The "tourist season" on Mount Desert Island ends during the second half of October, but it still seemed crowded to us when we pulled into Bar Harbor after dark on Tuesday night. Some hotels and B&Bs were already closed for the winter, but those still open were offering rooms at very reasonable "end-of-season" rates. After finding a room we went to dinner at the Parkside Restaurant which is, as one might guess, aside the small park in downtown Bar Harbor. I had lobster; Denise had steamers. Bar Harbor is an east coast Carmel — very attractive, very upscale. A few miles away in Northeast Harbor, also on Mount Desert Island, the mega-rich such as Martha Stewart, Jimmy Buffet, and the Fords own homes.

The attraction for us, however, was the natural beauty of Mount Desert Island, much of which is protected in the form of the Acadia National Park -- 47,633 acres of granite-topped mountains, forests, marshes, lakes, ponds, and rocky ocean shoreline.

We didn't see nearly enough of the park, being hampered by time and weather. It rained for about half of the two and a half days we were able to spend in this magnificent place. As I told Denise often during our stay, "We'll do that next time we're here." I pray we do get back.

18 October 2000

Early Wednesday morning, waiting for the visitor's center to open, I walked a portion of a nearby carriage road and came upon an inspirational marshy pond complete with beaver lodges. Much of the day was spent exploring Park Loop Road -- twenty-one-miles of paved access to wondrous visual experiences. It was designed in the 1930s by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead Jr. There are hundreds of breathtaking views along the Park Loop Road, and it is impossible to absorb it all in one day. We hiked the Carry Trail to Eagle Lake, 425 acres with an average depth of about 50 feet.

In Frenchman Bay, near our hotel, we observed Common Eiders (life bird), which were abundant in the coves and bays of the island, and Black Duck, another lifer. At Sand Beach, we found still another first-time bird, Red-necked Grebe. For dinner, for something different, we ate lobster.

19 October 2000

It was cold and rainy all day. We visited the harbor towns on Mount Desert Island, including Seal Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southeast Harbor and Tremont. We stopped along the length of Somes Sound, perhaps the only actual fjord in eastern North America. We drove onto the bar between Bar Harbor and Bar Island, and I walked to the island observing Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls flying up with mussels and dropping them to the ground to break the hard shells.

We ended the afternoon by walking past impressive summer homes along the shore path in town, stopping into Gay Lynn's for hot cider and local Thunderhole beer, and eventually making our way down Main Street to Havana, an toney local bistro where we had a light meal — lobster salad.

20 October 2000

I had planned to be atop Cadillac Mountain to photograph the sunrise on my last day at Acadia. I missed it by about ten minutes. Of course, in late October, the sunrise can be seen from Cadillac Mountain earlier than anywhere else in the United States, so you have to get up pretty early. I spent four or five hours photographing and hiked the Bowl Trail, which flanks The Beehive and ends at the bowl-like mountain lake for which the trial is named.

About noon I collected Denise from the hotel, and we headed back toward Boston for our flight home. We stopped for lunch as soon as we were off Mount Desert Island, at Trenton. We had lobster. A lobster pound is Maine's version of the neighborhood crawfish restaurant indigenous to Louisiana — picnic tables, draft beer, and lobster. In Trenton, eat at the Gateway Lobster Pound.

We drove to Kittery, Maine, on the coast about 200 miles south of Mount Desert Island. There are perhaps a thousand outlet stores in Kittery. I think we may have visited most of them. Later, much later, we drove on to Danvers, Massachusetts, just north of Boston, where we spent a short night before rising about 4:00 a.m. to make a 7:00 a.m. flight out of Logan airport.

Some of the locations mentioned here are highlighted on this map of Mount Desert Island.

Here are off-site links to resources about the areas we visited.

Maine (Acadia National Park) Photographs:
Maine Coast from above Sand Beach
Bar Harbor from Cadillac Mountain
Eagle Lake
The Tarn
The Tarn II
View from Cadillac Mountain
The Colors of Autumn
Beaver Dam Pond
Marsh and Mountain
Self-portrait atop Cadillac Mountain
Fall Foliage
Maine Coast
Red Foliage
Sun-bathed Mountainside
Granite at Sand Beach
Cadillac Mountain Ridge Trail
View from Cadillac Mountain II
Weather Approaching Bar Harbor

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