Acadia National Park

 It's sure nice to feel rested and relaxed after a great nights' sleep!  We headed up to Milagros Coffee to have breakfast and coffee before heading to Acadia National Park!

The directions were NOT that clear on where to enter the park and we ended up in Bar Harbor - tiny, narrow streets with lots and lots of traffic and people - oh my - get me out of here!!  Later we found out that a cruise ship had stopped and let off about 4000 people - yikes!

We FINALLY got into the park and went to the first place on my list - and that's when I realized we should have gotten up even EARLIER than we did and got to the park at the crack of dawn!  There is hardly any parking at some of these places - I guess when the National Parks were opened as parks, they had no idea that more parking lots should have went in because of all of the traffic!  We ended up parking along the highway and walking a LONG ways!  We had seen Sand Beach from driving around the parking lot and chose NOT to walk back there.  

But we could walk to Thunder Hole which is a small inlet where the waves roll up against the rocks, creating a thunderous sound!  The water can spray up to 40 feet in the air - wow!  It was definitely cool to see and I took a video of it but no pictures!

The crashing waves of the Atlantic!

There was always someone around to take your picture which was nice!  And yes, the weather was beautiful and warm - a jacket wasn't even needed!

Next was Jordan Pond House - I tried to get lunch reservations over a month ago and it was already booked up!!  But it has a nice trail around the pond AND the restaurant is famous for their popovers and I figured if we couldn't have lunch there, at least we could get a popover!  It wasn't to be - we drove around and around that small parking lot and there was absolutely NO place to park and no place on the road either to park.  Rather disappointing but that's life!

We then headed to the Visitor Center and there we took a carriage hike - there are lots of these "carriage bridges" throughout the park and a story to go with them which I won't get into but it was all very interesting and a nice hike!  (found out at the visitor center that you can take public buses over to whatever area you want to and be dropped off and picked up later - somehow I NEVER read about this as it would have been the perfect thing to do - but we finished up at the visitor center LAST and by that time, we were out of the mood to ride the bus and go back)

Some of the reds in the trees - just gorgeous!

We finished up Park Loop Road which is the 27 mile loop through the park and somehow missed a turn and ended up in Northwest Harbor (not to be confused with Bar Harbor or Southwest Harbor) - it's way at the bottom of Mount Desert Island and kind of a strange town!  The main street was a one way street but there was plenty of parking and we found a great place for lunch - SCORE!  

I checked on my phone to see if there was anything else to see while we were in the area and there was a garden that looked like it might be fun to see!   OH YES!!  We parked across the street from it and walked in and took the walking path - absolutely grogeous with the colors!!  A great stop!

I had one more item on my list to see that day and it was a bridge - the most photographed bridge in the area so I knew I had to find it - and sure enough it was right along the road!  We stopped and the colors were perfect!  I snapped pic after pic!  WOW!

What a great day we had, even though the park was a little disappointing with all the people!  Glenn napped when we got back to the cabin and then we walked uptown to a restaurant for dinner - I wasn't really hungry so just shared with Glenn but DID indulge in blueberry crisp with ice cream - oh so yummy!  Those Maine blueberries are the best!