Day #1

From October 3rd to October 6th, I visited Acadia National Park in Maine. Acadia is located about 46 miles south of Bangor, and the average latitude and longitude of the park is 44.3 degrees north, 66.3 degrees south. Upon arriving in Maine, I had to change the time on my watch and cell phone; Maine is in the Eastern Time Zone, which is one hour ahead of Central Time. In order to get to the park, I flew from Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington to Bangor International Airport; after leaving the airport, I rented a car and drove on US-1A E until I arrived at Mount Desert Island, where most of Acadia National Park is located.

For the duration of my time in the park, I camped out at the Blackwoods Campground. Located near Bar Harbor, Blackwoods Campground is open year-round (albeit with limited capacity from December 1st to March 31st), and because I visited Acadia during one of their more busy times of the year, I had to make a reservation for a camping space before I got to the park. It can get pretty chilly in the park during October–average day temperatures are about 58 degrees Fahrenheit, and night temperatures average about 41 degrees Fahrenheit–so I made sure to pack a coat and a couple of blankets. While Acadia doesn’t get a ton of rain during October (according to the National Park Service, the park only receives about 4 inches of rain on average during the month), I still made sure to bring an umbrella and some rain boots, just in case.

There’s a lot of stuff to do at Acadia, and over the course of my trip I hope to do as much as I possibly can. Some of the features inside the park include dozens of hiking, biking, paddling, and kayaking areas, several large and spectacular ponds carved by glaciers, a museum, and a tea-house. One of the more unique aspects of Acadia National Park is that while the brunt of the park’s many features are located on Mount Desert Island, parts of the park are also located on the nearby Schoodic Peninsula and on several other smaller islands ringing Mount Desert Island. In order to get to these smaller islands, you have to take a mail-boat out and back.

After I arrived at Acadia and got settled in my campsite, I decided to do a little bit of leisurely biking. I drove my rental car over to the Parkman Mountain parking lot and from there biked along the Hadlock Brook Trail until I

Waterfall Bridge--photo from flickr.com

reached the Waterfall Bridge, which crosses over the brook right next to a forty-foot high granite waterfall. The trail was beautiful; besides passing the massive waterfall, it also went through a spruce forest and passed Upper Hadlock pond, where I stopped on the shore to eat a picnic dinner.

map from acadiamagic.com