Tour Guide - Part 2

8:17 am - Friday - September 7th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 56º F, 84% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the north......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 67º F.

We began our first day (Thursday) with Glenn (brother-in-law) and Laureen (TLE's younger sister) by meeting them at 'Eat-A-Pita' for breakfast about 10 am.  It's been about 18 months since we have gotten together.  The last time was at our school reunion in Las Vegas in March of 2017.  We really had no plan for the day, and sometimes that is the best way to begin a day of touring.....just make it up as you go.  Well, the first part was deciding at the last minute to have breakfast at our favorite local breakfast place. From there we drove both cars up to Southwest Food Mart where we left the VW in their parking lot, and continued on with Glenn and Laureen in their rental car to spend the day exploring the highlights of Acadia National Park.  They are only here for parts of three days so there was not a lot of time!

Glenn suggested I play chauffeur, and I accepted the task.  We began our drive over towards Bar Harbor deciding to hit Cadillac Mountain first.  The other day (before Labor Day) when we were there with Charles and Bobbie we had a difficult time finding a parking spot, but this time (after Labor Day) we found a spot pretty quickly.  As always we talked continuously as we walked around the various paved trails at the summit.  The day had begun overcast, but by the time we finished breakfast the cloud cover had melted away.  Nevertheless, it was quite humid, which restricted the amazing view from the summit a tad, but it was still amazing as always.

Cadillac Mountain 'usie'

.....from there we headed over to Sand Beach.  TLE and I had yet to visit Sand Beach, so this would be the first time for all four of us.  The road to Sand Beach is a two lane, one way loop road.  This is the only place in the park that I am aware of where you must pass through a formal kiosk where you show a park pass, or your National Parks card to enter.  There are two attractions along this multi mile one way drive.....Sand Beach, and Thunder Hole.  Sand Beach was our first stop where we very easily found a parking place for our car.....

.....Sand Beach is a popular sun bathing and swimming beach.  The only other sand beach I am aware of is the small one I have written about previously.....Wonder Land......where one might sun bath, but it would be very difficult to swim due to all the rocks.  Sand Beach, as you can see from the pictures is quite large, and there were a lot of people there on Thursday.  We opted to skip Thunder Hole as the tide was all wrong, and the parking would have been impossible.....

.....TLE, of course, took her flip flops off immediately and was wading in the water.  Laureen was wear tennis shoes, and much to her dismay got hit by a small wave getting one of her shoes all wet.

From there we drove over to Jordan Pond to see if we could snag a parking spot, and were unsuccessful, so we headed over to the Asticou Inn for popovers and coffee.  As we drove it began to rain, and when we arrived at the Inn it was still raining, however, we were still able to sit outside at a table with an umbrella adequate enough to shield us from the drizzle.  We had a delightful time enjoying the cloud shrouded view of Northeast Harbor while we continued out non-stop conversation.  After our popovers we walked across the street to the Asticou Azalia Gardens to walk around before returning to Jordan Pond once again.  We were successful in snagging a parking spot on our second attempt....

Jordan Pond

Charles and Bobbie where still in the area, so we made arrangements to meet them at the Bar Harbor Inn Terrace Grill for dinner at 5:30 pm.  We arrived a little early, but went ahead and got a table knowing Charles and Bobbie would follow in about 45 minutes.  I'm glad we did as the rest of the tables were gone well before 5:30.  

Sharing a few cocktails and great conversation

at the Terrace Grill

To say the weather and ambiance were spectacular would be an understatement.....I'm not sure there are adequate words to adequately describe how truly special the evening was.  It was all for which I could have hoped and a lot more.....

Charles and Bobbie joined us shortly after 5:30 and we placed our wine and entree orders (we all ordered their grill salmon dinner!).  Just as we were finishing our dinners the sun began to set to the west of us......just beautiful!

As we paid our bills we took a few sunset pictures and then headed for our vehicles.  We said our 'until next times' to Charles and Bobbie before heading back to Southwest Harbor for the evening.  Glenn and Laureen dropped us off at the VW and we made plans to meet for breakfast again Friday morning.  Friday will be their final day here in their brief MDI visit so we will make the most of our time.

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"I love that dirty water...."

6:34 am - Thursday - September 6th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 66º F, 96% humidity, wind 15 mph out of the southwest.......cloudy with a 40% chance of rain, and a forecast high of 76º F today.

