Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine

Maine was everything we thought it would be, small, historical, beautiful towns and countryside.  Both of us grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida so we were enthralled with the architecture of the houses, buildings and barns.  Amazed that you can drive through any village where there are houses that are 200 years old and still occupied.

 We settled in the Bar Harbor area.  One afternoon we went to search out a restaurant for our required lobster dinner.  While the town of Bar Harbor itself might be lovely, there were people everywhere.  Being an old historical town there was little parking and it was difficult to just walk down the sidewalks with all the people.  You couldn't see the harbor very well, what with the huge Whale Watching ships blocking the views and coming and going constantly.  Hope the whales didn't mind all these ships coming out to watch them with a couple of hundred people on each ship!!   We couldn't figure out where all these folks came from. 

We had our lobster dinner and it was OK.  Tried to walk around down by the harbor, but one of the many huge whale watching ships had pulled in and people where pouring into the area.  We decided to head back to the campground and try another day. 

We figured out where all the people were coming from, when we went to Acadia National Park the next day.  We drove up to Cadillac Mountain, got out of the car and looked around.  There, in the harbor, were two huge cruise ships!  Now we knew where all the people came from.  The cruise ships kept coming the whole time we were there, so we didn't bother going back to Bar Harbor.  Apparently, this is cruise ship time and when they are not there, Bar Harbor is a nice place to visit.  It is geared toward the tourist.  We would describe Bar Harbor as the Key West of Maine

 Here's a great web page on Bar Harbor.  http://www.visitmaine.com/region/downeast/bar_harbor/   Don't let our experience stop anyone from going there.

The good thing was, Bar Harbor is not why we came to the area.  Acadia National Park was.  http://www.nps.gov/acad/      You can click on their photos, and you can find ours at the end of this post.

Acadia is the second most visited National Park in the country.  We can see why.  It is easily accessable and gives you some beautiful views of the coast of Maine and the surrounding area.  We will make the trip back to Maine and Acadia again.  It should not be missed.  Rather than go on and on.  Here are our pictures of our time there.

The first set of pics are of the entire area, Mount Desert Island, which encompasses Bar Harbor, Acadia and the rest of the island.  We drove around the island one day.  These are not pictures of Bar Harbor or Acadia, just pics of the island, which includes a picture of Bass Head Lighthouse.  As usual, with all of these pictures, click the link, select slide show and hit F-11 on your computer to enlarge. 

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/DriveAroundMountDesertIslandMaine?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGW0veqyN6c3wE#

The next two sets of pictures are from Acadia.  The first day was overcast and are general pictures from around the park.  The second day was glorious with lots of sun and are of Cadillac Mountain.  We could go back a hundred times and not get bored with Acadia.  Wonderful. 

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/AcadiaNationalPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCIah4v7P-amKhgE#


http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/CadillacMountainAcadiaNationalPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCM6Y4cn4orn1GQ#

Bla, Bla, Bla, on and on

Boy, went on a tanget the other day and wrote this loooonnnnggg blog about campgrounds.  Made my eyes water.  Why do we feel we need to share everything?  Thank goodness I deleted the mess... 

Sept. 8     Hike of the Day:     We went to....  The Marsh, Billings, Rockefeller National Historic Park,     http://www.nps.gov/mabi/  in Woodstock, VT.  We did not tour the farm, but took one of the many trails through the forest.  We did a little over 3 miles.  We could have done a few more but we had Pilot with us and he's not much of a walker and he really slows us down as he has to smell every bush and tree.  There was a good portion up hill hiking.  Being flatlanders, we need to do some more "up hill' practice hiking.  Our legs could feel it tonight.  We took the back roads on the way home.  Unbelieveable farms, rivers and landscapes.  Oh, and covered bridges.  There's so many around here, you start to get blase about seeing them.  We took a couple of pictures of a bridge between Woodstock and Quechee.  All of the bridges we've seen are still in use. 

Below are a few pictures.  It was very overcast today so they aren't as pretty as they should be, but will give you an idea of what it was like.  We may go back tomorrow and do a few more miles. (PS..  we did go back and tried a few of the other trails.  Nice.)     As usual, click the link below, select slide show and hit F-11 to enlarge them.


  http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/MarshBillingsRockefellerNatLParkAndCoveredBridge?authkey=Gv1sRgCP3VnK6-o_HS0gEk  

48 hours

48 hours. A weekend. A wedding.  A place where loved ones, friends and people you haven't met yet, but have heard their name a 100 times, get together for the most joyous of occasions. 

Our neice, Sarah Torrance married Aaron Sheldon in Norwich, VT on September 4th and we were there.  In fact, we've been "there" for over 2 weeks.  We found a nice campground near the area the wedding would be held and decided to stay for a month.  We've enjoyed our stay and patiently waited while everyone else got here.  The reception took place at the Sheldon farm.  It was a beautiful day in Vermont.

Alex and I got to spend a lot of the weekend with our son, Bill and his wife, Heather.  We had a quiet dinner here at the coach one night and enjoyed the wedding together. 

I could go on and on and try to let you know all the details and names of all the people, but I think you will figure it all out looking at the pictures.  It's Sunday night and everyone has flown home. I'm sad that it's all over so soon, but that is what memories are for and I have some very nice ones.   

As usual, click the link below, select slide show and hit F-11 to enlarge the pictures. 

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/Wedding?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmlma3J3L2wGg#