We’re staying in Acadia National Park over a weekend, so even though I booked our spot several months ago I wasn’t able to find a single site that was available for both nights. This meant that we had to check out by 10am, and check back in later in the afternoon. This felt kind of early to us, but as we’d just shifted back from Atlantic Time to Eastern Time (a one-hour difference) it wasn’t a problem at all. We ate breakfast, packed up the tent, and then headed to the small town of Otter Creek where there was a block of coin-operated showers.
About 15 minutes’ drive away we found Jordan Pond, which, despite the name, is a 76 hectare body of water which supplies all the drinking water to the park and nearby towns. We took about two hours to walk the 6km trail around the shoreline, which passed through areas of exposed rock, deep forest, and beautiful boardwalks over fragile bogs. We stopped often to take lots of pictures of both the serene views out over the pond and the occasional bright red tree that had begun its autumnal transition earlier than the rest. I had been feeling a little under the weather this morning, but some exercise and fresh air made a big difference.
For lunch we decided to be real tourists and reserved a table at the Jordan Pond House restaurant, right on the shore. This restaurant is famous for a pastry called a Popover, which is very similar to a Yorkshire pudding, and people have been coming to Jordan Pond House to eat them for over 100 years. We figured since we were here, we should have the full experience, so each had a popover with butter and strawberry jam with our lunch. I haven’t had a Yorkshire pudding before so can’t make a direct comparison between the two, but I thought that the texture was somewhat reminiscent of a croissant with a crispy outside and an airy, slightly doughy inside.
We sat on the lawn to eat, which meant we had to wait half an hour for a table, but it was worth it! Sitting in the sun underneath a clear blue sky reminded us of the good parts of camping, rather than the overcast and almost-freezing weather of the week before.
After lunch we drove up nearby Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest peak in the park. It’s also the first point in the USA to see the sunrise between October 7 and March 6. There is a long winding road that climbs all the way to the peak, where there is a carpark and various lookout areas and interpretive signs. There are lots of hiking trails that start from here and meander down into the valleys on either side, but we just had a short walk around the top instead. The view from up there was amazing, and as one of the signs suggested, made it very clear that we were in the middle of an island.
We had been thinking about going out for a lobster dinner, but after we got back to the campsite we decided that we probably didn’t need two big expensive meals in one day so we’d save it for lunch tomorrow. Maine lobster is a specialty here, so even though it’s maybe an unnecessary luxury, we figured we’d better try it before we move on.
Our original plan was to leave Acadia tomorrow morning, but we’re considering staying another night. The weather forecast for tomorrow night and the next day are looking pretty bad so we figured that it’d be better to use the remaining good weather to explore Acadia some more, rather than doing the 4hrs driving that we’d planned, and save the driving for when it’s raining. This means that we’d only have one night instead of two at our next stop, but Acadia seems like a better place to explore. We asked at the campground registration office if we could book a site for tomorrow night, but they said we’d need to come back the next morning.