Our time here in Southwest Harbor is coming to an end in just over a week.  The last 4 weeks have been such a Godsend.  We've been able to finish hiking most of the trails we wished to hike, and seen pretty much everything we wished to see.  Being given that time by Tony and Janet is such a gracious gift, and we are forever indebted to them.  In about 9 days we will haul our anchor and begin a leisurely 5 week trek to our next and final job of the year in Campbellsville, KY passing through New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.....that's a lot of states in 5 weeks!  Of course we will pass through numerous other states we have passed through in prior east coast swings, but our goal is to finish our east coast swing having visited all 48 States in the Continental USA before we notch our 49th (Alaska) next summer.

Thursday Elaine's sister, Laureen, and her husband, Glenn, will be arriving in Southwest Harbor for a 3 day stay.  We are looking forward to spending time with them.  Had we still been working, it would have been much more difficult to co-ordinate their visit with our pretty inflexible work schedule......now it is not an issue.

We had scheduled a pump out service to come and pump out our black tank as it has been four weeks since we last dumped and flushed the tank.  We did drain some of the black water out about two weeks ago into a large 30 gallon blue tote designed specifically for that purpose, which has helped extend the time before we have to really dump everything.  All we knew is that the driver was supposed to be here between 7 am, and whenever, so we were relegated to staying home until he arrived and did his duty.

The blue tote

In the interim we spent some time watching the confirmation hearings of Judge Kavanaugh who has been nominated to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.  What a circus! Or better yet......great Kabuki Theater!  In the first two days of the hearings significantly more than 100 spectators have been removed and arrested for screaming various leftist slogans, and insults.  On top of that those senators who reside to the left of center, speaking out of order, interrupted the chairman of the Judiciary Committee over 70 times.  I don't recall anything of this scale and breadth like this ever happening at a the Kagan, or Sotomayor confirmation hearings.  Of course, my memory could just be deficient, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

The pump truck finally arrived about 1:30 pm, and within 30 minutes his truck had sucked up about 65 gallons of black water we generated over the past 4 weeks for a cost of $50 American.  Glad we didn't have to do that every week since we have been here....it would have been quite expensive!  Now we won't have to worry about dumping again until we are on the road.

"I love that dirty water!" - Standells (1966)

Our Wednesday was pretty much 'all about nothing', but sometimes it's just nice not to do anything.  We did watch the 9th of 10 episodes of 'Pacific' before watching recorded episodes of 'Elementary' and 'So You Think You Can Dance' before retiring to bed for the evening.

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Lights, camera.....action!

6:34 am - Wednesday - September 5th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 57º F, 94% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast......partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 72º F.  It got down into the mid 50's last night, and this morning we have the heater running to take the chill off the interior......what a contrast to Tuesday.

When we woke up Tuesday it was already 70º.  It had only gotten down to 78º in our bedroom during the night, so we were anticipating a warm day, and that is what we received.  Tony and his wife were out trimming bushes, and doing other yard work type stuff very early, but by 10 am they were inside running their A/C, and so were we.  It wasn't that it was that hot, but more the high humidity in the air that made it so uncomfortable.

Before we were chased inside I worked on fixing a failed brake light on the VW.  Charles and Bobbie were following us in their truck over to Thurston's on Sunday, and when we arrived Charles had mentioned our left brake light was not working.  We've owned the VW for several years now, and I've never had to replace any of the lights, so I had no idea how to get to the brake/turn/running light assembly.  I first pulled out the stuff we keep in the hatch area, and then began to examine the area near where I would assume you should be able to service that left rear lens.  I finally noticed a round disk about 4" in diameter that looked like it could be removed.....  

The access port

......I then removed that disk thinking I would be able to see the rear of the light assembly and remove the defective bulb, only I could see only wires, and sheet metal......

  
.....then I saw this 'thumb' screw.  It seemed that if I unscrewed that 'thumb' screw the lens would be loosened and I could then pull it away from the car thereby granting access to the bulb.  To be sure I went on YouTube to see if there was a video showing how to replace the brake light bulb......

