Acadia National Park

Andrea told us that her house in Maine was two hours from everywhere, and that was true. It actually took us about three hours to drive all the way out to Acadia National Park. But the drive was pretty and we were just so happy to be close enough to go there at all! I had heard that it was so beautiful and was excited about seeing it in person!

I have never been to this part of the United States. Even though it's green and there are trees everywhere, it feels so different from where I've been on the west coast like Oregon and Washington. I'm not sure why. Different kinds of trees, maybe? Oregon has rocky beaches too, but they don't seem the same as these Maine ones.

The area of Acadia (I learned when we came to Quebec) was part of New France in the 1600s. The Acadians were French speaking and were driven out by the British colonists after the French and Indian war. (If you remember reading James Fenimore Cooper's Evangeline in school, you may recall that it's about an Acadian girl who is separated from her lover during that time period. I didn't remember that!) It was interesting that Maine and Quebec have that French connection I didn't know about before.

The park itself was wild and beautiful. Rocky coasts. A million little islands. I think Acadia National Park is even on an island (though it doesn't seem like it because you just drive over a short bridge). It was quite crowded and we didn't get out and hike any big trails, mostly just drove through and looked at things and got out for short little walks. It was the right amount of exploring to do with the little kids.

This whole area was eroded into columns which I assume are partially basalt—they look like the basalt columns I've seen in pictures of Ireland and other places. There is also a lot of pale pink sparkly granite like Gus is standing on in this picture. Very pretty.

We were lucky to have a beautiful sunny and clear day, so we could see nice views of other parts of the coast far away.

This was near a place called Thunder Hole where there's a narrow channel in the rocks. When the waves come in through the narrow gap, they make a strange booming sound.

The best thing that happened here was that we saw an otter! I love otters! Can you find him? He's over by the taller rocks on the right of Ziggy. He blends right in with the seaweed or whatever that is growing on the rocks.

Here you can see his little head

He was so cute!

After a while he slid into the water and then we got to watch him rolling around in the waves.

We wanted to eat some lobster while we were in Maine! But it's so expensive. Maybe we should have bought some to bring home and cook ourselves? That probably would have been good. What we did was buy two lobster rolls to split among us all, and then lots of fries to fill us up the rest of the way! We liked the lobster, but Sam didn't think it was good enough to cost SO much. Not better than other fresh fish! We would have happily eaten more if it had been handed to us on a platter, though :)

Silly people waiting for lunch

After lunch we stopped by a little beach so we could play in the ocean a bit. It didn't seem worth getting FULLY in swimming suits, so we got sort of half in them, saying we'd mostly just be wading—which never works, of course. Most people ended up pretty wet either way.

Someone found this pretty shell

The girls went out and stood on this platform, and then as the tide came found themselves a lot further out than they'd thought they'd be!

Gus and Ziggy built a "swimming pool" out of rocks (which were largely already in place…maybe someone's fire ring or something)

The tide came in and filled it up until it was pretty deep!

We drove up Cadillac Mountain Road, which has a great view on all sides. You have to get a reservation to drive up, and since the park was so busy I was happy I'd done that a couple months earlier.

I love the green land broken up by blue water all down the coast. So pretty!

Tiny tiny Malachi! Don't fall off!

Clementine is mad about something

I love the tiny islands. I wish we could spread out our family and have each of us live on our own little island. (I'd share one with Sam.) And the rest of us would have boats and visit each other, of course! And yell to each other if we needed to. It would be great!