ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

This part of Maine was settled by English then French then English then French people who kept wiping each other out.  It was a very unsafe place to live in the 1700s. In around the 1800s sometime artists started coming to Maine. They called themselves the rusticators, because they came up to Maine when there were no hotels are other lodgings and stayed with families and painted. Because Maine is really beautiful, people started coming up because they had seen these paintings. And rich people started coming up and building cottages, like the cottages at Newport Rhode Island. 

We started our day at Acadia National Park. This is the only national park made up completely by private donations of land, a lot from the Rockefeller family. So there are still private enclaves within the park. I bought my golden age park pass because they are now $10, and starting next month they will be $80. We took a little trip to the top of Cadillac mountain, at 1500 feet, the highest mountain on the eastern coast from Venezuela to Maine.   Beautiful views of the ocean and islands. And lots of granite to walk around on. 

We then went to thunder rock, a place where the ocean comes into a hole and when the tide is right, it makes a sound like thunder. The tide wasn't quite right, but it still made an interesting sound. 

We had lunch at Jordan Pond,  famous for popovers. The popovers are served  with the meal as bread. I had a buffalo burger, which was pretty good. Took a nice walk around the pond after lunch. 

Then it was on Sieur de monts springs. Native Americans considered these healing waters.   The Abbe museum, which is a prehistoric Indian museum here, is marginally interesting. The most interesting part is outside, where they have a wigwam built of birchbark. I've never understood how it was done, but it looks mostly like they use the bark of whole trees but put them sideways and overlay them like shingles. 

When we got back to the hotel we had about an hour before we left on a 1-1/2 hour nature cruise around some of the islands in Acadia park and the coastline near Bar Harbor. We saw some more seals, and a couple of bald eagles. When you leave the harbor area, or whatever the bay enclosure is here, and are out on the Atlantic, the temperature drops from what the land is, which was about 85 degrees today, to about 60. 

Tonight is our last night with the group, there was another lobster dinner, and we return to Portland tomorrow where we will be on our own. I want to go to Kennebunkport, which is supposed to be a nice town and beach, because tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, and then it might rain again. Never pass up a good day to go to the beach. I haven't even stuck my feet in the water yet!!!