Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park, ME

Sunday, June 21, 2009
Still raining. Today we were headed to Bar Harbor Maine until Wednesday. We were optimistic that the rain was going to end, or at least it would not be raining all the way up there. After about an 8 hour drive we pull into Bar Harbor at about 7:30pm. Of course it was still raining. We decided to not set up camp tonight and we found a cheap motel in Bar Harbor. We had a nice dinner, even though there was a very strange woman who would not stop starring at us throughout the whole meal. We walked around town, which is very nice. For all of those NJ shore people it was very much like down town Stone Harbor, but about twice the size. We spotted a free whale museum which we decided would be a good place to kill some time if it was still raining in the morning.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Still raining, actually we saw the forecast this morning. It was supposed to rain for the next week in Bar Harbor...great time to go camping! We went to breakfast, went to the museum and decided to sight see through Acadia National Park, which is all on the same island as Bar Harbor, and is where we would be camping for the next two days. As you can see from some of our pictures it was still raining, but at least for most of the day it was just misting. We saw Sandy Beach, which is the only sand beach on the island. It was a very beautiful scene, behind the beach was a lush forest, and surrounding the beach were rocky cliffs covered with evergreens. The next stop was Thunder Hole. This was actually an open section in the rocks where at high tides the water rushes in and creates a very loud thunder. It was amazing how loud it could get. After that, we decided it would be best to start setting up camp since the rain seemed to be holding off. There are two places to camp in the park, Blackwoods or Seawall. We asked the park ranger what the differences were, and if there was one over the other which she would recommend. She proceeded to replay "um, there just different." We asked different good or different bad? She replays, "Just different." She was so helpful. We decided to go to Seawall since Blackwoods was in the area we just were in. Seawall was about a 45 minute drive southwest of Bar Harbor. It was a very pretty drive through the island. We get to camp, picked a spot, and realized we were basically the only campers there. We hurried to set up camp. Tent got up prior to the rain starting, but as Brendan started the fire and I made dinner, the down-pour began. There was a lot of cursing at nature, mainly by Colleen because her pork chops got soaked. Brendan got a huge fire going, dinner was finally made and the rain was still coming. At least the fire kept us warm, well I guess so did the Goldschlagger (the only booze we had with us), it was only about 53 degrees out. So for any of you who know Colleen, you know she can freak herself out especially when we are in the woods by ourselves. That night Colleen woke up at about 3am and could not fall back asleep because she was convinced that the scene from Blair Witch was going to occur, when the laughing kids started scratching at the tent, or that the being from the Descent was going to bust through the tent and eat them. That was a very sleepless night.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Again we woke up in the rain. We decided that we would not be able to get a fire started so we got in the car to go into town and get some coffee. But one problem, the car wouldn't start! So this is the point of the trip where we were relieved that Brendan upgraded his AAA to the plus because we were in the middle of nowhere. Surprisingly the AAA guy got to us in 30 minutes. After playing around with the car, and also getting shocked, he got the car to start and said it seemed to be the spark plugs. We saw a mechanic, and decided to wait until our next stop in Vermont to fix the problem. We drove around a bit, got some beer, and went back to camp to start the fire. It was raining and today the rain really did not want to let up at all. We did get a bundle of dry wood so that helped to get the fire going quickly. We made dinner and were just kinda standing around the fire trying to dry off when a car drove up to our site. A very energetic man got out of the car and came over to us. He seemed to be very excited to be there. He was actually from Wayne, PA - even though he seemed to think that was in Philadelphia..? He walked around our site, scoping out places for his tent, apparently it was very large, telling us our fire was nice, and asking if we were keeping dry...seriously dude we are dripping wet! It was very comical, but strange at the same time. I kind of felt better that someone was going to be camping close to us, but out of 60 spots they picked the spot right next to us...Brendan so thoughtfully said, "maybe they are the killers." Colleen again slept amazingly that night!