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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Post mortem......

7:50 am - Monday - August 20th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 62º F, 88% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north by northeast......partly cloudy, becoming clear later in the morning with a forecast high for today of 67º F.

 I've been contemplating where we went wrong in our summer job search that led us to work at Smuggler's Den Campground.  In the past we have only applied for/taken jobs at places where we knew someone who had worked there before, and had a good experience.  We've had really good experiences overall as a result.  We, obviously, left Tahoe Valley Campground under a cloud, but that was after 3 mostly really good summers there.  When we applied to work at SDC we knew nothing about them.  We found their ad on Workamper.com, but there were no 'employee experience' reviews for their campground as there were for most of the other campgrounds in the area.  We knew they were family owned and operated as that was disclosed in their ad.  What we did not know was that there were numerous negative employee experiences, but they were all had by locals who got their jobs via word of mouth.  They did not belong to a forum such as Workamper.com where they could record their experience, plus they live and work in a very small, cloistered community where everyone knows everyone.  

There was a workamper couple from the year prior which had left in August, just as we did, after working at SDC for over two months.  We were told by the owners that the husband had some health issues arise causing them to leave early.  We found out later that this was just the excuse they gave for leaving.  As it turns out they were treated terribly by the owners, and that is why they left.  Over the course of the summer we met numerous other locals who had worked at SDC at one time, or another, but had quit for much the same reasons we had.  When I say they 'quit', I mean to say they declined to return to work at SDC the next summer, because they were tired of being mistreated.

At any rate, we thought we asked all the right questions in our phone interview, but we obviously did not ask enough of the right questions.  Perhaps we should have asked for references from past employees regarding their experience at SDC, and that is something we will do in the future.  They would have been hard pressed to come up with any former employees who would have said good things about them.  That's our bad, and we have learned from our experience. At least, now, there are 'employee experience' reviews for SDC on several seasonal worker sites, so at least future applicants will be forewarned. 

I do not want to leave the impression that we were under continual assault by the owners, as that is not the case. There were, however, enough instances of the kind of behavior I described previously so that all of us who worked there were always walking on eggshells wondering when the next explosion would be, and what would cause it.  When you find yourself waiting for the proverbial 'other shoe to drop' all the time it kind of spoils your day, and overall experience, wouldn't you agree?

In the end we learned a valuable lesson, and in spite of the bad experience with our employer we have really enjoyed our time outside of work here in northeast Maine.  We have made several good friends, and feel all the richer for having made their acquaintance.  In the end we cannot imagine not having them in our life.  Now that we are just tourists we have plenty of time to finish all the hikes, bike rides and sightseeing we planned to do in a much shorter time frame, and then continue exploring the other New England states we have not yet visited before it is time to head south.

Sunday was a marvelous day to be alive.....we watched two more English Premier Soccer matches in the morning, and the weather was so wonderful that we spent virtually the entire afternoon outside sitting on our patio reading and listening to music.  I finished one book, and read two more short stories over the course of the day.  We both feel well rested and energized, and could not be happier.....well, I guess we could be happier, but I am not sure how that could be remotely possible.

Thanks for stopping by!

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'Living in the Material World'........

7:49 am - Sunday - August 19th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 62º F, 87% humidity, wind 10 mph out of the north by northeast.....sunny with a few clouds, and a forecast high for today of 69º F.  As can be seen in the graphics below, we are definitely in a cooling trend with highs in the low 70's for the next 12 days, and lows in the high 50's for at least the next 6 days.......nice!

It rained much of the night Friday night, and into the afternoon Saturday.  We had expected rain, so made no plans for Saturday except to watch three, count them, three English Premier Soccer matches.   We haven't been able to do that for a long, long time, and frankly, it was just as good as I expected it would be.

I had the game on the TV in the trailer, and spent time out there reorganizing my work bench area.  It's easy to keep collecting things, and just sticking them on one of the two shelves.......

....I keep stuff on these two shelves that I use on a regular basis.......

......above - left to right: extra bicycle tubes for each bike, patch kits, screws, connectors, grease...........

......above - left to right: White Lightning chain lube, oil, bicycle grease, spray paint, penetrating oil........

.........above - left to right: lithium grease, water repellent spray, silicone spray, Scotch spray adhesive, degreaser, glue.......that's the top shelf......

.......now for the bottom shelf - above - right to left: small LED flashlight, sealant for the tubeless tires on my Intense 5.5 MTB, chain lube, Acetone, Mineral Spirits, two sided tape, black electrician tape, solder iron, carabiners,.........

.....above - left to right: wet and dry sandpaper, a jar of WD-40, clear safety glasses, used plastic bags for use in my trash can, a wire brush, white teflon tape, more grease........

......above - left to right: the remote controls for my radio, XM Radio, and TV, my XM Radio receiver, future projects, tuppeware full of small screw drivers, ratchets, SAE and metric sockets, charger for my drill battery, and the charger for our walkie talkies.....this is the stuff I need access to on a regular basis, and the stuff that makes me happy because I have it......

.....above: you can see my wall cabinets, three of our bikes, and everything at the very back which I do not to access on a regular basis when we are parked for an extended period of time: cones, step ladder, old towels, beach chairs, Winegard Carryout Satellite Dish, extra clothing, spare bike parts, etc.  On the right in this picture you can see my small ShopVac (top right) hanging on the wall, and to the very right (lower right) you can see the corner of the table which holds three bags of hand tools.  This is my mancave, and I haven't taken the time for quite a while to get it quite this organized....it's looking about the best it has looked for some time, and it makes me happy.

That was pretty much the extent of the day, except for one more thing.....we found this great 3+ hour documentary on Netflix about the life of George Harrison (one of the four Beatles) called 'Living in the Material World' (IMDB gives it 8.1 stars out of 10) produced in 2011......what a great documentary!  TLE and I were absolutely captivated, and we can highly recommend it.

Saturday was filled with naps, three English Premier Soccer matches, some organizing, and an amazing documentary......couldn't ask for more.....thanks for stopping by!

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