Lobstah in the RUFF.

NP Roadtrip – Acadia National Park - Day 110 - 116

Brattleboro, Vermont was once known as having the most covered bridges in the state of Vermont.  These days, the only covered bridge in Brattleboro is closed to vehicle traffic.  So when we pulled out of town, heading to Maine, I looked up places we were going to be driving through to see if we could go through a covered bridge with the trailer.  I absolutely love taking pictures of our trailer in awesome places, as I’m sure you’ve come to realize.  I simply NEEDED to get a shot of Woodstock going through one.  We found the perfect specimen in Sawyers Crossing Covered Bridge, only 15 minutes off the main road in New Hampshire.  The only thing holding us back was a sign that said “No trailers”.  Hmmm.  You know what Momma always said, “better to ask for forgiveness than permission”.  Actually, my mother never said that.  But hey, you only live once.  Plus, G was driving so if anyone were to get in trouble…

There was another place I wanted to stop, the Tuckaway Tavern & Butchery in Raymond, New Hampshire.  Not only is it a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives spot, but it also has a butchery attached where we could stock up on food before our 5 days of boondocking in Acadia National Park.  We ate a quick meal in the tavern, then went into the awesome shop/butchery.  Whoah!  This place was absolutely awesome.  They had so much to choose from that we felt a little bit like two kids in a candy shop.  We made our selections, got to the register, and because it was Wednesday and we spent over $50, we got to take a “spin at the wheel”.  What is this wheel, you ask?  It’s basically a Meat Wheel of Fortune.  You heard it here first, folks, @campbuymelove and @thehoppycamper are the next contestants on the Meat Wheel of Fortune!  And what did our lovely contestants win?  TWO POUNDS of PORK!!!  What??!!??!!  Apparently, the meat odds were in our favor.  We immediately called our Providence friends, who would be “meat-ing” us in Acadia and let them know we had all the dinners taken care of!  And I promise not to make any more meat jokes….until the next time I think of one.

What are two Portlanders supposed to do when they arrive in Maine?  Go to Portland, Maine and hit up some breweries dangit!  The drive to Acadia was going to be too long to do in one day, so we planned an overnight stop in Portland, our friendly sister city of the east!  They are very well known for awesome beers, just like our adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon.  We dropped the trailer at Wild Duck Campground and headed into town to check it out.  We first checked out Rising Tide Brewery, which is conveniently located next to a distillery called Maine Craft Distilling.  Honestly, it felt like home.  Doggies on the patio, good beer, and a lot of hipsterific brooding folks wearing mismatch-y clothes.  Ahhh, the Portlands.  Almost twins, separated at birth.  At Maine Craft Distilling, the neighbor distillery, I tried a delicious cocktail, made with their amazing, soon-to-be-bottled ginger beer.  Sadly, no distribution to the Oregon area.  The next stop was Fore River Brewery.  Little did we know that they had just closed for the evening, but they poured a beer for us and let everyone (about 25 people) take their time sipping and soaking up the setting sun, while the brewery workers cleaned up inside. Maybe that’s a sign they should be open past 6 o’clock!  All said and done, we had the perfect Portland experience, even if we were only there for one night. 

The following day we opted to drive up the coast of Maine, rather than the quicker, inland route.  We were told, by people we met in Asheville, to definitely take the coastal route and check out the lobster or “lobstah” shacks on the route.  They suggested a spot to check out for lunch, but sadly, that shack had closed after 30 years in business.  We tried finding another place to go, but all but one of the spots we found were still closed for the season.  The one place that was open, Red’s Eats, was already too far past and we were unable to turn around.  Finally, I found a place in Rockland called Brass Compass Café.  They competed, with their King of Clubs sandwich, against Bobby Flay on Throwdown.  Out of the two things we ordered, I would only recommend this awesome sandwich.  It was pretty amazing, and the picture should speak for itself.

We also stopped in Camden, Maine, a cute little New England town that looks like a movie set.  It’s that adorable.  It was so hot outside (about 90 degrees).  What a perfect time to enjoy a couple of ice cream cones!  I window shopped a little bit while finishing up my ice cream, and then we headed up to our campground in Acadia National Park.  Blackwoods Campground has no hookups and sites aren’t exactly private, but they are large and conveniently located close to most of the parks big ticket spots.  When we pulled in the rangers made sure to tell us that the biting black flies had just hatched 2 days prior and that we should wear bug spray if we didn’t want to be covered in bites.  And boy were they BAD!  Thermacell saved us again, and allowed us to enjoy our campsite with relatively little discomfort. 

Acadia National Park is located on several islands and a peninsula around Bar Harbor, Maine.  The largest of the islands, Mount Desert Island, has several small harbor towns with lots of services.  The other islands and peninsula have little to no services.  We had heard Schoodic Peninsula had an amazing, and relatively new, RV campground, but since we were meeting our friends, we opted for the closest campground to activities.  Blackwood Campground has no showers, but you can go just down the street (less than a mile) to get showers, laundry, firewood, and ice.  Bar Harbor is about 15 minutes away and offers most anything you might need during a stay.

We started our first morning with a trip to Bar Harbor.  My family had taken a trip there a long time ago and we stayed at a fancy hotel right in town.  I remembered bits and pieces of the trip, but the hotel was fresh on my brain nearly 30 years later.  The Bar Harbor Inn still sits right on the water overlooking Frenchman’s Bay.  It was just as I remembered, though we didn’t go take a look inside.  We walked through town with the dogs and went back to camp as we were expecting our friends in the early afternoon.

