Back in the USA! Acadia NP in Maine

Favorite things about Canada:

• Ontario: beautiful lakes and rivers/streams feeding into Lake Superior

• Quebec: Quebec City history and hanging out at Chateau Frontenac bar

• New Brunswick: great seafood, learning about French-speaking Acadians, Bay of Fundy tides

• Prince Edward Island: excellent & reasonably-priced food, friendly people

• Nova Scotia: puffins, Cape Breton Highlands NP, lotsa lobster eh!

8/19/25 - Shortly after leaving St. Andrews, New Brunswick, we crossed the Saint Croix River Reservoir and arrived at the Calais, Maine, border crossing. Since we weren't asked crossing INTO Canada, we were surprised by "Fresh foods and vegetables?". Even though we answered that we did, the agent asked to look inside the RV. He didn't want us to move away from the window, even though he was the only window open! After I helped him open the fridge (the lock is a bit tricky), and traffic continued to back up behind us, he confiscated our eggs, peppers, and tomatoes (which I had bought the day before 😒). In hindsight, the eggs make sense (avian flu) but Canadian peppers and tomatoes??!!

The double-sided sheet the border agent gave us for future reference. No wonder we missed something!!

We arrived at our campground near Acadia National Park and were reminded we were back in the US...camping fees were at least double what we've been paying all summer!! We had time for a run and a few chores before sunset.

Celebrating no fire bans!!! (Western Bay behind me)

8/20/25 - We tried taking the recommended bus from our campground to the park but the bike racks weren't big enough for our mountain bikes. We loaded the bikes into the truck and battled parking lot traffic with no success. We ended up parking at a college near the park entrance and biking into the park. Once we were on Acadia Park's Carriage Roads, we were in bliss! We had seen them on a previous visit to Acadia (with my mom and Art) and said we wanted to return for them, and we weren't disappointed. They were even better than we expected: well-groomed pea-gravel, usually >12' wide, well-marked signs directing us through the woods and by beautiful lakes. We passed some horse-drawn carriages (thus, the name) and saw deer and a family of turkeys.

We ended up riding 25 miles of the 45-mile network of Carriage Roads

View from the top of Day Mountain

For dinner, we had lobster cooked Maine-style:

You pick out your live lobsters from a cooler and they are weighed and put into a numbered net. The net is then put into an outside cooker (here wood-fired) for about 20 minutes.

I remembered this approach from our previous visit to Maine and we never saw this in Canada. It was as delicious as Canada lobster, but again, double the price!

Due to good internet at our campground (we basically had none in St. Andrews), we were happy to visit & play euchre on-line with Jerry and Lori Harmann in the evening.

8/21/25 - We got lucky with parking at the trailhead for Beech Mountain, which was a 1.3-mile, 400ft elevation hike.

We had a great view from the fire tower at the top of Beech Mountain

We also hiked Acadia Mountain, which was a 2.8-mile, 780ft elevation hike.

Acadia Mountain provided a great view of Somes Sound, which basically cuts Mount Desert Island (the island Acadia is on) into two halves

We drove to the south end of Mount Desert Island and stopped for a drink at two different harbor bars.

We saw this deer as we were driving through the southern portion of Acadia National Park

8/22/25 - A day of R&R and chores. Tomorrow we go to Camden, Maine, to visit with my friend Kathy Barksdale (from Procter & Gamble).