Sunrise at Cadillac Mountain, and a great bike ride

Sept 5, 2019 – Bar Harbor / Acadia NP

Nancy got us up a 5:30am today so we could catch the sunrise at Cadillac Mountain. The weather was absolutely perfect….just a few clouds out on the horizon. We knew that it was a popular thing to do…..but we had no idea just how popular. We figured it would be a little less crowded at this time of year, especially on a Thursday morning. When we got there a little before 6am (sunrise), there were 200 cars parked in an area designed for 100!  Ugh! So I dropped Nancy off so she could catch the moment the sun peeked over the horizon and get some pics while I circled looking for a parking spot. I found one pretty quick because right after the sun popped over the horizon, people took their pictures and headed back to their cars and left. It was actually more like a stampede! That was because despite the clear sunny day, the temperature at 6am was 49 degrees and the wind was blowing a steady 30 miles an hour or so…..which means it was darn cold on top of Cadillac Mountain!

At this time of the morning, you cast a long shadow

We got some great pictures and headed for the The Log Cabin Restaurant for breakfast. We were a little too early so we went home (a mile away) and came back at 8:30. It was a great breakfast, including some outrageously good blueberry pancakes.After breakfast we came back to get our bikes and went back to Acadia  to bike the Carriage Roads in Acadia NP. These “roads” in Acadia NP were a gift from gift from John D Rockefeller, and they are for use by hikers, bikers, horse riders and horse drawn carriages ONLY (no powered vehicles or e-bikes allowed).  There are approx. 57 miles of these crushed stone roads on the island (which includes Bar Harbor and Acadia). Some are used in the winter for cross country skiing and snowmobiling.

We got on the Carriage Roads by 11:30am , and rode a very scenic 14 mile loop around three lakes. Our ride around the Carriage roads was spectacular!

Then we loaded our bikes back in the truck, and drove into Bar Harbor. I got the shifting linkage on my bike fixed (10 minutes at a bike shop) and then we rode the bikes around downtown. We had a beer at one of the local breweries, shopped a little, and then headed over to the patio at The Bar Harbor Inn for some lunch. The food was great and the setting looking over the harbor was really beautiful, especially on a sunny day like today! We went back in town for a little while, rode back to the truck, and went home. It was a fun, but very long, day.

The Bar Harbor Inn…..great lunch spot on the patio!

The quantity and health of the flowers at the Bar Harbor Inn was incredible…..

The Margaret Todd is a 4 masted schooner. These boats were very popular in the 1700 and 1800’s.  It sails out of Bar Harbor most everyday during the season, which is basically May – Oct.

A couple interesting tidbits I read today-

  • Mt. Desert Island (the island we’re staying on, which includes Bar harbor and Acadia NP), is the largest contiguous piece of granite on the Atlantic coast. Dang…..I thought for sure that was Nova Scotia! :>
  • Lobsters  can live for 100 years. The largest lobster ever caught came from Nova Scotia….it was 3.5 ft.long and weighed 44 lbs.  A local lobster wholesaler told me you can’t keep a lobster over 4.5 lbs. This regulation helps to protect the breeding stock.
  • The largest seasonal haul of lobster ever recorded in Maine was in 2016  when the lobster fishermen harvested over 130 million pounds.  The record breaking catch was valued at over $533 million. The math works out to $4.10 per lb. wholesale.

We decided to stop at a beach on the way home for sunset

Good night…..