While we waited for them to arrive, we prepared dinner for that evening, Bison tips (from Tuckaway Tavern) and Veggie “No Noodle” Lasagna and did some prep for a few other dinners.  This was our first “entertaining” experience on the road, so we definitely wanted to pull out all the stops.  Our friends arrived with their adorable labradoodle, Ziggy, and the celebrations began.  For Ziggy, celebrations mean running around and through all the campsites at a very high rate of speed, zipping quickly in one direction and then another and maybe grabbing a bite or several bites of dog food from the next campsite over.  For the four humans, celebrations often include either champagne toasts and perhaps a nice beer or cocktail.  I told you way back, in O-Hi-O, Off to Cuyahoga We Go, that the Carolina Fire Starter Bourbon would come back to haunt this blog.  Enter bourbon from stage left.  First of all, this recipe is amazing and can turn even the most liquor averse person into a fan.  This stuff is so good, and it goes really well with an awesome dinner, a campfire, and fresh baked oatmeal raisin cookies!  The only problem was that we planned to wake up the following morning to watch the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain, a rite of passage for all those visiting Acadia National Park.  It’s the first spot to see the rising sun in the United States and I was determined to go.  On a good day it can be a painful experience to wake up at 4 a.m.  On the morning after Carolina Fire Starter Bourbon r.s.v.p’d to the party, it’s downright masochistic.  But we did it.  And we loved every second, except for the waking up part.  It was bitterly cold and windy, and some of us weren’t very appropriately dressed in shorts.  Hmmm.  Who could that possibly be?  Here’s a hint:  Rhymes with Guessica.  And by Guessica, I mean Jessica.

We got back in the car, turned the heat up, and crashed once back at camp.  After the simultaneous power nap, we whipped up some Crab Cake Benedicts.  You know, just the regular run of the mill Camp Buy Me Love breakfast!  The crab cakes were, of course, courtesy of Pappa’s in Baltimore.  You know you’re special when we break out the crab cakes for you!  Afterward we all hopped in the car and took the 3 dogs to Little Long Pond.  This is such a special place that we had taken Murphy and Scarlett the day prior.  In 2015 David Rockefeller Sr. (yes, those Rockefellers) donated 1000 acres of their beautiful Seal Harbor land to the Land and Garden Preserve of Mount Desert Island.  This same parcel of land had already been protected since 1993 through a land conservation agreement with the state of Maine.  The property includes carriage roads, a pond, and hiking trails that connect to Acadia.  The famous carriage roads of Acadia are very similar to the ones on Little Long Pond, but the latter doesn’t allow bicycles AND they allow horses and dogs off-leash!  Not only is Acadia one of the most dog friendly national parks allowing dogs on most trails, but the added bonus of a 1000 acre off-leash dog and horse park puts it on another level.  We went there 3 times in 4 days doing about 9 total miles of hiking.  Needless to say, we did our fair share of exploring at Little Long Pond.  We capped off the day’s hike with a drive around the park loop road and some drinks and a few lobster rolls in Bar Harbor, then headed back to the campsite to chill out, get a campfire going, and prepare dinner.  That night we feasted on Maple Brined Pork Chops and Shaved Brussel Sprouts with pistachios and cranberries, but far less Carolina Fire Starter Bourbon!

The next day, while our friends got some rock climbing in, we took all 3 dogs back to Little Long Pond for a long hike around the various carriage trails and then met our friends to grab a bite to eat in Bar Harbor.  We had a great meal at the Side Street Café, and they had tasty cocktails too.  Sadly though, it was time to say goodbye to our friends who had to get back to work the following day. 

On our last full day in Acadia we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.  We started the big day with Bagels and Lox, then ventured to Jordon Pond, back to Cadillac Mountain, and Bass Harbor Head.  G mentioned there was an awesome lobster shack in the area, so we popped over there to grab a bite for lunch.  Beal’s Lobster Pier is the lobster shack I’d been looking for since we got to Maine, though a lot larger than some of the tiny shacks Maine is so famous for.  We had amazing lobster rolls a few years ago at Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough in Stonington, Connecticut.  I had to seriously consider which was better, Abbott’s or Beal’s.  Ultimately, they’re both awesome.  Beal’s for the variety and Abbott’s for the perfect seaside setting.  Rather than make anyone mad, I’m just going with a tie!

After our amazing lunch, we went back to do the park loop road again, stopping at Sieur de Monts, the Wild Gardens of Acadia, and Thunder Hole.  It was low tide when we were there so we didn’t get to experience the “thunder” of Thunder Hole, but a pretty stop nonetheless.  Once back at camp, we made up a few cocktails and walked the short route to the ocean cliffs.  We took a zillion pictures, chatted up a few folks on the rocks, then headed back to camp to eat leftover veggie lasagna in front of the campfire.  Overall, an awesome anniversary celebration on the books.

After being at Blackwoods campground for 5 nights, we had a lot to clean up on our last morning.  We were sad to be leaving Acadia, but the beautiful sunny weather of the previous 4 days turned sour and rain was going to continue that way for the next few days.  We skipped breakfast, which was planned…because we were going to Beal’s again!  Yay!!  It was so good that we just HAD to go back, and it was just as good as the day before.  We weren’t sure where we were going to stay that night, so we headed in the direction of Bangor.  We first went to the dog park to let Scarlett & Murphy run wild.  Then we went over to Mason’s Brewing Co. for an early dinner.  We ended up driving a little further and stayed in Skowhegan.  The further we got, the easier the drive into Canada would be in the morning. 

For anyone heading to the Maine coast in May, be prepared for wacky weather and a lot of “closed for the season” signs.  We were about a week early, which was great for crowds, but not as great if you wanted to try some local eats.  It’s also a little bit more out of the way, but in my humble opinion, well worth the effort.  And if you have dogs, it’s downright criminal not to take them to this area if you have the means.  Hands down, this is THE MOST dog friendly National Park and our little pups had the absolute best time.