How to replace a brake light bulb on a 2001 VW Beetle

.......and found one immediately!  I watched it a couple of times, and it confirmed my suspicion.....that 'thumb' screw was the key.  Don't you just love YouTube for stuff like this?!  Over the years we have owned our Beetle I have been impressed at how easy it is to fix stuff like this.  You might recall a couple of years ago our fuel pump failed while we were in Mexican Hat, UT.  After we were towed back to our campsite I went online and ordered a new fuel pump to install when we got back to 'civilization'.  My friend, Tom, McCloud, contacted me with a YouTube video link showing how easy it was to access the fuel pump, and replace it.  Most everything on this car has been just as easy to fix thanks to YouTube!

Within minutes I removed the defective bulb, determined the replacement part number, and then drove over to the local Napa Auto Parts store about 1/2 mile away and got two new dual filament brake like bulbs, and replaced the defective one just before 10 am.  Okay, it's too warm.....time to cool down in the A/C!

The rest of the day was spent reading, and staying cool.  I think the temperature ultimately reached 80º F, but by 3 pm it began to cool quite quickly.  We did make a run to Food Mart to pick up a few things around 1 pm, but that was the extent of our day.  We had planned to meet up with Charles and Bobbie for dinner, but TLE was dealing with a sinus headache most of the day, so we decided to stay home for the evening.

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Saying goodbye.......

7:38 am - Tuesday - September 4th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 71º F, 85% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north by northwest......sunny with a forecast high of 75º F.

Monday, Labor Day, began with heavy overcast, but by 11 am the sky had cleared and it was very sunny.  It was also quite humid....not the worst we have had in northeastern Maine by a long shot, but noticeably, palpably humid, nonetheless.  Remarkably, I am beginning to care less and less about humidity.  Maybe the solution to my humidity phobia all along was to just live where it was humid for 4.5 months and get used to it.

We had plans to meet Charles and Bobbie at their RV park in Trenton for a pizza dinner around 6 pm, so we had the entire day to ourselves.  So what did we do.....pretty much nothing....lol.  I did have the Dell Technology PGA tour event on from about 10 am all the way until after 5 pm when we left to drive up to Trenton.  I did finish reading another book, and TLE pretty much read all day long.......she is a major reader, and by comparison puts me to shame with her voracious reading of one book after another.

At one point TLE broke away from her current book to clean our thermal coffee carafe, which she does on an as needed basis.  She had dismantled the screw on lid to clean the interior workings when I heard her announce that there was a broken part.  Part of the reason she decided to clean it Monday was that it was pouring quite slowly, and she thought maybe something was clogged inside the lid.  In order to get it to pour you have to depress a small lever just above the handle with your thumb to allow the coffee to flow.  That lever had broken inside the lid.  So, this is where I get involved.  I love to fix things, but after examining what was broken, and where it was broken I was pretty sure nothing I have, including my two part epoxy, would fix it.  Nevertheless, I cleaned the part and then epoxied it.  After about 4 hours, more than adequate time for it to cure, I attempted to reinstall it, and sure enough it broke again.  As a result we are now in the market for an new thermal carafe.  The old one was was left over from our Starbucks Aroma Barista coffee maker we used for years before we replaced it with our current CorningWare electric percolator about 5 years ago.  This carafe would keep coffee hot for 12 hours!  In order to keep using the old one while we shop for a new one I glued the lid back together so it can still be used for a few more days.  Oh well, that is life.....stuff breaks, and on you move......

Getting ready to say 'goodbye' to another 

member of our coffee family

A little after 5 pm we began our drive up to Trenton to have dinner with Charles and Bobbie.  We arrived just after 5:30 (stopped to fill up the gas tank), and then we called Pat's Pizza in Ellsworth to order two 'Create Your Own' pizzas.  They said they would be ready in 20 minutes so we left within 5 minutes to make the 10 minute drive up to Pat's Pizza to retrieve our orders.  Unfortunately, right after we called they got slammed and it ended up taking another 20 minutes after we arrived to get our pizzas, but it's all good, right?  We're retired, what do we have to do?

We were back around 6:30 pm and headed outside immediately to eat our pizzas and watch the sun set.  As always we talked non-stop, and when the mosquitoes came out around 7:15 we headed back inside for more conversation, as well as dessert......vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce on top......yummy!  Bye the bye.......the pizza was muy delicioso!

Finally, around 9:30 pm we bid our adieus and headed for the barn once again.  We arrived home around 10 pm, and sat down to watch a recorded episode of  'Better Call Saul' before retiring for the evening......love that show!

