of water. The pots and pans that we put under the leaks worked. The weather forecast for the next few days was promising. So we set our sights on Acadia National Park, and in particular Cadillac Mountain.
This area of harbors where we are, Bass Harbor, Bar Harbor and others, and most of Acadia National Park are on Mt. Desert Island. Sea the map in the photos. Most of Mt. Desert Island, the mountains with their U-shaped valleys, the clear freshwater lakes, the sheared cliffs which outline many of the inland bays and almost all of the physical features which make this area so well-known were carved out in the ice age over 20,000 years ago. In fact Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the Atlantic Coast at about 1,300 feet was about 700 feet beneath the surface of the ice sheet that engulfed this area and was part of the larger ice sheet that ranged from Canada to New York, parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and even into the Great Lakes region.
Today Cadillac Mountain is known for catching the first rays of sunlight every morning for the contiguous United States.
We didn’t leave the yurt until after 11:00 and when we got to the park entrance, close to Bar Harbor, it was almost noon. The park was packed. We decided to take the Sand Beach Loop prior to going the top of Cadillac Mountain. The drive was beautiful but parking and taking photos was a little bit hard, but we did our best. We took photos of Sand Beach from a distance as parking was tough around it and it looked like a great summer beach, but you had to get there really early to get a parking spot. The ocean water gets pretty warm in July through September here. We took photos of both the fall colors and the ocean/coastline scenery. Mount Desert Island has a mostly rugged coastline that reminded us of Pebble Beach a little bit.
After the Sand Beach Loop we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain but just as we reached the peak the fog rolled in. We didn’t even look for a parking place as we knew we could come back when the weather was better.
Leaving Acadia National Park we went into Bar Harbor and had a beer or two at our regular stop, Atlantic Brewing Company. Then we went to dinner at Side Street Café. It was a nice place and the vibe was good and it was happy hour and they had great deals. We ordered mac and cheese which was a meal in itself and at happy hour was only $5.00 and a beer.
