Continuing our vacation in Acadia National Park, we headed to Cadillac Mountain. At 1529 feet (466 meters), it is the highest point in the Eastern United States. From October to March each year, Cadillac Mountain is also the first place in the United States for sunrise each morning. As such, it is a popular location to watch the sun rise in the mornings and reservations are required and hard to get. We couldn't be bothered to wake up that early, and went late morning. The kids decided it would be more fun to leave the walking paths and head down the mountain on the rocks. We played a game of not being allowed to step on anything green, but only rock. They had fun inventing their own trail.
After about half an hour of descending, we decided this ledge/cliff would count as the end of the trail. The kids impressed me with how far down we got.
We found a cool little cave the kids explored.
Inside the cave:
Lydia exploring her inner zen:
Derek didn't want any help going up this difficult section on our way back up the mountain.
Eventually, we made it back to the top of Cadillac Mountain where all the other tourists were. The day was overcast, but we still had fun exploring.
At low tide every day, nearby Bar Island becomes accessible by foot from the town of Bar Harbor where we were staying. The gravel bar connecting the town and the small island is exposed at low tide and there are small tide pools that become accessible for exploring. If you time it wrong, you could in theory be stuck on uninhabited Bar Island until the next low tide. The exposed path was less than a mile each way. We explored in the tide pools, and the kids found clams, crabs, sand dollars, and a lot of little critters living in shells that I don't know the names of.
Exploring a tide pool:
Karina with empty clam shells:
Derek with a dead crab:
Since we had the possibility of getting wet, Derek put on his bathing suit. But rest assured, he put his pirate shirt back on as soon as we got back to our hotel. He wore the pirate shirt for 9 days straight. He wore the bandana almost as many days.
There was pirate-themed mini golf a few minutes drive from the hotel, and we went twice because the theming was so popular:-)
The kids liked getting a little break from hiking with mini golf.
Gorham Mountain trail was a fun hike that is close to the coast and offers beautiful views along the way. There were also ample opportunities to climb rocks and find little crevices to explore, which is what our kids most want to do.
The top had views over Otter Cliffs and Sand Beach.
On the far side of Acadia National Park is Bass Harbor Head Light (lighthouse). It is arguably the most iconic and photographed lighthouse in Maine. We had to wait about 20 minutes to get parking when we arrived. We also intentionally did not go at sunset because it is nigh impossible to get parking then.
For reference, this is what the lighthouse is supposed to look like:
Here was reality for us:
Karina and Lydia went overboard climbing on rocks beneath the lighthouse.
I didn't like them climbing so far away on these rocks.
You can see Karina and Lydia in the distance behind Nate in the below picture.
There were also little pools by the rocks where we found crabs. Lydia was afraid to touch the live crab, so another tourist held it out for her.
Karina was scared, but dared to hold the live crab before we released it back to the pool.
Jordan Pond is a glacier formed tarn in Acadia. We hiked around the small lake with a shoreline of 3.6 miles. I don't have any pictures of the pond (lake) itself, but it was quiet and serene, and very large, so I'm not sure why they call it a pond.
The last mile or so of the trail around Jordan Pond is a narrow wooden boardwalk.
Because Hurricane Henri had unexpectedly come to the Northeastern states, we decided to drive home a day early from vacation. We didn't want to drive through New England during a hurricane or tropical storm, so we curtailed the vacation. What was a 10.5 hour drive going from Maryland to Maine, was a 13 hour drive home. We weren't the only ones trying to get home before the hurricane hit. It's too bad that this was the second trip this year we cut short, but guess that's how it goes sometimes.
Lydia still tells me that she thinks she wants to live in Maine, so I think the trip was a success.
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