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Tour guides.......

7:27 am - Monday - September 3rd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 65º F, 94% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the south by southwest.....overcast and a forecast high of 68º F today.

Sunday dawned clear and cool, and by the way, dawn is now 5:58 am here in northeast Maine.  Quite a change from back in May when it was dawning at 4 am!  Sunset is now at 7:06 pm.....the days are getting shorter and the summer season is just about gone.  

In spite of it being Labor Day weekend downtown Southwest Harbor was not quite as busy as it has been.  Most children are back in school now.  There is a saying here in Southwest Harbor that after Labor Day the tourists consist of the 'near dead' and the 'newly wed'.....very few families can be seen walking the streets of Southwest Harbor.  Some local businesses have already begun to 'shutter their windows' and will be closed until next summer.  Things seem to wind down pretty quickly here in northeast Maine.

Now, for the rest of MDI (Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor), things are still going full tilt and you have to get out pretty early to find a parking spot at the major attractions, which is pretty much everything in ANP (Acadia National Park).  We had agreed to meet Charles and Bobbie at the intersection of Highways 102, 3 and 198 (198 takes you to 3 and then into Bar Harbor) where we would park our car and join them in their large Ford crew cab to hit some of the highlights in Acadia National Park.  We met them about 10:30 am and headed for our first destination of the day....Cadillac Mountain.  What better place in ANP to get a great overview of the entire area......

 Bobbie and TLE

 Charles and moi

.......we reached the summit parking lot to find a long line of cars all looking for the same thing.....a parking spot.  Charles let the three of us off near the summit sidewalk and then set off to find such a spot.  While Bobbie, TLE and I walked around he circumnavigated the parking lot 5 times before finding a spot, but he was successful and eventually joined us.

After spending about 30 minutes taking in the almost always beautiful view (very few clouds this day) we headed down the hill and into Bar Harbor.  We knew we would have no chance on earth of finding a parking spot there within 1/2 a mile of the town center, so we just made a circle through the town to orient Charles and Bobbie to what was there, and some of our favorite eateries, and then headed out of town and down highway 3 towards Otter Creek, through Northeast Harbor, and ultimately back to Somesville where we had parked the VW.  Once we had retrieved the VW we headed through Southwest Harbor to Bernard and one of our favorite lobster pounds....Thurston's.  We arrived to find their parking almost completely full except for two spots at the furthest point from the restaurant so we dropped off the girls and went to snag those last two spots.  The great thing about Thurston's is no matter how full their parking lot is you will never have a hard time finding a table, or two.  They have quite a large dinning area with great views of Bass Harbor......

Bass Harbor view from Thurston's on Sunday

......Bobbie, Charles and I ordered their Lobster BLT, and TLE their Lobster Stew, which she adores.  In addition TLE and Bobbie ordered a bottle of some white wine, and Charles and I a bottle of an Argentinian Malbec.  If it is possible I loved the the Lobster BLT was even better than the last time I had it, and I loved it then!  The conversation flowed as we covered everything from 'A to Z' in the 90+ minutes we were there.  What a perfect way to end the afternoon!  By 3 pm we had made plans to meet up again Monday afternoon, and were both on our way back to our respective abodes.

As soon as we got home I turned on the golf tournament, then sat down and took a hour nap!  The great thing about watching golf on TV is that you don't miss too much in an hour....😀  We finished the evening watching the 7th episode of 'Pacific', and then retired to bed about midnight.....yeah, midnight.....haven't done that in a long time!

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On the bubble.....

6:38 am - Friday - August 24th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 56º F, 91% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the west......sunny with a forecast high today of 73º F.

It had been two days since we last took a hike, and we were anxious to get out and put some more miles on our odometers so we headed to Jordan Pond about 9:20 am to see if we could snag a parking spot and knock out two trails in one trip.....the Jordan Pond Loop, and the South Bubble/Bubble Rock trails.  There are three trails you can take to reach Bubble Rock.  The most popular, because it is the easiest, is the trail beginning in a parking lot off Route 6....it is very difficult to get a parking spot there unless you arrive before 8 am.  The second and third trails branch off the Jordan Pond Loop trail.  Little did we know at the beginning of the day we would be choosing the most difficult of the three.......

