October 2, 2023 - Acadia National Park, Maine

We had reservations to drive the Caddilac Mountain Summit Road this morning so we took off about 8:15 this morning so we could make a quick stop at the visitors center gift shop so I could get a t-shirt and postcards. The drive was beautiful and not too crowded considering the traffic we encountered yesterday!

From the summit we had a great view of the town of Bar Harbor and the islands. Its elevation is only 1530', but it is the highest point along the North Atlantic seaboard. It is also the first place to view sunrise in the United States from October 7 through March 6 and is one of over 20 mountains on Mount Desert Island, Maine that were pushed up by earth's tectonic and volcanic eruptions. Glaciers sheared off their tops or they would be even higher today.

We could see the scratches in the huge granite stones that were caused by the glaciers as we walked around the top.

Again we were starting to see more changing colors on the trees.

Down from the summit trail, we stopped to get one more shot of the trees - and you can see our little rental car.

From there we drove to the "left lung" of Acadia. The volunteer at the Visitor Center gave us some tips on places to stop and our first was to get a quick shot of Eagle Pond, then a shot of the beautiful trees near Somesville.


Next we were on to Echo Lake Beach. It was pretty, but no hiking trail. The water was pretty cold, but there was one woman out in the swim area! No thank you!!!

Continuing down the road, we were told to stop at the Carroll Homestead Intrepretive Trail. Well, there is a homestead, but nothing interpretive there! The house is apprently only open certain days and today wasn't one of them. We walked around it and maybe spent about 20 minutes trying to find the trail!

Next stop was at Seawall. Powerful ocean storms have created a massive natural seawall. As the waves break, they carry rocks from the base of the beach and move them up to the shore. As the tides come in and out, the heavier stones get piled at the top and the smaller, lighter stones remain down the slope.



At Ship Harbor we took the trail halfway out and back. We were mostly in the forest section and had some views of Ship Harbor through the trees.

We spotted some interesting fungus growing on the trees and cute little mushrooms on the ground.


We FINALLY saw some of the wildlife! This tiny red squirrel jumped off a branch near the path.

We almost stepped on this HUGE snake! HAHAHA!! It was about 3 inches long.

Leaving the Ship Harbor Trail we were headed to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse and spotted three white tailed deer in the trees. We stopped to see them, but the shadows made it impossible to get a good picture of them so you just have to take our word for it!

We had no idea that it would take 20 minutes to get into the parking lot at the lighthouse but we waited, along with several cars in front of us for a car to leave, then one could go in. It was worth it.

The light station here was established in 1858. The land cost was only $80! They used a hand bell for signals starting in 1876, converted to a steam operated bell in 1898, and finally an electric operated bell in 1949. The bell buoy wasn't put in until 1974.


Our last stop in the park was at Pretty Marsh. The volunteer at the visitors center said this was her second favorite spot in the entire park so we figured it was going to be amazing. Not so much. We followed the fire road down to the gazebo which sort of overlooks Pretty Marsh Harbor. There was a huge stairway down to the water, but then no platform - just water at the bottom of the stops. It was too steep to carry a kayak down, so we took a look and walked back up!


We wandered on a trail that had picnic tables overlooking the water, but neither of us was overly impressed. There were no signs, so we finally turned around and went back to the parking the way we came.

That completed our loop of the left lung of Acadia so we headed into the town of Bar Harbor and did a little shopping. Because it is near the end of the tourist season, several of the shops had everything on sale. One of the tourist t-shirt shops had shirts with pictures of giraffes or tigers and Bar Harbor, Maine printed on them. The funniest, though, was one that had a picture of Sedona, Arizona and it said "Sedona, Arizona" then "Bar Harbor, Maine". Do you think it was a supply chain issue??

Shopped out, we headed off to have dinner and picked the Chart Room. OH MY GOSH - it was amazing!! I had a stuffed baked haddock with a creamy lobster/sherry sauce on it and Wendy had the Cioppino which had mussels, shrimp, and scallops in a red sauce. Both were so good.

We had to stop for the beautiful sunset on our way back to our lodging.

It was pretty much a perfect finish to a great day!

September 30 - October 1, 2023 - Fort Collins, CO - Acadia National Park, Maine

This week is a travel adventure for Sue and Wendy. We are going on our book club field trip and will be joining five others at Lovell, Maine on Tuesday.

Saturday, September 30.

Our adventure had us leaving Fort Collins at 4:15am for our flight to Boston, MA. The flight was good and we arrived a few minutes early and managed to find the correct shuttle bus to the rental car terminal. We could pay in advance for the toll roads ($15.95/day!) or pay a fee plus the tolls when we return the car, so we opted for that choice because we would only be on toll roads two days this week. After video taping all of the dings and scratches on the car before leaving the lot, we were on our way. Google maps routed us on the "avoid tolls" route to Lincolnville, Maine where we were spending our first night. Oh my gosh! We meandered through so many little towns, had a traffic jam for about 20 minutes trying to get by a community fair, and making a few wrong turns. After almost 3 hours of this we FINALLY decided to get on the toll road and get moving! We stopped in Woolwich, Maine for dinner and had some reallly delicious clam chowder. Back on the road, we had about an hour until we reached the Mount Battie Inn in Lincolnville, Maine for the night. It took us about five hours and we were both exhausted! We had a really nice room, the beds were comfy, and we had fresh baked muffins and breads for breakfast.

