SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
Since we had such high dollar winnings at the casino yesterday and a long days drive ahead of us we, after having coffee we headed to the nearest Tim Hortons (Canada’s version of Dunkin Donuts) and ordered up some coffee and egg things. They were yummy and made for a decent breakfast for the road. We traveled down the highway chatting, looking at the scenery and listening to our mystery audiobook. The miles rolled by and the border grew near. We needed to spend some money. We stopped in St. George, as there had been roadside signs speaking of a local blueberry stand, and I needed gas. We found the blueberry stand and discovered that all of their blueberries were frozen, yuk!
Moving on we did find a gas station and I put in $55 worth, I had $56.10 left in Canadian money, so I figure we did pretty well. We were chatting with our daughter when quite suddenly there was the border! It just popped up! We got in the RV line (we were the only one in the rv line) and up ahead, past the gate we could see that the border folks were searching a huge class A rv towing a jeep. We had heard stories of how the border guards almost always search rv’s so we were prepared. The guard waved us ahead and I handed him our passports. He asked a couple of questions, said “welcome home” and waved us through…we were there for only about two minutes total..amazing. Our GPS took us down route 9 as we were heading for Acadia National Park. I have made reservations the other day and got the last spot in the park that was available - according to the website. We took it of course. Finding it was another story. We stopped in Ellsworth for a stretch and a cold soda before making the final few miles to the park.
It actually took us a while to find the campground. We discovered that the US National Parks are not on par with the Canadian National Parks. In Canada all of the parks have electric and water, all US National Parks have neither. All Canadian National Parks sell firewood, none to be had here, we were told to leave the park, ‘everyone in town sells firewood on their front lawns’. All of the Canadian National Parks had clean washrooms with good showers and the US has cold water, no paper towels or hand dryer and no showers. A bit disappointing. Also the Canadian Parks offered extensive information about the park, including trail maps, here at Arcadia we were told to go to the visitor center and buy a trail map..quite a difference. Since it was late in the afternoon when we arrived we set up camp. Backing in was quite a challenge for me, very tight turn and narrow spot to put the little trailer but eventually I got it close enough. Once we got the site set up we drove back out of the park and bought some firewood, which turned out to be crap wood, pine, and wet. I did get a bit of a fire going, enough to roast some ears of corn. I grilled ham steaks and chicken tenders on the stove as the fire just wouldn’t have worked out too well. Carol had cooked up some fresh zucchini and we had a feast, including the 18th century brown bread we had bought back in Louisbourg. It was a fine evening but now they are predicting rain for tomorrow…just our luck.
But soon we were back n the park loop road and found Thunder Hole where the ocean comes booming in along the rocky shore. We hiked along with a few hundred other intrepid searchers and gawked at the sea and each other. We escaped back to the car and explored further, ending back at the campsite and a quiet trail down to the sea. This was the nice quiet walk we had been searching for, it was not as long as we would have likes but for the day, it was perfect
Along the trail on our return we found amphitheater where we saw that a program about the wildlife of the park was being given at 7:30 - perfect. We then discovered that our site was only about 100 yards from the amphitheater —even better! We had a couple of hours before we needed to be in the audience so I made a campfire as Carol cooked up wonderful pasta, meat and vegetable dinner. We had wine and water and more of the brown bread. It is always comforting to sit and eat by a campfire, there is just something so special about the smell of the smoke, the crackle and the flicker of the light. We also played three games of cribbage where I got my butt kicked two games to one.. I demand a rematch.
At about 7:25 we made our way over to the amphitheater, and it is totally dark at 7:30 here in Maine, totally dark. The ranger’s name was Patrick Kark and he provided an abundance of information about 5 specific kinds of life here in Acadia - alewives (a fish I have always called herring), the harbor seal, the long eared bat, the turkey buzzard (his favorite) and the peregrine falcon which is making a comeback along the cliffs of Cadillac Mountain. The presentation lasted about an hour and was very well done. Patrick got a good round of applause from the 20 or 30 people in the audience. We had lively discussions about what we had heard and seen on our walk back.
The fire had started to die out and since we were out of wood it seemed like time to get tucked in. The warmth of the day had faded and it was good to crawl into our little cocoon where we put on a movie to watch and nibbled on chocolate covered fruit and nuts..a Cadbury thing. Within a few minutes Carol had faded. I finished out the movie, ‘Darkest Hour’, about Churchill - highly recommended.
