Acadia National Park-Day One

Well folks, I am presently wishing I was back in Maine. It got hot and sticky here in D.C. I miss the cool temperatures, the ocean, and the presence of evergreens. And since I am missing Maine, its about time

we dive into the wonderful details of my recent trip to Acadia National Park. 

Acadia National Park was the first National Park east of the Mississippi River and soon became a vacation hot spot for all. I can understand why. It is absolutely breathtaking,

So, first of all, I will say, that being so far east, the sun rises early, like 4:50 am, which I guess isn't a problem if you happen to be staying in an inn, B&B, or camper, but if you are in a tent, you naturally wake up when the sun rises. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since you can get an early start to your day, but quiet hours in the campground are still during this time, so every day we had to force ourselves to lay around until about 6:30, when other people stirred in the campground.

Now, something I haven't talked too much about before is that of food to eat while camping. Since we were camping with our car pulled right up to the campground, we had a nice large ice chest with us. On this morning, we decided to try monkey bread. What is monkey bread? Well, you take refrigerated biscuits, tear them into smaller pieces, arrange them into a pan, cover with cinnamon and sugar, and then bake. Well, one does not have an oven while camping, so we had to improvise. The hubby built a small fire while I prepared the monkey bread. I prepared it in a aluminum pie pan and covered it with aluminum foil. We started off by putting them near the fire, with intent of rotating the pan around. Well, hubby didn't think they were cooking, so he plopped the pan directly on the fire. Well, the fire was smoky and hot. When we pulled them out after a little while, it looked baked. However, a good bit of them were burned and in the end they tasted like smoke. We ate what we could, slightly disappointed by the outcome. This would not deter us, and we planned on trying to cook it again later in the week.

After breakfast, we decided to make our way to the visitor's center, since we had not been to it yet. I wanted to ask about a couple of hikes and pick up some postcards to mail to friends and family

The volunteers and park rangers at the visitor center were extremely helpful and I found out all the info I wanted on some hikes. Having info in hand, we headed out for our first hike of the day, the Cadillac Mountain North Ridge Trail. Now, this trail is rated as moderate by the info on the park website, but I would upgrade it to a moderate-strenuous. The trail is 4.4 miles roundtrip, and brings you right to the top of Cadillac Mountain, with the benefit of wonderful views along the way. Of course, if you don't want to hike, you have the option of driving to the top of Cadillac Mountain, but where's the fun in that??

Here are some pictures from that hike.

Since there are rocky open areas, they have a good bit of cairns (shown below) to guide the way on the trail.

Pretty pink flowers. Not sure what they are. Any botanists or plant enthusiasts know?

Action shot of hubby on the trail.

Me and the hubby. 

The stone stairway.

Loved the panoramas I could capture with my camera. 

Looking towards the summit.

View from the very top.

After we hiked up, we rested, ate some trail mix, and then headed back down. We were planning on doing another hike, so decided to take a nice restful detour. We head over the the Nature Center and the Wild Gardens of Acadia. The Nature Center was small and simple and had the token stuffed, dead animals. The Wild Gardens of Acadia were delightful. It is a garden representing twelve different plant communities found throughout the park, brought together for you in one convenient location.

Here are some pictures showing you the diversity of plant life represented.

The area dedicated to ferns.

Houstonia caerulea, a.ka. the azure bluet. My friend Kelsey studies these.

Swamp Iris

Ok, I was really obsessed with this next plant, the pitcher plant. Who doesn't love carnivorous plants? That's right, they eat meat, in the form of insects that is. The leaves form cups which the insects fall into. Pretty cool, right? Also, they have these really cool flowers. Shots of this amazing plant are seen below.

The "pitcher" formed by the leaves.

And, even though we were in gardens, I couldn't resist grabbing a picture of this phoebe in it's nest.

After we were done exploring the gardens, it was lunch time. We stopped at the Bear Brook picnic area. Lunch that day consisted of water table crackers topped with port salut cheese and salami, yummo!

We then went in search of our next hike, the Beehive Trail. I will say, this trail wasn't the easiest to find. There isn't any clear signage saying "Beehive Trail Here". To save you the pain of trying to find this trail, park at the Sandy Beach parking area, and then walk against the flow of traffic on the one-way park loop road. It will be on your left. This trail may only be listed as .8 miles round-trip, but let me tell you, it's a vertical .8 miles!! Iron rungs are involved. The information for the park lists it as strenuous, with good reason. I highly suggest going up the trail, as opposed to down it. Here are some pictures from that hike.

This is what you are scrambling up.

View of Sand Beach from the trail.

Hubby demonstrates using the iron rungs.

More pink lady slippers, yay!!

The Bowl.

The Beehive was definitely a fun hike, but you need to consider the difficulty of the trail before starting out on it. The park website has a great list of trails and there difficulty available for you at this link.

After this hike, we were exhausted, but we needed ice. Unfortunately, we were visiting at a time considered early in the season, so the camp store up the road from our campground was closed. We had to go back to the grocery store in town to get supplies. After that, it was hot dogs and chili for dinner and then taking it easy.

I hope you enjoyed that nice long post. There is more to come on our visit to this wonderful national park.