Maine on a Sunny Day

July 12

When we checked into our RV park, we inquired about a mobile repairman.  The ladies in the office highly recommended “Billy”.  Ken immediately called him and scheduled a visit for today… sometime in the afternoon.  (Yesterday, Ken did the prework of removing and placing the inverter. He only needed a repairman to help conncect the wires.) Today was the nicest day so far for us in Maine…sunny and high in 80’s and we are stuck waiting on “Billy”.  So much for afternoon repair call…Billy showed up at 7:00 PM.  The good news is that the new inverter was quickly connected and working like a gem!  Now we are good to go!

July 13

Today we were blessed with another beautiful day. Ken packed us a lunch and we headed towards Bar Harbor, ME.  But, first we stopped at Acadia National Park.  We have a senior national park pass, so, the entry is free.  But, where is the normal national park gatehouse?  Where is the national park sign?  We have visited numerous parks and always enter through the gatehouse where maps and directions are given.  Then, we always procesd to the national park sign for our photo.  Not today!

We drove around the park roadways and stopped at a few scenic overlooks.  We spotted a sign for Cadillac Mountain and followed the directions.  I noticed a sign along the road stating that reservations were required to drive to Cadillac Mountain.  How do you make a reservaton?  There was a manned gatehouse on the Cadillac Mt. road…yes, we do need a reservation.  The park employee handed us a pamphlet with a QR code.  I scanned the code and found that the next available reservation was 3:30 PM.  We will add this to our list of things to do when we return to Maine in August.

We exited the park and drove south to Northeast Harbor.  We drove through the quaint village and stopped at the marina to look over the boats.  The Marina is home to over two hundred yachts during the summertime, and has views looking out over the cove. I later learned that summer in Northeast Harbor attracts many wealthy, influentaial and famous people. 

When we arrived in Bar Harbor, we found Main Street bustling with tourists.   We dorve around the town 3-4 times looking for a parking spot, but, none were available.  So much for Bar Harbor today!  On one of our trips around town, we were stopped by a woman directing traffic…she handed me a small yellow rubber duckie printed with Welcome to Bar Harbor…we had been ducked!

We decided to return to Acadia Park and look for a Visitor’s Center.  We located the parking lot, but, did not see the building.  After walking a few steps we discovered the center was up a hill (52 steps).  Inside the center, i picked up a park map. Back down the hill we found a covered area with large poster maps, ticket kiosks, and buses.  Finally a nice park employee explained that we could park in the lot, post our park pass in the car window, take a free bus to Bar Harbor.  How were we suppose to know about that service? Maybe we will try the bus next time!

Next on our agenda was to locate the Pennobscot Narrows Bridge and Fort Knox State Historic Site in Prospect, ME.  

We drove across the bridge to the historic site.  We paid the small entry fee of $11 to tour both the bridge observatory and the Fort.  We were instructed to do the observatory first  The observatory was located 420 feet in the air at the top of one of the pylons. We rode Maine’s fastest elevator to the top.  The 360-degree panoramic views were breathtaking.  We could see the river, the bay, and the surrounding Maine countryside.  Awesome!

A couple of fun facts about the bridge;  (1) it is one of only four bridge observatories in the world.  The other three are in China, Thailand and Slovakia.  (2) the observatory is 42 stories tall which makes it the highest bridge observatory in the world. 

Returning to ground level. we walked to the Fort Knox Historic Site. It is oneof the best-preserved military fortifications on the New England seacoast.  The fort garrisoned its first troops from 1863 to 1866. These troops were mostly volunteers undergoing training before being sent to their active posts. Troops were also briefly stationed at the fort during the Spanish-American war in 1898, but never saw military action.  What amazing architecture and history!

Hopefully, tomorrow will be another gorgeous day!