Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Northeast Trip: Day 10-13 - The rain in Maine falls mainly in Maine

 On day 10 we finally made it to Maine! We explored Wolf's Neck Woods State Park for most of the afternoon.


There's an eagle in the top of the tree just left of center, yep I'm a photographer. It was pretty cool but also quite warm. We both planned to spend the first 10 days in shorts and t-shirts and then change to longer clothes once we got up to Maine, but it turns out we should have packed many more warm-weather clothes. If anyone knows someone in the market for a 17 year old vehicle that smells like sweaty feet let me know, otherwise we might need to burn this stankwagon to the ground. Here's some less stinky lady's slippers:
The next 5 nights will be camping so we got a surprisingly nice motel for cheap (shoutout to Traveler's Inn in Brunswick). Before that we stopped for some lobster rolls. The place was highly rated so we were excited for our first taste of Maine lobster! I don't get why anyone eats there: tiny bun, plain lobster, bad coleslaw on the side, $62. 

Day 11: Acadia National Park
After working all morning we stopped at the Maine botanical garden, but it was almost 90 degrees so we didn't feel like looking at flowers in the heat and decided to just leave. We drove to Acadia and made our way to "the quiet side" to the Seawall Campground. The road along the coast was recently washed out (later we walked to see it and there are huge sinkholes that took out the entire road) so it took a bit longer than expected. It's a nice campground walking distance to the ocean so we set up and read books on the rocky shore. Somehow I took zero pictures today, but it was still nice.

Day 12: Hotcadia, Saharacadia, Heatwavecadia (maybe one of these works?)
So hot. It was 90+ degrees by 10AM. We tried a hike, Cris bailed halfway but I sweated my way to the top of Acadia Mountain.
It was pretty but not anything mindblowing. We cooled off in Echo Lake which was nice but extremely busy, which at the time we didn't realize is the least busy part of Acadia. 
We finished the day with lobster at Thurston's. They catch their own lobsters and you can pick out which one you want to eat. It was amazingly good and cheaper than the lobster roll debacle. As we ate there was a storm that cooled it off a bit so we could sleep.
Day 13: Ewww, people
There is not nearly enough parking for how many people go to Acadia and we're still not even in the busy season. Each lot we went to we had to wait for a spot to open up and there were huge lines of cars parked along the road everywhere. We hiked 3.5 miles around Jordan Pond which was a pretty nice and easy walk. 
Half the hike was on single-lane boardwalk so it was pretty annoying to have to stop and let the continuous horde of people going the opposite direction. 
It was really hot still so Cris decided to just read by the beach while I climbed Beehive Mountain. It's only a couple mile hike but it goes straight up the side of the mountain. There are a bunch of switchbacks that have iron rungs attached to rocks as ladders and handrails so it's pretty strenuous. It would have been amazing if there weren't so many people (notice the trend?). I've never been on a hike with a queue. It was pretty much climb three ladder rungs, stand on the ladder for 5 minutes trying not to look down, climb the rest of the way up. Then wait 5 minutes so the next person cleared the thin walkway over the precipice, then wait again. It was pretty agonizing in the hot sun but the views were nice. 
I explored some side paths, listened to some children scream about the leaches that were swimming by them in the lake, and then made my way back to Cris. 
The drive back to the quiet side was nice, but we were happy to get out of Acadia the next day. The heat did put a damper on our enjoyment since we cancelled a couple longer hikes, but I don't think we'd come back anyway just because of how many people were there. There are prettier and less busy places all through New York and Vermont. 

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