A Little Fog and a Lotta Lobster (Sunday, August 5)

Yesterday we spent the day driving from Waltham, Mass. to Bar Harbor, Maine. We stopped briefly outside Orchard House in Concord, Mass, the home of Louisa May Alcott. We got there around 9:25. The house museum opens at 10, and the employees were just arriving. I’ve never seen museum employees move so fast—they high-tailed it form their cars to the door, slammed it shut and locked it from the inside. I was just beginning to take it personally when I realized that another car had just shown up, and that they must have early birds all the time. Natalie and I prowled around the outside for a few minutes, peeking in the windows, and then we hopped back in the car to hit the road.

After a stop in Belfast, Maine, for lunch in a picturesque little town. Kept driving towards  Bar Harbor, and on our way we saw a familiar van heading a different direction—Kurt and Katy, who we were meeting in Bar Harbor were barreling down the wrong highway searching for a grocery story they’d heard about. Just behind them, patiently waiting for them to find the correct way, was their friend Dave, who is traveling with them. We all hit the grocery store and checked into the campground for the night.

This morning we eventually got started and drove to Acadia National Park. We’d been getting glimpses of the coastline along the way, all pointing toward the Maine we could see on maps—fingers of rock and sand jutting out in all directions, surrounded by nearby islands. Acadia is perfect example.

First up was a hike up the Bee Hive. This steep hike involves many “ladders” of iron rungs set into rock. We started up with the entire group—5 adults and 8 kids. When we’d gone up the first several sets of rungs, the three youngest kids lost their nerve and I headed back down the trail with them. It took a bit of time to get them back to the start, because along with the nerve to go uphill, one had also lost the nerve to go downhill. But she cheerfully made her way, scooting on her butt down any larger rock, and we took a break out on Sand Beach while we waited.

This is when it is useful to know what you are getting into. Turns out we’d gone up and down one of the scariest portions of the trail, and the hikers who continued on didn’t even have to go back down that way! They had an easy walk down to the parking lot. Never mind, because either way we had a gorgeous view of inland water, the ocean beach below, and the deep green in between. The view was not endless however, as things were pretty shrouded in fog.

It was such a good hike that most of us were up for a second one, so we headed out on the Great Head Trail up to the cliffs that overlook the ocean. Along the way the path passes a rocky beach where we climbed down to the water, walked out on the rocks where the tide was just beginning to go out, and found a couple of seastars, crabs, and a whole lotta snails. Lovely.

Continuing on, we eventually came to the cliffs, rocky cliffs stretching out to the water. It was exactly as I had pictured Maine. We felt sort of at one with the spirit of Gary Schmidt as we explored territory like that he described so beautifully in “Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.” Several of us briefly considered a pilgrimage to Malaga Island to see the actual setting of the novel, but it didn’t seem prudent to drive several hours away from the National Park we’d driven so far to see! And with the fog, it was also pretty easy to imagine we were Jane Eyre or Heathcliff and Katherine making our way through the misty moors. Sigh.

Okay, back to reality. We were getting close to the end of the trail, when we came to a signpost that indicated we could go one way to get back to Sand Beach, and another way to Great Head parking lot. Everything was trailblazed with blue painted trailmarkers, and we remarked on how easy it would be to go the wrong way. Of course, at this point all but 2 of the 8 kids with us were far ahead of us. And you guessed it, when we got back to the beach, those other 6 were nowhere to be seen. Having suspected that they might have gone the wrong way, 2 dads had already headed down the wrong way path, and they caught up with the kids fairly quickly. We were all pretty relieved to have them back! And now they might just pay a bit more attention to where the old folks are.

By now we were tired, and hungry, and ready for that fresh Maine lobster dinner. Well, okay, some of us were ready for lobster. Others, like me for example, were wondering what exactly was for sale at a “lobster pound” other than lobster—much like my experience at a Dorr County fish boil. Four adults and one kid ordered their lobsters. The rest of us had an assortment of burgers (quite good, actually) and chicken fingers.

They lobster warriors strapped on their bibs, acquainted themselves with their dinner weaponry, and attempted to wrest meat from the claws and tail. Some were gung ho; others a bit hesitant, especially when the torso opened up. Jonathan went running away from his mother’s lobster yelling “Guys, guys, wanna see the lobster’s guts??!” Mm. How could I turn that all down? But I did. Let the record show that I did ingest a bite of lobster. However, Brian was impatient for me to take it so he could keep eating, and I still had a French fry in my mouth, so I have absolutely no idea what it tasted like. It’s hard to imagine hating anything so soaked in melted butter, though.

Back to camp for a fire. Teens told scary stories in the screen room at one campsite, younger ones got into their sleeping bags, and adults stole a few quiet minutes by the fire.