Acadia Day 2

Our original plan was to bike up the road to Cadillac Mountain. This is something that I’ve always wanted to do. OK, let me re-phrase that . . . I didn’t really want to do it, I just felt the burning need to do it for the sense of accomplishment and bragging rights. But when we scoped out the road the day before and saw how narrow the twisty road was, with no biking shoulder to speak of, and then realized how stinking windy it was, we thought better of this idea. I just had visions of being run off the road by leaf peepers, or worse, getting completely blow off the ridge. So we found some nice carriage roads (gravel roads closed to autos) and climbed just about the same elevation. This was so much of a nicer experience. The views were better during the climb and we had no worries of getting run over. As I huffed and puffed my way up the mountain the thought occurred to me that I seem to judge my vacations by the amount of calories burned. The more calories burned, the better the vacation. And this one was shaping up to be spectacular.

The only way to really appreciate these pictures is to have pedaled up from the lake. The views were well worth the climb.

We crawled up onto a big rock and sun bathed as we ate some snacks. Nothing feels better than guilt-free calories after a climb.

Of course the decent back down was a ball. This is what the carriage roads looked like. A bikers dream.


There was still plenty of day light left for a hike so we drove over to another section of the park that we never visited before and found a beautiful 5 or 6 mile hike around 2 lakes. I was worried about taking this on after that climb, fearing my knee would give me trouble, but I was having too much fun to notice any pain. Strangely I don’t have many pictures from this portion of the day. I was very proud of myself in that I didn’t have my big camera around my neck most of the time. I removed the pressure to take pictures and for the most part during our hiking and biking I just used my little point and shoot. I saved the big camera for the sunrises and sunsets and strolls around Bar Harbor.

To see some of my prettier pictures (not really showing the actual park) but pretty stuff around the outskirts, please click here.

Still more Maine notes to come. Please stay tuned for the not-so-riveting conclusion to one of our most story-free vacations.