Driving to Albany, NY (September 18)
	Acadia National Park- Day 2 (September 16)
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A Trip to Seal Harbor

Well, today is Wednesday, and it is our third day here in Acadia National Park. There are a number of things we want to do today, and so we'll be wandering a bit further afield (and out of the park proper) to do some of them. The first item on the agenda, though, is to mail a postcard to Guy in Green Bay, and we decided to stop in the town of Seal Harbor to do that.

Seal Harbor is outside of the park on the southeastern corner of the Mt. Desert Island coast. To get there, we could have simply turned left out of the campground and gone down Route 3, but hope springs eternal and we thought that we would go north as usual to the Loop Road, and then south past Thunder Hole so we could stop and see if the tides were right for us to really hear something. We just made a short stop, because the conditions were still not good for us to pick up on the (reputed) sounds of Thunder Hole.

So we just continued around the Loop Road south and then west to the intersection of the park road coming up from the Stanley Brook Entrance. Just as we turned off the Loop Road and headed south, we crossed under one of the many carriage trails through the park. This one went over the roadway on an old stone bridge, so we stopped to take some pictures.

If we haven't mentioned the carriage roads, they are a series of bicycle/equestrian/carriage trails that wind through the park, and they were originally constructed when the Rockefellers owned the entire area. They were designed not to actually cross motor roads, so they either go under or over them. This was quite a nice-looking bridge, and there was a shady creek that flowed under it as well as along the road. We took a number of good pictures here, and I've put clickable thumbnails for them below:

Then we drove down the road to the coast and the small town of Seal Harbor, where we first stopped to mail a postcard to our friend, Guy Blair, in Green Bay. Then we walked around the very small town for a bit; Fred found an interesting fountain in the middle of the one intersection in town, and we also walked over to the beach. Below are some thumbnail images; click on them to see the pictures we took here in Seal Harbor:

Long Pond and the Rockefeller Boathouse

As you may know, the Rockefeller family originally owned almost all of what is now Acadia National Park. The land for the park was donated by the family with a few caveats- the maintenance of the carriage roads, limitation on development and the retention of some original Rockefeller houses and buildings. Part of the donated acreage was Long Pond and the Boathouse.

We wanted to take a walk to the boathouse, so we drove a ways down the road from Seal Harbor to the parking area right next to the entrance gate to the pond area. We went in through the gate and then, mistakenly, immediately west around the south end of the pond and onto a path through the forest. This path paralleled a bicycle path/carriage road that runs along the west side of the pond, and we followed it to come out to a broad grassy slope that went down to the edge of the pond. We realized immediately that we were on the wrong side of the pond to visit the boathouse, because we could see it on the other side of the pond.

So we realized we'd have to backtrack around the south end of the pond and up the eastern side to the boathouse. Before we turned around, though, I stopped to make a movie of the view from this point. Use the player at right to watch it.

So, that is what we did (as shown on the aerial view at left), and shortly we arrived at the Rockefeller boathouse. The boathouse was a real interesting affair- not just a lakeside house alongside which one might dock a boat, but rather a little "garage" into which one could row or drive a boat. The end of the building where the "garage doors" are has a covered area where the boat can sit once it is out of its garage, allowing people to get on and off yet still be covered by the boathouse roof. We've seen the updated equivalent of this boathouse along the New River in Fort Lauderdale. On one side of the boathouse there is also a stairway that goes down into the water, giving access to boats that may just temporarily stop by the boathouse. All in all, it was a picturesque place, and bespoke the wealth that created it.

To look at some of the other pictures we took around the lake and at the boathouse, click on the thumbnail images below:

We Visit Asticou Terraces and the Thuya Gardens

From Long Pond, we just followed Route 3 along the southern coast of Mount Desert Island until we came to Northeast Harbor and the parking area for the Thuya Gardens.

The Asticou Terraces are a series of flat terraced areas on the north side of Route 3 near the town of Northeast Harbor and across from the harbor itself. The terraces and their paths and seating areas were the creation of Joseph Henry Curtis a landacape architect and resident of Northeast Harbor until his death in 1928. At the base of the terraces, near the road, there is a memorial monument to Curtis, which calls him "...a vigilant protector of these hills." The carved granite further states that the “... Asticou Terraces are his gift for the quiet recreation of the people of this town and their summer guests.” The words “Asticou Terraces” are carved into a block of granite at the base of the stone steps that lead to Thuya Garden from Route 3. The stairs wind their way up the front of the granite cliffs providing a panoramic view of Northeast Harbor.

Above the highest terrace are the Thuya Gardens. The gardens themselves were designed by Charles Kenneth Savage (1903-1979). According to the plaque at the entrance to the gardens, we was "...(an) artist in landscaping and woodcarving, lover of books, public-minded citizen in community and government conserver of ledges, trees, slopes for our delight. Trustee of Asticou Terraces, 1928-1965." Savage also designed and constructed the massive wood gates (shown here and here) that flank the main entry into the gardens. But credit should also be given to John D. Rockefeller, who provided the financial support for the creation of the gardens. Here, too, there are great places for just sitting down and enjoying the beauty and peacefulness of the gardens. Thuya got its name from the abundance of white cedar (Thuya Occidentalis) located in the area.

