Acadia is Awesome

Monday morning at the crack of dawn, woken already by the sun and oppressive heat in our room, we drove 5 hours up the coast of Maine to the greatest National Park on the East Coast: Acadia. Grumpus drove the whole way and was a true tough -- he averaged 70mph, aided in large part by "Car Talk" and "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" (yes, we really are elderly people).

It was a 100% traffic-free drive (wah!) and we got to Bar Harbor in time for lunch. Oddly, since all we did all morning was sit and drive, we were both starving. After some searching, we decided on dark tavern where Mumpus got a lobster roll and Grumpus got a haddock sandwich and clam chowdah, although he was distracted by the news that Coach Tressel (of THE Ohio State University) resigned. He was -- and is -- very sad about it. It is terrible :(

Lunch was great, and we wanted ice cream as we wandered around the town, but it was all too expensive ($5 a cone!!), and we were being cheap.

So instead, we decided to go for a hike in the park. The weather was BEAUTIFUL- mid-80s and sunny, after weeks of heavy fog and cold here. Our hike started out along an easy stretch of coastal road with beautiful views of the ocean and mountains. Grumpus decided that he wanted more than beautiful views, so we scrambled down a wooded path to the rocks and walked along the rocky coast. We headed back up to the road, crossed it, and moved on to Gorham Mountain Trail.

Let us pause to tell you something about Acadia: a "moderate" trail in Acadia is about a thousand times harder than anything in the Boston area. We didn't know this when we started.

We hiked up what we considered a "strenuous" trail (until the next day's hike). But it was awesome. We took a detour at Cadillac Cliffs, which was very cliffy, and eventually were rewarded with panoramic views of the mountains and ocean from the top. Since we didn't expect to go on such a tough hike, we didn't pack enough water, and Grumpus was a true gentleman and made sure that Mumpus was well hydrated even though he was very thirsty.

We then drove to the other side of the island to our B&B, the Kingsleigh Inn, in Southwest Harbor. (Thank you D- and A-Lipps for our graduation present!!!!) We definitely recommend this place -- it's really nice and the owners are great. We headed out for a quick run, showered and then partook of the complementary wine and hors d'oeuvres. After several glasses of wine we headed out for a surprisingly good pizza dinner and returned to our room for complementary port and chocolates. Grumpus has always had a taste for port, and he really wants to learn more about it so that we can drink it back in Medford. Following a long day of adventuring, we fell asleep embarrassingly early (hint: it was still light outside).