AND the best thing was, the government reached an agreement to keep the government open for the next 45 days, so we were able to continue our adventure to Acadia National Park on Sunday!

Sunday, October 1

We got on the road about 9:30 this morning heading to Acadia. There was some road construction and the pulloff to see this bridge was closed. This picture is from 2017.

This was our view this morning!

We had some fog and clouds this morning!After arriving at the Acadia NP Hulls Cove Visitor Center and getting the scoop on things, we caught a park shuttle bus to Otter Point. Our driver advised us to start there and hike back to Sand Beach because it would be easier to catch a bus. As we saw how full our bus was when we got there, it made perfect sense! We started our 2 mile hike back following the Ocean Trail. High tide was 12:30pm, so the waves were still big.


Some of the trail was away from the water and even up on the road, but we always managed to get back to see the water.



Some of the leaves are just starting to turn colors.

When I was here in 2017 with Tobey, we did see some of the same things - and it's funny because I took this exact picture of the tree below and have it in our blog back then!

When we got closer to Thunder Hole, we could hear the waves crashing in and they closed the lower observation walkway because it was too dangerous. In this video you can see the waves coming in.
https://youtu.be/Bd2IH6ZmYe0?feature=shared

We continued on to Sand Beach where there we lots of people. Much different that 2017!

We were able to catch the bus and headed on to Jordan Pond. I didn't remember visiting here before, but I did! You can see the Bubble "mountains" in the distance. Their elevations are only 766' and 872' so it's hard for me to call them mountains!

Here the colors were starting to show.

We didn't spend very long because we wanted to catch the bus to Bubble Pond so we cut back to the parking on one of the "inland" trails. It was pretty, too.
Bubble Pond was also a short stop, but pretty cool. There was a higher concentration of trees with their red starting to show. We both wondered if everything is later because the spring weather was so much cooler everywhere.

There were some really cool mushrooms along the trail.

If you look very closely, you can see the tiny tree frog that Wendy spotted. He has really good camouflage!

I think Wendy got the perfect shot of the trees.

We arrived back at the  Visitors Center five minutes after they closed at 4:30! Oh well, we are going back to the park tomorrow and can get postcards then! On our way to the Airbnb in Lamoine we spotted this restaurant on our way so we stopped for dinner. What a great choice!!

The last time I was in Maine, Tobey and I tried lobster rolls twice and I didn't like them either time. The woman that worked here was so sweet and said if I didn't like it, bring it back and they would make something else! I opted for the "naked lobster roll" which did not have any mayonaise sauce, but was served with drawn butter. It was amazing! Wendy got the regular and I tried it, too, and it was also delicious! It had very light mayonaise and fresh chives from their garden. We ate outside and shared some blueberry pie for dessert. Not a bad way to end the day!

We had about a 30 minute drive to our farm house stay tonight. It's really a cute place and I will take pictures tomorrow, so for tonight, Good Night!

August 18-20, 2023 - Evergreen, Colorado to Eagle, Colorado "Double By-Pass"

This is a travel with Tobey and Tyler post because it is all about them! Last summer, this same week, they planned to do this bike ride, but were unsuccessful. They made some changes this year and .... success! Last year they left from Golden, Colorado and were carrying camping gear, as well as their bike gear - each of them with over 30 pounds of weight on their bikes. To make matters worse, it rained on them most of the day Saturday - then it turned to snow making it impossible to get over Loveland Pass. This year, they left from Evergreen, stayed in hotels, and were both only carrying about 15 pounds of gear. They shifted stopping places and were able to have "fresh legs" when starting their assents up the passes. The weather also cooperated with no rain or snow!

Friday they loaded their bikes and gear into our van and drove to Evergreen, Colorado where they began their three day, 120 mile bike ride. That doesn't necessarily sound like much until you consider they had to go over two mountain passes - Loveland and Vail. Tyler took a picture before they started ... do you know what is missing?
If you said Tobey's helmet, you are correct. Fortunately, Tobey is a very careful rider and he just didn't have it on yet! There he is!

Their route out of Evergreen begins with a pretty steep climb but they made the 22.7 mile ride into Georgetown in about 2-1/2 hours, despite having some good headwinds. Their elevation gain was 2,178 feet with a maximum grade was 10%! Time for lunch and relaxing before hitting the hot tub at their hotel.

Saturday morning they got an early start from Georgetown on their way to Frisco. It was a bit chilly - in the 40s as they started off!

They made it to the top of Loveland Pass - 11,990 feet above sea level and both of them shed most of their "cold weather" gear!

The ride down to Frisco was fast - they were flying at 35mph on their bikes! Today they had a 4,071 foot elevation gain, rode 38.9 miles in 4 hours, 19 minutes. Today's maximum grade was 11.7%.

They spent the night in Frisco and got an early start again on Sunday.
On Sunday's route they had a 2,268 foot elevation gain on their way up Vail Pass from Frisco. They were on a bike trail as they went over the pass and there isn't a sign showing they went over the top, so they stopped coming into Vail for their picture!
They rolled into Eagle right at noon after riding their 60.4 miles in 4-1/2 hours!They were still smiling when they arrived!

I drove to Evergreen, switched cars, and drove up to Eagle to meet them for lunch, visit with friends, Tom and Ann, and drove them back. They were happy with their ride and are looking forward to planning the next one!