Our trip to Acadia National Park, Maine

September is traditionally a slow time here at the Joseph Smith Memorial so Elder McKinnon arranged for us to have two preparation days together so we could make a trip to Maine to see Acadia National Park. The distance from our home in Vermont to the park in Maine is about 350 miles which is about the same distance that we travel from our home in Erda to Rebecca's home in Star Valley, Wyoming. We generally get to Rebecca's home in about four or four and a half hours. It took us eight hours to get to Acadia!! Traveling in New England is nothing like traveling in the west. Vermont has two freeways, New Hampshire and Maine each have one, they all go north and south no large roads go east and west. Sister Sanford who is from Maine told me that the people who built the roads just let a cow go and then they built the roads behind her. We had a great time on the trip over. The scenery is gorgeous and will continue to get better and better as the foliage changes more.

When we finally arrived at Mount Desert Island we stayed in a darling Bed & Breakfast in Salsbury Cove called the Coach Stop Inn. Since we had been riding for a long time the first thing we did after getting settled into our room was to hike to the shoreline about a mile and a half away. The tide was out and the shore was covered with mussels, clam shells, barnacles, and snails it was a small but pretty cove.

We ate that evening at the Chart House restaurant which sits by the water, we had a table facing the bay. I had a lobster and Elder Vorwaller had a pasta dish with a variety of seafood on it, lobster, crab, scallops, etc.. We watched the sun set and the moon rise over the bay.

Next morning we enjoyed a three course breakfast in the dining room of our B&B. The first course was Maine blueberry fritters served with Maine maple syrup this was followed by a Pineapple Orange smoothee served in champagne glasses. Our final course was eggs Napoleon which was a fresh baked croissant topped with an omelet style egg folded in quarters with fresh mozzarella and ham in the folds and topped with more fresh mozzarella and freshly made salsa. It was wonderful. After breakfast we checked out and spent the day touring and exploring one of the most breathtakingly beautiful National Parks we have ever visited, and we have visited quite a few. The waves pounding against solid granite boulders is an over-powering sight. The island is covered with conifers.The trees on Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the eastern sea coast, are stunted and we guessed that the reason for that is two fold, first the storms that blow across this point must be severe and secondly Cadillac Mountain is a huge pile of pink granite sprinkled with a very thin layer of soil which has blown off on the highest peaks. The drive around the shoreline was so amazing and the whole experience was very enlivening. We were so glad we got to visit a lighthouse during our brief stay.

We had a wonderful, wonderful experience.