Life of Riley: Acadia National Park and the Atlantic Ocean

So I decided to split up our week in Maine.

We camped in Trenton, just outside of Acadia National Park. Acadia means-people of the first light. Acadia Park is on Mount Desert Island with the largest town being Bar Harbor. Bar Harbor receives 2 - 3 cruises ships a day during tourist season. The poor town is overrun with tourists from about 8 to 5 daily. Acadia National Park is one of the busiest 10 national parks in the country and receives 3.5 million visitors per year. Thankfully we arrived after most of the tourist season was over. The highest point on the island is Cadillac Mountain at about 1500'. A frenchman named Cadillac bought the island but only stayed here about 2 years, then went on to found the city of Detroit in 1701. That is where the name Cadillac comes from. On Sunday we drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain to catch the early sunrise. It is the highest most Easterly point on the Atlantic seacoast and allows you to catch the earliest possible sunrise on the Atlantic coast. We did several hiking trails, as you can see by many of the photos, that allowed for some outstanding views. Bar Harbor and each of the small seaports all have many restaurants and of course, we are in Maine so, they really push the lobster here. You can find lobster dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We elected to buy lobster from a local fisherman. We brought it home and cooked it there. It was far more reasonable that way at $6 a pound. One day, since it was a little drizzly, we decide to take to the road and drove to Quoddy Point Lighthouse in Lubec, Maine. This lighthouse is the Northeastern most lighthouse and the small town there is as far North and East as you can go on the coast of the U. S. From the coast we drove North all the way to the Canadian border and then South, back towards Bar Harbor in an attempt to find some fall leaves. Leaves are just now starting to change. The seacoast here is much different then the California coast as it does not have hardly any driftwood and no bull kelp and the beaches are very clean. The locals here seem to really try to cash in on the tourist trade as nearly every home has camp fire wood, lobster or clams or other sea fare for sale. Surrounding Mount Desert island are other islands that can be driven to via a car, a ferry, or one island that can be visited, that's part of Acadia National Park, by a foot trail during low tide. Acadia Park has about a 125 miles of hiking trails and another 45 or 50 miles of carriage road trails that can be bicycled, hiked or ridden on by horseback. - Mike