Walking through the gardens, Fred was really enjoying himself, investigating the different flower varieties and appreciating the effort that went into the gardens' design.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

I wandered around as well, but was more interested in just finding quiet, shady places to sit and absorb the peacefulness all around. We (especially Fred) took lots of pictures here in the garden, so I've put a number of them into a slideshow for you to see.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

At one of the many seating areas, I sat and made a movie to try to give you a better idea than still pictures can of what the gardens were like; watch it with the player at left.

Off to the side near the gardens entrance was the caretaker's work shed, and you could stick your head in and look around. We enjoyed the gardens immensely, and left via the path back to the terraces and the way down to the parking area. Interestingly, as we were going down the stone steps, we looked out past the harbor to the ocean and we could see a fog bank that appeared to be moving in.

Lunch in the Town of Northeast Harbor

From Asticou Terraces, we drove around the top of Northeast Harbor and down the west side of the water into the town itself. We parked right on Main Street, and I stuck my head into a gallery and asked one of the proprietors where we might find a good place for lunch. We were directed to the Tan Turtle Tavern down at the end of Main Street.

So, we left the car where it was and just walked along Main Street until we came to the Tavern. As we walked along Main Street, I also made a movie.

The restaurant turned out to be quite a nice one, and an excellent place for lunch. After eating, we walked around a bit more and then headed off for another mountain hike.

A Hike to the Peak of Acadia Mountain

From Northeast Harbor, we needed to get to the other side of Somes Sound for our next two hikes- Acadia Mountain and Beech Mountain. So we had to head north along the sound, around the top of it through Somesville, and then down the highway to the parking area for the Acadia Mountain Trail.

Just on the other side of the highway from the parking area, we found the trailhead and sign (a small version of which is shown at left), and we set off onto the trail. Almost immediately, we found ourselves climbing a stone stairway, which turned out to be just the first in a series of three or four. The trail rose very rapidly at first, and we had to follow the blue trail markers when the trail went across bare rock (as it often did).

My guess was that the roadway was about a hundred feet above sea level, and that left us something like 600 feet of vertical ascent, and it seemed as if most of that was in the first part of the trail. After we'd ascended maybe 400-500 feet, the trail leveled out and it became an easy walk through the trees.

As soon as we came out onto this more level area, we began to get excellent views, such as this one through the trees to the ocean. Another ten minutes of walking brought us to the Acadia Mountain summit.

The views from the summit of Acadia Mountain were really nice, but before we take a look at some of them, you might want to orient yourself by watching the best of the movies I took from here at the summit.

As I said, the views from here were quite beautiful, and I've selected some of the best pictures we took from the summit for you to look at. You can view these pictures, of course, just by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

After we spent some time here at the summit, we headed back on down the trail to the parking area. We seemed to have made one wrong turn there for a while, but we just had taken a different route back to the same place. (The entirety of Mount Desert Island is criss-crossed with trails, and if you don't follow the right markers, it is easy to go astray.)

A Hike to the Top of Beech Mountain

To get to our next hike, we had to backtrack a bit up the highway to the Beech Hill Crossroad which took us over to Beech Hill Road- the road to the parking area for Beech Mountain. Just after we turned onto the crossroad, we came upon probably the nicest fall color that we'd seen thus far. (Our vacation was just a bit early for maximum viewing; the fall color doesn't really get started in earnest until October, so we were about two weeks early.) It was about a five mile drive to the parking area. The weather seemed to be deteriorating a bit, so we parked and just headed off up the trail.

The trail was pretty easy, although it was getting chilly since the sun seemed to have disappeared. It took us about forty minutes to reach the summit, where we found the Beech Mountain fire tower. The weather was definitely lowering; it looked as if there were weather coming in from the ocean.

To see some of the other pictures that we took at the summit of Beech Mountain, just click on the thumbnail images below:

We Visit Somesville, Maine

When we had come through Somesville on our way to Acadia Mountain, we'd noted the charm of the small town, so on our way back to Bar Harbor, we stopped in to walk around. The main feature of the town was Somesville Lake. There is a small dam and a pleasant-sounding waterfall as the river makes its way to Somes Sound. Take a look at the pictures we took here by clicking on the thumbnail images below:

I also took one movie at Somesville Lake.

An Evening in Bar Harbor

This evening, we've planned to have dinner here in Bar Harbor, rather than cook back at the campsite. This will be our last night in Acadia National Park, so we wanted to get a flavor for the town. We did have dinner at an interesting pub that served traditional home-cooked meals, and both of us had plenty to eat. I also took the opportunity to check my email one more time at the cybercafe, and also to put in a few phone calls.

We arrived in town from Beech Mountain about five-thirty, and already the light was beginning to fade. But we did get some good pictures, and you can have a look at them if you will click on the thumbnail images below:

You can use the links below to continue to another album page.

	Driving to Albany, NY (September 18)
	Acadia National Park- Day 2 (September 16)
	Return to the New England Trip Master Index