Our good idea--and bad idea--at Acadia National Park

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

August 15, 2022

We've enjoyed our stay among the tall pine trees of Mic-Mac Cove Campground, but it's time for us to leave this morning. It's a narrow road through those tall trees.

Just like when we came in, Catherine wanted to ride on top of the motor home to be sure we didn't get hung up on any too-low electrical lines. She rode with a broom handle that she used to prop up the low lines until we cleared them. Catherine is a one-woman operation here. She has been up since 5:00 a.m. working at the convenience store this morning, and she's still been working at the campground office every evening when we've returned from our wanderings. The camping year is short here in Maine, but she works very hard for those months. We think that Catherine rather enjoyed her rides on top of our motor home.

Our drive today took us on Highway 1 over the Penobscot River. The bridge is a cable-stayed bridge, and was built in 2006. What makes it unique is that the cable supports actually separate the opposing lanes of traffic. They are held up by two 420-foot towers. If you look closely at the tower closest to the camera, you can see windows at the top. That's because that bridge support tower is also the Penobscot Narrows Observatory. Visitors can ride the elevator up to the top of the tower for a 360-degree view.

Our 65-mile drive brought us to the Timberland Acres Campground, in Trenton, Maine, our home for the next 5 nights. We were staying at a full-hook-up campground for the first time in 14 days because we thought we were hosting guests this week. A medical emergency caused a change in those guests' plans, so now we'll be living in the lap of luxury all by ourselves. After getting settled in at Timberland Acres, we hurried in for our first look at Acadia National Park. We had a good idea to go into the park this evening to enjoy a less-crowded bike ride. As we drove toward the entrance at 5 p.m., we saw a steady line of visitors leaving the park. The evening is a great time to visit a busy national park, as we had no problems getting a spot in the small parking lot where many of the carriage bike trails start. We were all smiles when we crossed under our first bridge and started our bike ride tonight. We were pretty smug and happy with ourselves for planning this evening bike ride away from the crowds. What a good idea!

We had planned a six-mile bike ride that started just north of Eagle Lake. There are 45 miles of carriage roads in Acadia National Park, and we were looking forward to experiencing them for ourselves. The roads are 16 feet wide, so they can handle lots of bikers, as well as horse-drawn carriages. But no cars are allowed. This evening we had the road to ourselves.

These carriage roads were built by John Rockefeller Jr. to retain the natural hills and contours of the land. If you noticed the word "hills" in that description, you should know that Denisa isn't a good hilly biker. Yes, she did have to walk her bike up some of those inclines.

Starting this late in the day, the sun was lighting up the mountains around us. But our trail was in the shade.

The best part of the bike ride was crossing some of the 17 stone bridges. Each one is unique, and they span the streams and waterfalls along the way.

We came to the southern end of Eagle Lake, and we were having such a good ride! We decided to change our 6-mile loop plan and continued south to see Jordan Lake.

That allowed us to see more mountains that towered over us . . .

and more of the hand-made unique bridges that are a big part of these carriage roads.

In fact, we rode all the way to the far tip of Jordan Lake. We walked our bike to the south end of the lake for this view of the Bubbles--the two iconic mountains that are on the north end of Jordan Lake.

Jordan Lake is one of the most recognizably beautiful places in Acadia National Park, and we feel so blessed to be enjoying it all by ourselves this evening.

The only problem with all this beauty and the lack of crowds is that we had no idea where the bike trail went from here. We hadn't planned to ride this far, so we were just riding blind. Mark had his all-trails app running, but it didn't differentiate hiking trails from biking trails. We could see that there was a trail that went right beside Jordan Lake, so we made the decision to just use that trail. That was a bad idea!

It was relatively flat and it was heading the right direction . . . But we couldn't ride our bikes here. This is a hiking trail, so we hiked this 1.3-mile section while pushing our bikes.

The trail became rocky and steep when we got to the north end of Jordan Lake. From the trail app we knew that this trail would eventually lead us back to the bike trail. But it was going to be very slow going as we headed up and up this narrow and rocky trail pushing our bikes. That wrong turn earlier was a really bad idea!

This would be a tough trail to hike. Pushing a bike up some of these rocks was almost impossible. We were actually going up and around the South Bubble--one of those mountains we had admired at the end of Jordan Lake.

We had to go up and up until we got to the top of the trail, and then we would have to go down and down. At the very worst part of the trail Mark would push his bike over the biggest boulders. Then he would run back to carry Denisa's bike over the hardest spot. Denisa was having enough problems just hiking over these boulders without a bicycle! It was the longest one-mile bike/hike that Denisa can remember. Our legs were battered and bruised from our bike pedals and wheels hitting us as we drug our bikes over that hiking trail. This was a really, really bad idea! (Note: When Mark proofread this blog post, he argued that this wasn't really a bad idea--it was an adventure that we won't forget! But you notice that Denisa didn't change the title. She still thinks it was a bad idea--that we won't forget!) 

After that struggle, we finally connected to the carriage road where we were supposed to be riding our bikes. We were so glad to see that smooth flat surface! We are on the other side of Eagle Lake now, enjoying a beautiful sunset over the water. All of a sudden, all the stress and misfortune of that wrong turn was starting to melt away. We had wandered into God's wonders--even if we sometimes have bad ideas.

By the time we returned to the bridge at the beginning of our bike ride it was almost dark. We are no longer smug and happy with ourselves! We had a good idea to come to this popular park in the evening. The temperature was just right, and we had the carriage roads to ourselves. But it was a very bad idea to not follow our plan, and not take a map of the bike roads at Acadia National Park.