Tedda visits her first national park: Acadia
Ah, Acadia National Park, how we love thee. I’ve written before of our love for ANP (visit this page and this page to read more!), which we first started visiting in 2000, when we didn’t have the money to ferry over to Nova Scotia for our first anniversary. Instead, we visited Bar Harbor, and we’ve been going back nearly every year—and sometimes multiple times per year—since. This short trip, however, we’d be taking Tedda (our 2021 Winnebago Travato KL).
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, G and I planned to head up to Acadia for the weekend to get outside and enjoy a change of scenery (Note: Maine has strict travel restrictions in place; at the time of our visit, only residents of New Hampshire and Vermont are permitted to travel without quarantining or COVID testing. For more information, visit this page). We had planned to just boondock in a Walmart parking lot not too far from the park, but after doing some research into Boondockers Welcome, which we had recently joined, I found a host site just a few miles away from the park entrance. For more on Boondockers Welcome, check out my previous post here.
The membership agreement prevents users from providing specific details about host sites, and the site, while really just a parking spot in a business lot, was perfect for our needs and offered a convenient base for us for our two nights in the area. I requested the reservation, and the host and I were able to coordinate all of the details through the website. Easy-peasy.
Having our basecamp so close to the park meant we had plenty of time to drive Park Loop Road, head up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain before it closed for the season, and drive over to Schoodic Peninsula to spend a few hours in that part of the park. We even made a detour over to nearby Lamoine State Park to check out the campground and campsites there. With limited daylight hours (and a mostly cloudy weekend), we tried to make the most of the limited time we had and prioritized leisure, relaxation, and photography during the visit.
Source: https://www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/park-loop-road.htm
Park Loop Road
Our first stop after reaching Mount Desert Island, Maine, in the early afternoon was Park Loop Road, which offers 27 miles of scenic views and vistas and access to just about every “main” point of interest in the park (e.g., Sand Beach, Thunder Hole, Otter Cliffs) and access to several trailheads to some of the more popular hikes in the park. You can imagine how busy the road is in peak season! Off season, however, driving park loop road is a dream. As G and I often visit in the winter, when parts of the Loop Road are closed, we loved having the opportunity to travel with very few other cars (more cyclists, I think!) and to take our time doing so. We didn’t make many stops (as there were still too many cars at a few of the really popular spots for our comfort level right now), but we enjoyed every mile of the gorgeous scenery.
Cadillac Mountain
Okay, so we cheated a little: technically, RVs and trailers are prohibited from driving up the auto road to the summit of Cadillac. We find that since we have a Class B, which is 21 feet long and fits in a standard parking space, we’re not always sure if we fall strictly into the “RV” category. I had checked a few forums that noted Class Bs using the auto road without issue, but I’m not sure I’d take the risk in summer months, when the parking at the top is packed. I don’t think we’d need the extra stress and worry. But on this day, just a few days before the road closed for the season, we took advantage of the opportunity to head up to the summit. While the weather wasn’t great, and we weren’t there to see a stunning sunset or sunrise, the view of the Porcupine Islands in Frenchman Bay remains one of my favorites.
By the time we made it back down and then again around part of Park Loop Road to exit back to town, we were ready to call it a day. We ordered takeout from one of our favorite restaurants, Side Street Cafe (oh my gosh, the Mac-and-cheese dishes are incredible!!!), and headed to our boondocking spot for the night. We enjoyed our dinners, our Bar Harbor root beers, and, of course, a few games of Ticket to Ride.
Saturday: Lamoine SP, Schoodic, and Sieur de Monts
On Saturday, we took Tedda over to Schoodic Peninsula, to the other part of Acadia National Park. Over the years, we’ve found ourselves really enjoying the quieter, less visited parts of the park, and Schoodic definitely falls into that category. On the way there, we made a stop to check out Lamoine State Park and scope out the campsites. Without leaves on the trees, the sites were all pretty open to one another, so I’m not sure what the campsites look like during the spring or summer, but my guess is that we wouldn’t find the kind of seclusion we’re always looking for when we camp. We may end up booking a night or two in the future, but our first choices will probably be Acadia’s campgrounds—Seawall, Blackwoods, and Schoodic Woods—as we’ve never camped at any of them.
Whereas most of Acadia NP is on Mount Desert Island, the Schoodic part of the park is back on Maine’s mainland. From the entrance to Acadia National Park at Hulls Cove, Schoodic Peninsula is about an hour’s drive. This part of the park also features a loop road (though a significantly shorter one, at 6 miles long) and gorgeous scenic vistas of the ocean meeting Maine’s rocky cliffs and pines.
WIth just a few hours left in the afternoon, G and I headed back toward Bar Harbor and decided to return to one of the spots we’ve really come to enjoy over the past few years—Sieur de Monts. Located off Park Loop Road, Sieur de Monts includes quite a bit of Acadia history, including the Nature Center, Wild Gardens of Acadia, Abbe Museum, and a handful of trails, including Jesup Path, with its awesome (and so photo-worthy) boardwalk. We’ve yet to visit Abbe Museum (it’s on our list!!), and the nature center and wild gardens are closed in the off season, but Jesus Path, with its boardwalk and birches, never disappoints.
Our Thanksgiving getaway was a short one, but the two days away gave us a little escape from our routines and our four walls. Being in the Travato allows us a way to travel without really interacting with anyone else or with any public spaces, and our first experience boondocking with Boondockers Welcome was a success and way easier than I anticipated! Now that we seem to have our routines down (figuring out how much power/propane we need for a weekend, etc.), we’re hoping to continue to “camp” throughout the winter. Stay tuned!