flight from New York City to Portland, Maine. The flight was smooth
and I hit Maine around noon. I picked up my rental car with Hertz and
the plan was to take the scenic route along the Maine Coast up to
Acadia National Park, my home for the next couple of days. The reason
for driving along the scenic route was to hopefully see and photograph
the lighthouses that dot the Maine Coast.
The people at the rental car desk were split on whether the scenic
route was a good idea; saying it was prettier but would take
substantially longer to get to Acadia. In addition, the lighthouses
are not actually along the scenic route and in most cases would
require a 10-20 minute drive off the main road to reach them.
Undeterred, I left Portland and took the scenic route along the Maine
coast toward Acadia National Park. The drive was beautiful and took
me through many small Maine towns but didn't see any lighthouses. I
knew the lighthouses were 10-20 minutes off the main road but
unfortunately there were ZERO signs indicating when to turn off the
main road to find them. This was frustrating but decided to research
the specific locations of a few lighthouses and stop on the way back
on Wednesday.
That afternoon, was getting hungry for lunch and decided to pull up
Yelp on my phone for a recommendation. The best reviewed place in the
area was "Young's Lobster Pound" and decided to work my way there. I didn't know
exactly what a 'Lobster Pound" was but knew I liked the 'lobster' part
of it!
I learned that a Lobster Pound, which are all over Maine, are
restaurants where live lobster is sold by the pound and cooked while
you wait. The lobster pound I had lunch at was actually on the coast
and saw a fisherman pull up to the dock who sold his catch to the
restaurant; so the food is VERY fresh. In addition, since Lobster is
so plentiful in Maine it much cheaper than I am used to in Texas. For
$20.00 I had a 2 lbs whole lobster, a dozen clams, chips, a drink.
As expected the lobster was delicious and the view as well of the
Maine Coast and fall colors was fantastic. Below are a few pictures
of the view at the restaurant.
After lunch, I continued my drive to Acadia and hit the national park
about 5 PM which should have been plenty of time to scope out the park
before the sun went down about 7 PM. Unfortunately, the visitor
center closed at 4:30 and I was without a map or any sense of where to
head in Acadia. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal since most
National Parks are pretty self contained and have well labeled streets
to various hikes / viewpoints.
However, Acadia National Park is on a series of islands and mixed in
with various towns which is really strange. After leaving the visitor
center I headed down the main park loop road which was great but after
about the park ended and was in the town of Bar Harbor. Very
strange...
Despite not knowing where anything was in Acadia I managed to stumble
onto some decent photographic opportunities and some of the better
shots are below.
After the light was gone, I drove back to Trenton, Maine just outside
the park and crashed in my motel for the night. I had a very early
morning planned with shooting the sunrise at Cadillac Mountain.
Thanks for reading my blog and as always any questions /comments
please post below or email me at chris@pricelessperspectives.
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