......we reached the Jordan Pond parking lot about 9:40 am and were able to snag one of about 10 remaining parking spots....within 20 minutes they would be all gone, and then the waiting game would begin for those arriving after 10 am.  Twice we have arrived before 10 am and gotten a spot easily.  After putting on our Camelbaks we walked a short distance down to what they call the 'boat ramp'.....it is just a place where people put in kayaks, and canoes.....

Explain to me how this is a 'pond'....

......the skies had been relatively cloudy when we left home, but they began to clear as started our trek.  By the end of our hike, 2.5 hours later, there would be virtually no clouds left......

.....the trail circumnavigating Jordan Pond is reputed be 3.1 miles in length and is pretty much a flat walk all around the lake......I really cannot bring myself to call it a pond.  The word 'pond' just conjures up a completely different image in my mind.  Our plan was to pick up the trail to South Bubble, and the famous 'Bubble Rock', about a mile, or so into the Jordan Pond Loop trail.....'Bubble Rock' is technically a 'peculiarly placed glacial erratic', or in layman's terms, just a big rock which appears to be on the verge of falling over the cliff....more on that later......

.....after about 1.3 miles of very easy hiking we came to the fork in the trail where we picked up the .4 mile trail up to Bubble Summit and Bubble Rock.  It began as a very steep, rocky ascent.....nothing new here, right?  Eventually we came to a point where we could see Jordan Pond, and then the fun really began......

......I wish I had taken pictures of the 25 yard section we had to literally climb, hand over hand, to reach the summit, but I was scared spitless....the last thing on my mind was freeing up either of my hands to take a picture.  It took us literally 25 minutes to go that last 25 yards.  Several times we were stymied about how to get to the next level, but finally figured it out.  There was one point where I thought we might have to turn back, but the thought of having to descend what we just had climbed scared me more than continuing the ascent.  Eventually TLE and I safely made it to the top of the precipice where we sat down to regain our composure....it was then I took the picture just below......

......that granite ledge you see in the foreground hides a 75-100 foot wall which you must scale quite carefully to avoid becoming a statistic.....I could not bring myself to walk back to the edge and take a picture of what it looked like......

....within 5 minutes we were smiling again, and so very grateful we did not have to descend the same trail to get back to the Jordan Pond trail.......

......in the picture above you ca see people 'trying' to push the famous Bubble Rock over the edge.....of course it cannot be done, but everyone, but us, seemed compelled to give it a try......

......eventually we reached the South Bubble summit which sits at 763' above sea level at which time we began the much gentler descent  back to the Jordan Pond trail....

......once we hit the Jordan Pond trail it was easy walking again, and we quickly finished the circumnavigation of the lake.......

  Looking south toward Jordan Pond House

.....the last half mile of the trail was upon this boardwalk which kept us off the ground to protect the native flora and fauna.......

......we arrived back at the car around 12:30 pm having covered just 4 miles.......

......in spite of the slow, hair raising climb to South Bubble, we averaged over 2 mph covering the aforementioned 4 miles in one hour and forty-two minutes of 'moving' time, gained 546' in elevation, and burned 725 caloric units in the process.

Well, after that exhilarating hike what more perfect way to celebrate our still being alive than to stop off at the Asticou Inn for some popovers and coffee......

.....by the way, their coffee is amazing, and I'm sure, magical.  We talked like two magpies for about an hour before paying our check and heading for home.  On the way we stopped at the Food Mart to pick up some fixin's for some of TLE's famous salsa, as well as more fixin's for some good old fashioned Cadillac Margaritas......and that my friends was our dinner....chips, salsa and Cadillac Margaritas.....isn't it great being an adult?

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What's next?

6:36 am - Thursday - August 23rd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 59º F, 97% humidity, wind 6 mph out of the west......clear skies with a forecast high today of 70º F.

We woke up Wednesday morning to rain, which we were expecting, and it continued raining on and off into the afternoon.  We knew it would be rainy so we had called a 'rain day' in advance.  We spent the morning reading, listening to the rain on the roof, and watching the fog roll in and out.

It has occurred to me, based on several recent comments, that I never really wrote about our decision not to take the job we had been offered at a local campground.  There were several factors which informed our decision: 1) The weather forecast was for more warm, humid weather....neither of us could come to grips with working one more day in that kind of weather.  Just prior to quitting  SDC we had been through three such weeks of the same weather, and we were just worn down by it. 2) There remains a lot of sightseeing and hiking yet to do here in Acadia National Park.  Why not just compress that into 3, or 4 weeks and finish it.  Then we would be free to spend the next 4, or 5 weeks visiting New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey before our next destination.

