28 Sept 2023
Welcome to Acadia National Park!
Driving from the coastline through the mountains of the Atlantic Northeast as the trees changed colors has been on my bucket list for ages so I picked a week, requested the time off work and crossed my fingers. Unfortunately, I think we’re at least a week or 2 too early- most trees are still green 🙁
On our way up to the Visitor Center to buy our pass, Matt spotted this cool stripey bumblebee!
Horse-drawn carriages use this bridge:
I waffled a bit on how best to spend our day at the park- there were a couple hikes I wanted to do as well as driving the Park Loop. It made the most sense to drive the road and hit the hikes in the order we came across them on our route, but I knew the last hike was a popular one and parking is tight, and was worried we wouldn’t be able to find parking.
Ultimately, we decided to just start driving and do the hikes as they came- there is a fairly robust bus system that goes to the popular areas, so if we struggled with parking later, we could always drop our car at the visitor center (provided we can find parking there) and hop the bus back to the hike.
Our first hike, to Thunder Hole, started here at Sand Beach:
Parking here was already full and we had to make a couple laps before someone left and we got a spot.
The hike basically followed the road, and I learned that there’s actually a couple closer parking lots and you can park along the road, but walking gives you great views of the coast:
Unfortunately, today is shaping up to be overcast and hazy 🙁
I wasn’t quite sure how the timing at Thunder Hole would work, but we got there right before high tide, so the crashing waves weren’t as thunderous as their name implied.
Still, a beautiful coastline!
This plant was strangely fuzzy…
Hike #2 is the Jordan Pond Loop- an easy 3.2 mile hike around Jordan Pond. Unfortunately, it’s super-popular and there’s very little parking. We made a couple loops of the lot and struck out. Matt probably would have kept circling ’til he found a spot, but I was hangry and just wanted to hike! so we drove back to the Visitor Center, parked our car, ate some lunch, and hopped a bus back to Jordan Pond:
Jordan Pond, with the Bubbles in the background:
I was super-excited to see this pile of birds only to zoom in and find them to be seagulls:
Start of the hike:
I’m not sure what caused these trees to grow like this:
In a couple weeks, when the trees are changing, this view is going to be beautiful!
And from the other side of the path:
Our path was periodically interrupted by water drainage channels:
Again, a beautiful view when the trees are changing and the sun’s out:
Matt, wondering how far behind I’ve fallen:
A very cool bridge:
Beaver dam:
We saw several trees along the path that had been downed by beavers, but no beaver sightings. Beside those seagulls and an occasional squirrel, we saw very little wildlife 🙁
Our nice, crushed rock path became quite rocky:
And then became a boardwalk!
This is the part I had seen in pictures and was most looking forward to.
One last look at the coast before heading up to Jordan House for popovers:
Popovers were on my list of foods out here to try, but unfortunately, you can only get them in the restaurant, not at the convenient grab-and-go shop, so Matt and I added ourselves to the reservation list and wandered around to kill our 45 minute wait. I found this plushy lobster!!!
Our wait was actually shorter than anticipated, and our food came out quickly. This is a standard popover:
I ripped it open to show the hollow inside, but it was huge! Like grapefruit sized, at least. Eggs, milk, flour and magic turn into this puffy, airy roll. Delicious!
If I had known how big these things were, we probably would have shared, but Matt and I both ordered a standard popover as well as a lobster roll for Matt and a lobster popover for me:
This was probably one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten! The buttery lobster combined with the eggy popover… it reminded me a lot of buttermilk pancake, but soooo rich and incredibly filling.
Matt’s lobster roll on the other hand… kinda disappointing. We learned there are 2 types of lobster roll- Maine and Connecticut, and Maine rolls are served cold in a mayo-based sauce. Connecticut is definitely the better option (sorry Maine!).
We had initially planned to check out downtown Bar Harbor after the park and find dinner there, but this was a rather late lunch and we were stuffed, so we opted to just head back to our room and call it an early night. Tomorrow is mostly a driving day, so we can check out the town before we hit the road.