The Way Life Should Be
October 2016
Our visit to Maine wouldn’t be completed if we don’t have the famous Roosevelt Campobello International Park in our itinerary. This international park in New Brunswick Canada used to be the summer home of our 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt ever since his childhood. It has turned into an international national park in 1964, and the only park managing by both Canada and the US. Lucky for us, the theme at the time was about First Lady Roosevelt, thus it befitting to have “Tea with Eleanor” occasion. This is where many of her political and personal stories were told between her favorite tea and tasty homemade cookies. We’ve learned that while their private lives were stranger than fiction, we still enchanted by the realism of the cottages, garden, and peaceful ocean view.
Came from Nova Scotia in Canada, we traveled westward to Maine for 280 miles. Maine is an easternmost point in the United State and not of North America. We mosey our ways to a famous lighthouse featured on 1999 US stamp and countless magazines; the West Quoddy Head Light. Right underneath the 3,000lbs granite marker we sat on, a time capsule buried there and waiting to be opened in 2058. What’s really down there is anybody’s guess!
The Acadia National Park is less than three hours away, we jump in our Chase Turtle (our CT200h) and gun it. Acadia is one of the oldest national parks on the east coast, and its mediocre parking at various attractions reflects accessibility design mentality of 1916; strange one-way system and utterly lack parking spaces even during low seasons causing tourists to either skip the attraction or forced to park illegally. Oh sure, one can take a free bus, but that pretty much rules out folks traveling with a pet, or the freedom to stay longer at some scenic spot, or having a casual picnic, or even take a long hike.
Cadillac Mountain is about half the height of Mission Peak in Fremont, but at 1,529 feet, the “mountain” is much prettier with green lichen covered granite tops and panorama view of early autumn colors and dozen of small islands below. It is the tallest peak in the park and also the first mountain in the US to receive the morning sun.
Bar Harbor village locates about 6 miles from Cadilac Mountain, which wealthy folks have called home. A massive fire of 1947 wiped out everything. The town rebuilt itself and emerge as a tourist attraction in the Acadia National Park.
While admiring the beautiful Bar Harbor night scene, we met Rob Macks the owner of Laughing Loon company that make high-quality wooden sea kayaks. We quickly struck up a lively conversation with him. We found out later that Rob made a custom Kayak used in the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). Rob explains the movie script depicts Walter gathers his courage by leap on to the kayak and paddle to the last known location of Sean, but during the filming, the storyline was changed to show Walter character leaps onto a helicopter instead.
Rob tracked down the kayak that he built for the movie and found it being used by one of the movie staff out in California! But tonight, he came to the dock to mentally prepare for a Chevy Acadia commercial shoot which scheduled for tomorrow morning. Bid him good luck with the commercial, we return to our motel after a long hard day.
Taking the weird one-way through Park Loop road, we got to Sand Beach and spent almost 35 minutes to find a parking spot, only to find the sand and the beach formation sub-par to Monterrey or Carmel in California.
Continue past the beach, one can see amazing rock cliffs jutting out to the blue ocean below. Shortly, the thundering sound of waves crashing can be heard from a deep rocky crevice called the Thunder Hole.
Just on the opposite side of the beach parking, there is a Beehive Trail beckons to be explored. A steep climb through boulders strewn trail on Beehive trail for 30 minutes, we are beginning to realize the trail is scrambling up steep rock faces with a huge drop off on one side. In many cases, one has to cling on iron staples on rock faces, tiptoed on a narrow ledge on exposed rocks, hugging rough rock faces and push one up on trembling legs, all with vertical rocks on one side and the steep 100ft drop off on the other side. We wanted to live another day!
We casually took the easy but longer hike which follows the small wooden planks as the trail continues around Bowl lake. The smooth surface of the lake reflects green conifers and maple yellow-orange then the trail brought weary hikers up on top of the Beehive rock for a panoramic view of the Sand Beach and small lake farther down below. The hardcore Beehive trail also ends up here, so we don’t really miss much of anything.
Continue to the southwest portion of Arcadia National Park, we visited one of Maine National Register of Historic Places, the Bass Harbor Lighthouse. Unfortunately, the ground became a private residence for a local coastguard. We much happier going down the wooden stairs to view the lighthouse from the harbor side anyway.
Continuing on Park Loop road, we veer toward Jordan Pond which also served as a water supply for Seal Harbor village a short distance away. The scenic path takes us around the pond in a well marked and 3.6 miles of easy trail. The afternoon sun casts golden ray across tranquil water to highlight red maple overhang leaves. Occasionally, the National Park recorded of up to 60 feet underwater visibility in the Jordan Pond.
In our quest for Bigelow Preserve in Stratton Maine, we drove across some of the most autumn scenic turnouts thus far on our trip, and also lucky enough meet the Appalachian trail section-hikers near Wyman Township. Struck up a conversation with “I-wander” and “Chicago”, the exuberance young man and his lovely companion were doing a content inventory of their backpacks before their last hike of the season.
I-wander and Chicago have already been on the Appalachian trail for 6.5 months, and their disheveled appearance told us of their rough hiking tales. When asked what is the most important things for them to carry on the hike, “Anything that you carrying that has not been touch in a few days should be tossed” came the reply. Roll up a small cigarette between his callous fingers, I-wander continues “there is a short list (a very short list) that one must have in procession to survive out here. Everything else is just dead weight”. We bid them good luck on their journey and continue to Bigelow.
Along highway 27 go toward Bigelow, the autumn reason has finally returned to Maine and we were lucky to experience it.
About 30 miles south of Bigelow, we visited the oddly constructed Quill Hill park on Oddy’s Road. For $10 entrance fee, you can explore the strange layout park in your 4-wheel drive.
Follow our itinerary, we arrived at Mount Blue State Park just in time to catch a beautiful sunset on Webb Lake. The serenity swept over us as we gaze across to last sun ray painted the top of the blueish mountain red from a distance.
We set up camp for the night and head to Portland Maine for some tire repair the following morning. Taking advantage of some down times, we explore some of the freshest seafood in Old Orchard Beach area. The Scarborough Fish and Lobster shack few miles down the road doesn’t seem much from the outside, but the quality of the lobsters here really comes down to exact cooking duration, boiling recipe, and lobster type.
Now driving 3,000 miles back to California and our mouths still salivating from great lobsters, and our head spinning for the awesome autumn scenes in Maine.
GPS Coordinates
- Roosevelt Campobello International Park (Canada) – 44°52’36.0″N 66°57’27.9″W
- West Quoddy Head Light – 44°48’54.5″N 66°57’02.3″W
- Acadia National Park – 44°24’32.3″N 68°14’50.2″W
- Cadillac Mountain – 44°21’09.4″N 68°13’30.4″W
- Bar Harbor – 44°23’28.8″N 68°12’15.4″W
- Sand Beach & Beehive Trail Head – 44°19’53.6″N 68°11’07.0″W
- Mount Blue State Park – 44°40’49.8″N 70°26’51.5″W
- Scarborough Fish and Lobster (check for closure) – 43°33’52.8″N 70°23’44.4″W
References
- Destination details were extracted from respective attraction, hand-out literature/brochure, or website, and Wikipedia
- Coordinates are from Google map in Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds (DMS)