Wait, what?  Next destination?  Where is that, you might wonder?  Some time ago we applied for a peak season job at Amazon in Campbellsville, KY and were accepted.  We worked there during peak season 2012 (October 8th to December 22nd) and had a very good experience.  Based on that experience we worked for Amazon again in 2014 in Fernley, NV.  At any rate, here we are on the east coast, and why not do that one more time before we take almost a year off from workamping jobs.  Our original start date was going to be November 8th, but since we quit SDC we have moved our start date up to October 22nd.  We will leave Southwest Harbor on, or about September 15th and begin our 5 week trek to Amazon in Kentucky.  Over those five weeks we will be able to visit each of the 6 states on the east coast we have yet to see.  We did pass through New Hampshire briefly on our way to Maine, but that doesn't really count.....does it?

So, there you have it!  After Amazon we will be heading south to Florida again to visit friends and family, and then we will begin the slow journey westward once again.  We will stop in Louisiana to visit with our friends Cindy and Forest with whom we will be traveling to Alaska next summer.  No doubt there will be a lot of planning during our stay there.  There will be a stop in Flagstaff, AZ for a couple of weeks where I will have some minor surgery completed, which had to be delayed due to my stroke last December, and then we will be back in SoCal visiting with the kids for at least a month before we begin our trek to the Northwest where we will get ready to head to Alaska.

The one constant in our lifestyle is the ever present Mr. Jello.  We always say our plans are subject to his unpredictable whims, and this trip to the east coast has become a textbook case of just that.  As others who are much smarter than I have opined.......we make plans, and then life happens.  

Now, back to Wednesday.....late afternoon we watched a movie on Netflix titled 'A Walk in the Woods' (2015) starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.  It was not a movie I would have gone to see in the theater, but it was perfect for a rainy afternoon in northeast Maine.  This is an autobiographical story written by Bill Bryson, a noted travel author, about his attempt to hike the 2200 mile Appalachian Trail beginning in Georgia, and ending here in Maine at the summit of Mt. Katahdin.  IMDB gives it 3 stars, and we would agree.

Later in the evening we watched another documentary, this time on Amazon Prime, about the Beatles entitled 'How the Beatles changed the world'.  It runs just under 2 hours, and was very interesting.  This documentary spends much of its time focused on the cultural changes brought about by the Beatles and their music, but not a lot of time on the actual music.  I'm not sure I agree with every premise in the movie, but a lot of it rings true.....very thought provoking, indeed.

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Wonder Land......

8:26 am - Wednesday - August 22nd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 62º F, 98% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the east by southeast......heavy overcast with occasional rain and a forecast high of 66º F.  Began raining about 3 am.

Tuesday was another perfect Southwest Harbor day, but after the 7 mile hike on Monday we decided to just head to the beach with our beach chairs, some beer, and sandwiches to spend a few hours relaxing and enjoying the ocean breezes.  I don't think we've used those beach chairs in over 2 years, but I'm glad we still have them.  Back on June 19th when we hiked the short Wonder Land Trail we both agreed we would love to come back with our beach chairs and spend time on the sandy beach.  We left home about 11 am arriving at the Wonder Land parking lot about 10 minutes later. It is a 1/2 mile walk to the beach from the parking lot, and we covered that distance in just over 10 minutes.  We like Wonder Land it is one of the few local beaches which has some sand........

 You're never far from the ubiquitous Maine granite shelves

......Wonder Land is kind of in between Bass Harbor and Southwest Harbor.  It's never crowded, and the view is, well, take a look for yourself (below)......

 See, there's the sand.....just off to the left in this picture

....we spent over two and a half hours reading, napping, and drinking a little beer before we packed it in and headed home were we arrived about 2:30 pm.  It was so nice that I just sat outside the rest of the afternoon reading.

Around 6 pm TLE heated up some Jambalaya for our dinner, which we ate alfresco.  Sometime after 6:30 pm I put some wood in the fire pit and lit a fire, and that is how we ended our evening.  A very relaxing day!

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South Ridge.......

