Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Acadia National Park, Day 1

The Shore at Bar Harbor
Monday, July 25, 2016, Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park, ME 30.8 Miles, 604.8 Miles for the Trip

The reason we stayed at Lamoine State Park (other than I like the park) is that it is close to Acadia. Our plan was to get an early start, arriving during the morning so we could be sure of getting campsites together. It didn't quite work.

National Parks all have their way of dealing with sites. Some take reservations, some don't. For those that don't, finding any site can be interesting. I've had people come up to me at 7:00AM asking if I'm leaving & when. The trading that goes on would make Wall Street look tame.

For those that take reservations, some tell you at the time you make your reservations what site you will be in. At Arcadia, they take reservations, but you don't find out where you will be until you get there. As I said (well, typed) earlier, we arrived at 11:00AM thinking that would provide time for those leaving to pack up but be early enough to find our site if we had to do it on our own. The problem? While they do assign sites at the entrance station, they don't start doing it until 12:00. So, we hung around trying to stay out of traffic patterns until noon, at which time we had to drive all the way out of the park to come back & get in line. The did assign us two sites next door to each other since both reservations were under my name. They also require you to hang your National Park Pass on the mirror post - only one other park I've been to requires that.

I'm in site 32, a relatively easy back in site, Don is in site 33, a really tough back in site (did I tell you he really hates backing up?) In any case he got the Scamp in place. Pete & Tina are in site 37, a long walk up the road. The bathrooms are fairly close by, although the info on the park stated there were showers - not in our bathroom. There is a hand pump between Don & Pete's sites, but after 20 or so pumps, nothing came out. There is water in the bathrooms.  We did find pay showers just outside the campground entrance.

My site is one of the few in the park that has open sun. Great for the solar panels, however there is no Verizon or AT&T service, even with the outside antenna & amplifier. At least I can run the fan full speed without worrying about dragging down the batteries.

We are here for 3 days, so we can relax rather than packing up each morning.

Not sure when I'll post this as I said earlier, there is no cell service in the campground. I did find one WiFi network, but it was password protected, and I suspect they don't have a newtork connection either. If we go out shopping later, I'll haul the laptop & Jetpack along.

It is Tuesday, and I finally have a chance to post.  I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow to post today's journey.  Confusing?  Oh well...

Well, we went out, but I didn't take the laptop so the page will have to wait until tomorrow. We hit the Blowhole at the wrong time - probably better called wimper hole. The rest of the photos are at today's (well, yesterday's) LakeshoreImages page.

Until next time -

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