Acadia National Park has been on my list of destinations for many years but with as many destinations that I have on my bucket list, Putting together a trip with multiple new points while combining destinations to visit family can be a little challenging but quite fun.
For this trip, We drove up the coast, this time bypassing NYC heading straight into Boston. I wanted to bring Justin around Boston and show him some history. However, Covid was still an issue, so taking him to many of the sites was not to come to pass as they had started shutting back down with the numbers rising. This allowed us to visit family earlier and then head up to Maine earlier than expected.
The first place we stopped was Cape Elizabeth. This cape is and has been one of my favorites. It is so photographic, no matter what mood the ocean is in. After a beautiful sunrise, We headed straight up to Maine.
I’ve been to Maine several times and one thing I learned is that you never know what to expect when it comes to weather. The weather can turn from clear and beautiful to storming or foggy. The first time we visited, the dawn broke with clouds but the sunrise was quickly masked by clouds. I was still able to get some great, though moody pictures that first time but nothing compared to this second trip.
Acadia NP has many things to do and see. Hiking around Jordan Lake was one of my favorite. The picture to the left with the wooden planks and the foggy lake shows the path around Jordan. I also really enjoyed driving up Cadillac Mountain and then hiking all the way around. FYI: you do need to buy tickets to drive up and getting the sunrise tickets are extremely hard to accomplish. I unfortunately, didn’t get these tickets. They would have been awesome!Our itinerary for this second trip was to visit Cape Elizabeth for a couple hours, then head to Acadia National Park for 3 days followed by a drive across the North East to hit the Finger Lakes of NY and get to Watkins Glen NY. I ended up adding one more destination to this trip that I hadn’t originally planned on which was Gettysburg, PA. All of these destinations were extraordinary in their own beautiful ways.
As you can tell from this picture of Jordan Lake, Clouds roll in and fog rises within a matter of minutes. This one is showing where the sun was burning off the clouds. Another of my favorite locations were visiting Thunderhole. If you get the right time, after walking the Ocean Path, everytime the waves hit right, it creates a distictive sound and a splash.
Normally, I plan out everywhere we stay, whether it’s camping, AirBnb or hotels but for this one trip, I planned one of the over nights in the National park camp and left the other one open because the NP campgrounds was taken. That first night we had an awesome storm! Woke us right out of a sound asleep! The next night, we were fortunate enough to get a beautful spot in Mount Desert Campgrounds!
Watkin’s Glen State Park, NY State
Visiting Watkin’s Glen was been on my list to visit for many years. I had originally tried to plan going here on our trip to Niagra Falls in 2019 but something to note: the park is closed till May because of the great possibility of ice along the trail. But on this trip, we made the trip in a little more than 10 hours, of course stopping for bathroom and food while driving from Acadia to get to Watkin’s Glen State Park. This is a beautiful area of western NY around these “Finger Lakes” as they are called.
Walking down the many steps to get to the river bed barely prepares you for the beauty in this park. There’s something else to look at around every bend and around the stairs. Just make sure you bring a sweater, it can be pretty chilly around the waterfalls where the sun can not reach. For the last part of this trip, we started heading home, with one stop at Gettysburg, VA. That will be on a separate story as a matter of respect.
