Recently I had a family trip to Acadia National Park. It was an interesting journey, especially in the mist of Covid 19 pandemic.
We first made a stop at Portland, ME since many friends and co-workers have stopped there for the summer. It’s a small city with a Key West vibe. We stopped at the old port as people recommended, and took an afternoon walk along the shops near the bay. There were several lovely pottery shops, but we weren’t such big fans of pottery. It was a specially hot day, so it’s interesting to see shops with blowers running. If you can’t tell by now, I live in Florida for a long time. Air conditioner is standard in Florida, so it’s strange in my mind to not have A/C in the summer. My son loves rocks and there was a gem shop with colorful rocks. We bought a few bottles of small gems, and he was quite happy. Some of the restaurants were busy, and we couldn’t find a table until late at night, so we stopped at a smaller one just to get a bite. I would say the highlight of the afternoon is the ice cream shop with mocha and tiramisu.
Official trip to Acadia began the next day. Only noticeable thing on the highway is that I had two incident of people driving off the road almost immediately in front of me. I just never seen it in the many years of driving in Florida. People hit each other’s cars, but they don’t just drive off the road. Maybe Maine have different driving regulations, or many people in Maine have special training to avoid cars, by driving off of the highway.
Once we get to the hotel, the staff were extra nice, recommend us the sites at the national park, and offered to print vehicle pass since I didn’t have any. It was tough to get the non-operational wifi to work, but the helpful staff made it sufferable.
Acadia National Park is as expected for any national park in the peak season. There were a lot of people. I rarely see that many people in the U.S. outside of large cities. The Sand Beach was especially bad since there was miles of one way road, and the only way you can find parking is to loop back after driving 30 minutes. Otherwise it’s about equal time to walk after finding parking. Because the daytime entrance window is only 30 minutes from the booking time, I had to really try hard to get through the area. I don’t remember much since I just dropped off my family and never stayed the beach.
Cadillac summit road was interesting to drive on. The only comparison I have is driving on Smoky mountain roads in the Carolinas. Unless you are used to the mountain roads, speed limit is your friend. It’s not like the road is extra narrow, but the feeling of imminent cliff diving made it more challenging for my shaking legs. Anyway, the glacial rocks were extra fun to walking/hiking on once we got to the peak of the mountain. You can almost walk anywhere on the peak. Around half of the rocks were covered by trees, so most of the peak is surprisingly accessible by walking. Large groups of flies was sort of annoying if you have kids. And although it’s rarely sunny near the peak, extra sun screen is recommended. I had sun burn with regular amount of sun block.
One extra note is that most people around our hotel wore masks, but the visitor to the national park most choose to not wear one. I had one feeling that’s because local population were older than the visitors. But it could also be the local culture is much more acceptable for wearing masks.
Overall, it was a fun relaxing trip. We probably had way too much lobster, even though we are not such fan of that much protein.