To Acadia

We had a drizzly, lazy morning as we packed up and headed to the first place we had made reservations for ahead of time: Acadia National Park.

The first item on our morning business was to get Maine blueberry pancakes. We got an excellent recommendation from the campground owner and headed to Milbridge House. As promised, this was a favorite of the locals and it did not fail to meet our high hopes. We were highly pleased.

We then continued to roll along for a short 63.9 miles for the day until we found Seawall campground in Acadia around 1pm. Despite the overcast weather, the scenery was simply stunning. Rocky shores met foamy waves in an almost “too Maine to be true” kind of way. There were picture perfect little houses and fishing boats dotting the coastline on and offshore. Red deer appeared out of the woods now and then and locals chatted on their front lawns and porches. Lovely.

When we got to our campsite, what struck us first is that we have a long way to go in our backing a trailer learning curve. Never was that more apparent than the previous day when we tried backing into our site at Sunset Point. We tried a while, reluctant to simply give up immediately and use the “caravan mover”. The campsite owner very kindly (and not in any kind of a rude way) offered to help. It was pretty amazing. He just fed me directions, “left, left, hard left, straight, right, hard right….” as I followed his guidance. He backed us in perfectly. Now, I had done my share of reading and video watching this past year. I knew about holding my hands at the bottom of the wheel, thinking of it as “opposite”, and using the “scoop” approach. But one thing I heard over and over is that you just have to do it to learn it.

So, when we got to Acadia, the skies were clearly about to open up with some serious rain and we were motivated to be set up before then. So we went straight to the caravan mover. This is a magical beast and can make Dory dance and spin around on command. The thing we were both nervous about was the draw on the battery while she’s doing all that spinning. We chose a campground with no electrical hookups, which we were pretty sure would be ok for a couple days, but we were cognizant of power use. We did the best we could to get her level quickly and did indeed get fully set up right before it started coming down. Nice to be safe, warm and dry inside.

Later, it cleared and we ventured out to do a bit of exploring and find dinner. We took an idyllic little trail that meandered through woods and to the beach.

We then found info on a place called Thurston’s Lobster Pound. What a place. It was clearly a local find, judging by the line out the door. On the approach to the door, you could see hundreds of lobster cages stacked high around the docks. Out front, lobster slayers periodically appeared and threw live lobsters into big boiling vats, tracked by numbered tags hanging over the side. To place your order, you got to actually choose your live lobster walking around in holding tanks by the order window. Weird if you think about it too hard. I think I’ve only ever had lobster a couple of times, so I’m no pro at knowing how to crack them open, but a friendly waitress was only too happy to go around and give pointers to customers.

We returned to Dory and got very cozy. There was even another Alto in the campground so we feel quite at home. The agenda for tomorrow includes getting some bike riding in at last. Hopefully it will be a nice day.

Total miles: 63.9, Engine time: 2 hours, 15 min, MPG 17.1