As we walked along the paths and trails of Acadia, we decided to let the pictures do most of the talking.  It is just that beautiful.

However, a few things about the park:

Acadia, one of the smallest of the U.S. national parks, is situated on Maine’s Atlantic coast and takes up most of the area of Mount Desert Island (pronounced as in ice cream or a slice of pie, not as a place with lots of sand).  Acadia has everything: beautiful granite cliffs, the power of the ocean, the calm of the lakes, forest walks, mountains….  And:

• 120 miles of hiking trails.
• 45 miles of carriage roads (broken stone roads built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. for horse-drawn vehicles). Today, only walkers, joggers, bicyclists, and horses are allowed on these roads.
• 24 mountain peaks.
• Cadillac Mountain (1,530 feet, the highest point on the Atlantic coast) which, between October 7 and March 6, is the first place in the country to see the sunrise each morning.

Mount Desert Island also is home to several towns and villages, including the well-known town of Bar Harbor.

Afternoon of Day One:  When checking into our campground, we were told of the excellent shuttle service from many of the campgrounds and hotels to and from Acadia’s visitor center and Bar Habor, the largest of the towns on Mount Desert Island.  These buses connect to additional shuttles within the park.

It is a pleasure not to have to drive in traffic, look for parking in crowded lots or along the streets, and of course our favorite hobby of getting lost by just missing the turn-off.  The buses come often and the friendly drivers are willing to drop you off or pick you up at undesignated stops along their route.  The service is free of charge, partially supported by L.L. Bean.

So we decided to take the shuttle in, transfer to the Loop Road shuttle (which is just that, 27 miles that goes through the more popular sections of the park – coast and interior), and then return to our campground.  We made one stop, at the Acadia Wild Gardens, a microcosm of Acadia’s diverse plants – 400 species – in a brookside setting:

This gave us a good basis for the next three days of exploring.

Day Two:  Ocean Path Walk from Sand Beach (cold arctic water), past Thunder Hole (best heard at rising tide with a rough sea), around the peninsula of Otter Cliff (pounding surf and waves), to the Fabbri picnic area – a trail that winds along pink granite cliffs and rocky headlands.

Bar Harbor:  A very nice tourist town; pretty with interesting stores and a beautiful waterfront.  Many of the shuttle buses come through Bar Harbor on their way to and from the park.

Day Three:  Bass Harbor Lighthouse – lighthouse at the southern tip of Acadia.  On the way to the lighthouse we passed Southwest Harbor.

Eagle Lake to Bubble Pond – a walk along a carriage road from the lake to the pond.  (We have yet to figure out the difference between ponds and lakes, and when we asked we could not get a definitive answer.)

Day Four:  Jordan Pond – a 3-mile walk around the pond.

A little more story here since there is more story to tell.  After taking the shuttle to Jordan Pond we were advised by two rangers that the 3-mile path around the pond was very nice and not too difficult.  We guess their definition of “not too difficult” is different from ours.  The path started out nice and easy with beautiful vistas of Jordan Pond; then, because of soil erosion, it changed to a narrow plank walk along the muddy shore for about a mile (estimated).  Once we were finished with that obstacle and back on a normal path, we found that we had to climb in and out of major rock formations.  But, at the end of the hike we both felt the better for it, an accomplished challenge.

Friday was a travel day to Two Lakes Campground near Oxford, Maine, where we quietly spent Shabbat.  On Sunday, we traveled to a campground near a kosher hotel (very chassidish) where we spent the next three days, including Tisha B’av.