Acadia National Park covers a lot of acreage - 47,000 acres to be exact! - over a few of Maine's peninsulas.
Our first stop was the southern tip of the Schoodic Peninsula appropriately named Schoodic Point. It was full of seagulls! The most stunning thing about this stop were the diabase dikes. These are large stripes of black rock that oozed between the cracks in the granite. We saw stripes up to 4 feet thick, but heard these dikes can range from 10 to 60 feet wide!
We arrived at the Mt. Desert Island portion of Acadia National Park Visitor's Center 15 minutes before closing time. But we didn't want to buy anything - just get a good map of the park, which we figured we could get at the entrance. We were accosted by a rough-looking ranger who informed us that the visitor center was closing in 15 minutes. We acknowledged her warning and hauled but up the lengthy stairs. When we arrived in the Visitor's Center, the ranger behind the desk was completing the transactions for the day, but we figured she could answer a quick question about the campground location and process. Before we could open our mouths, she said "Folks, I'm sorry, my register is closed for the day." Attitude, attitude! We have always had pleasant interactions with National Park rangers, but it seems we caught this entire batch on a bad day, but we didn't let that ruin our adventure.
It was a very confusing campground, but nonetheless, we made it safe and sound, and our fellow campers were considerate. We were so exhausted the first night we arrived, that we set up the tent and went right to sleep. It is unusual for us to sleep so soundly the first night in a new place, but we did. We slept so soundly, that we didn't even notice that our RV neighbor had his generator on most of the night. Being a gentleman from Alabama, he came to our campsite the next morning and apologized for having the generator on. He didn't realize it was on past curfew (most campgrounds we've been to allow RVs to run their generators from 8am-8pm). Nice man.
Acadia National Park was the first area to be designated a National Park east of the Mississippi River. And although Europeans discovered this island in 1604 (by Samuel Champlain), settlements didn't occur until the 1800's due to war. The biggest surprise for us - most of the park's land was donated!
The above photo is of the Carroll Homestead, a hidden, and almost impossible to find driveway, off the Park Loop Drive. This house was built by John Carroll in 1825, and it was lived in by four generations of Carrolls. The signage emphasized this family's strong values and how everyone contributed to the success of the household - even the young.
It is hard to believe we are standing on 500 million year old sedimentary deposits called Ellsworth Schist. What is Ellsworth Schist? Mud that settled on the bottom of the sea, got pulled into the earth, and due to high temperatures and pressure, it transformed the mud into distinctive layers of rock. This mud is also mixed with granite, Cadillac Mountain granite.
There are terrains for every imagination. It's clear from the many hills and valleys on the island that it was shaped over thousands of years by glacial activity. It reminded us of some of the land around western Washington.
The Natural SeawallWe spotted two lighthouses:
Winter Harbor Light was established in 1856, built for $4,000, and discontinued in 1933. Today it is privately owned and "houses writers."
Bass Harbor Head Light was established in 1958 (much later than most lighthouses on the coast), built for $5,000 on two acres of land that were purchased for $80 (for a total of $5,080), and automated in 1974.
It is only 32 feet high, but stands 56 feet above sea level on its natural granite platform. The Fourth Order Fresnel lens (originally had a Fifth Order) was visible for 13 nautical miles. Today, the lighthouse serves as a Coast Guard residence, and visitors must do a bit of boulder hopping to view the lighthouse.
Most of the park is on an island named I'isle des Monts-deserts (Mount Desert Island) by Samuel Champlian because of the bare granite summit. From a distance, it looks like a bit of desert in a sea of trees and shrubs.
The highest point on this island, and the highest point on the US Atlantic Coast, is called Cadillac Mountain. At 1,530 feet high, it is the first location in the country to receive the light of dawn (for most of the year).
The mountain is named for Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. He was a Frenchman who claimed the land in the 1600s for King Louis XIV. Cadillac later discovered Detroit, Michigan - inspiring the name of the automobile. heehee
There was once a cog-railway and horse-drawn carriages that could take visitors to the summit. Visitors could even spend the evening in the Summit Hotel. But today, the land is an extremely fragile environment due to years and years of untamed visitors. We were able to drive up and take in a view much like the one from Mount Baker (inside joke with our climbing buddies - there was a total whiteout, and we could only see about 20 feet).
We didn't know much about Acadia National Park and discovered there are over 40 miles of old broken-stone carriage roads throughout the park. We'd like to return with our bikes and do some exploring, but for now, we must trek onward.
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