8/2: Acadia National Park
At the beginning of the month I planned a last minute trip to Acadia National Park in Maine and the White Mountains. My boyfriend Alexis, my friend Rachel, and I decided to spend one day in Acadia and a few days in the White Mountains. We planned to drive up to Acadia early Tuesday morning and explore Ocean Path on the coast and hopefully see Thunder Hole at high tide. Then we would head down to our campsite in the White Mountains.
Things don't always work out as planned of course and after the 4 hour drive up to Acadia we decided to spend the first night there and head to our campsite in the White Mountains afterwards.
By the time we got to Acadia it was 2-3pm and it took us some time to find the visitors center and get a pass. Afterwards we were hungry so we stopped in Bar Harbor to grab some food on our way to Ocean Path.
There are several parking lots along Ocean Path but we parked at the very beginning by Sand Beach. We had Behr with us and dogs aren't allowed on the beach so we began immediately on the trail behind the restrooms. The trail follows the coast and often runs along the road with many little paths running off it that allow you to see the views along the coast. We took many of these side paths to see the scenery and take photos. (photos of Rachel and I and Alexis, Behr, and I below. Rachel and Alexis were my human tripods for these)
By the time we made it to Thunder Hole it was low tide (we made it between 4-5pm and high tide was at 11am). Below is a photo of how it looked at low tide, at high tide the water roars far past that area and splashes anyone along the walk.
Behr and Alexis were a treat to take photos of along the way. Behr is so goofy with his tongue always hanging out he takes the funniest photos and he was just so happy to be there you can feel it.
Eventually along the path we entered an area in the woods. At this time the sun was getting lower in the sky and the light filtering through the trees created this radiant supernatural glow that felt very fairy tale. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for a conceptual photo so I attempted to take a photo with myself as the model. However, I was unable to take my shoes off because of animal holes in the ground so I like the one without me better.
In that same area of the woods this red squirrel tried to make friends with us. Behr kept accidentally scaring him off but he kept coming back.
We walked the full 2 miles (plus all our side stops) to Otter Point before we turned around.
On the way back we stopped at Thunder Hole again and walked out on the rocks in the area to get a little closer for photos of the visiting seal and to rest a minute.
The full loop is about 4 miles without getting off the path, with all the side trails we're guessing it was more like 4.5-5 miles.
After we got back to the car we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain to see the sunset.