7:05 am - Tuesday - August 21st - Southwest Harbor, ME - 56º F, 94% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the northeast.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 66º F.....we are running our heater this morning for the first time in over a month!

Our first hike (May 30th) in Acadia National Park was the North Ridge trail to Cadillac Mountain.  We had resolved immediately after that first hike to hike the South Ridge trail at a later date.  Our reason for choosing the North Ridge trail for our first hike was its round trip distance of 4.4 miles, while the North Ridge trail was 7.0 miles round trip.  Well, that 'later date' came Monday.  While the North Ridge trail was rated as a 'Moderate' trail, the South Ridge trail was rated as 'Strenuous'.....uh oh!  We thought the North Ridge trail was very strenuous, so what is the South Ridge going to be like?

As it turns out we found the South Ridge trail to be much easier than the North Ridge trail in spite of it being 2.6 miles longer.  The gradient was much more favorable 98% of the time than the North Ridge trail.......

I know the sign post is almost impossible to read because of the shadows, but it says it is 3.5 miles to Cadillac Mountain

.....and while it began with the all too familiar granite staircase, there was actually very little of that over the course of the trail......

 The ubiquitous beginning of the South Ridge trail, and most trails here in Acadia National Park for that matter.

.....within half an hour we had covered 1 mile......just 2.5 to go.  After that first mile we finally came to a place where we could see the ocean, and for the rest of the hike the ocean was in sight.....

 For most of the remaining 2.5 miles we had the ocean in view

.....we were totally surprised at how the miles melted away under our steady upward pace......

.......we had been on the trail just 90 minutes when we came to this (above) sign indicating there was just 1/2 mile remaining to the top, which we reached in just another 10 minutes.....

 Once above tree line we were walking on nothing but granite....there were frequent rock cairns to keep us on the correct path

.....we arrived at the summit of Cadillac Mountain for the 4th time this summer around 1:40 pm.  We had begun the hike in partly cloudy conditions, but by the time we made the summit there were very few clouds remaining.....

 The summit of Cadillac Mountain for the 4th time this summer

 Without the rock cairns to mark the trail you would be lost in no time

....we spent about 15 minutes at the summit cooling down and snacking on Power Bars before we began the return trek to Highway 3 and our car.....  

.....in all we covered 7.1 miles (we walked around the top a little, of course) in 3 hours and 17 minutes of actual 'moving time' (total elapsed time was close to 4 hours) averaging just over 2 mph for the entire hike.  We had total elevation gain of 1,600', and burned 1,278 caloric units......

......this was one of the most relaxing, enjoyable hikes we have done in Acadia National Park, and if you had time for just one hike we would highly recommend this trail.  The final 2.5 miles to the summit, as well as the first 2.5 miles going down (five miles total) give you continuous, spectacular panoramic views of the the ocean, and surrounding islands.

Once we reached the car and had stowed our gear in the hatch I turned to TLE and asked "What's next?".......I could see by the glint in her eyes that she was thinking Atlantic Brewing was 'next', and that is where we headed.  Once again, in spite of the heavy tourist traffic in Bar Harbor we found a two hour parking spot right across the street from Atlantic Brewing.  For the first time since we began visiting this location we sat upstairs, outside, on the roof.  On our prior visits it was always cold, sometimes misting, or windy.....not at all conducive to alfresco dinning.......

.....we ordered a couple of appetizers to accompany our brews (a pint of Lil' Guy IPA for moi, and 'Something Dark' Porter for TLE)......tacos for me, and a quesadilla for TLE.  As always, the food was exceptional, and the brews just as good.....the alfresco dining was the final perfect touch!

We sat at the table under the second umbrella going from right to left

We were one our way home a little after 4 pm, arriving back at the Newell by 4:30 with big smiles on our faces.  We both agree that hiking several times a week, as we are now doing now,  is increasing our fitness rapidly.  Of course the much cooler temperatures, and lower humidity levels contribute significantly to how we feel after any hike, and they were perfect on Monday!

After I showered I walked over to Tony's house and spent about an hour chatting with he and Janet.....after all it was Monday, and what would any Monday be like without spending time with Tony?  We are blessed to have Tony and Janet as friends, and very blessed to be staying on their property.  They are so gracious and welcoming that we are beginning to feel like part of the family.

Thank you so much for stopping by!

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