Kramer's Big Adventure: October 2023

Maine and Massachusetts and Rhode Island

We arrived at Acadia National Park on October 3 and spent a week camping at Blackwoods Campground within the park. It is a very nice campground, but had no hookups. Since we had lots of trees around, fog, clouds, and rain, our poor solar panel had a hard time keeping our battery charged so we had to limit using power at night to make sure we enough in the morning.

This turned out to be prime “leaf-peeper” time and the park was very crowded making it difficult to find parking at trailheads but we did and saw lots of neat things. We drove to the top of Mt. Cadillac - the highest point on the Atlantic Coast at 1530 feet. To ease congestion, you have to make a reservation to go up the road to the mountain so we picked what was supposed to be a sunny day - when we got to the top, the view was completely socked in. We did take a nice .5 mile nature trail. It was very rocky up there with only low growing shrubs.

Another day, we took a 2 and 3/4 hour nature boat tour from Northeast Harbor. It was very foggy most of the time, but the very good naturalist pointed out 2 species of seals to us and 7 species of seabirds. We stopped for about 45 minutes at Little Cranberry Island. This was a charming island with about 70 year round residents. The main employment on the island is lobstering. The naturalist also pointed out Bear Island Lighthouse and explained how the lobstering business works. It was a very enjoyable cruise, but with all the fog, I was glad that the captain had GPS!

Little Cranberry Island

Bear Island Lighthouse

We did a bit of hiking also. One of our favorite hikes was around Jordan Pond. A third of the hike was a nice level trail, a third of it involved a lot of climbing over rocks and the final third was on a boardwalk. It was a very nice walk, but the visibility only extended about 6 feet out into the pond. We took a nice walk at Little Long Pond Natural Area and also took nice walks at the parks nature center, on Sand Beach and along the Bar Harbor Shore Path.

Jordan Pond Path

Bar Harbor Shore Path

Jordan Pond boardwalk

One afternoon we rode our bikes on the park Carriage Roads. It has lovely woods and very beautiful bridges.

Old carriage house

We also drove over to the Western side of the park. We visited the Carrol Homestead on which 4 generations of the Carroll family did subsistence farming until 1917 and it was quite the difficult life. We also saw the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. We got back to our campsite about 2pm and it started raining shortly after that and rained all night. We got 3.5 inches of rain, but it also changed our weather and our last 2 days at Acadia were sunny and bright.

The park loop road was also very beautiful especially along the rugged coastline. The park has a very nice system of free buses which take folks all over the park in an effort to ease congestion. We had a very nice time at Acadia.

The next 2 nights we spent at Harvest Host sites. The first night was at Pepper Hill Horse Stables in South Thomaston, Maine on the St George Peninsula. The horses were beautiful and enjoyed the apples the farm left for us to give them. The host was also very friendly. We drove around the peninsula and saw 2 more lighthouses : Owl Head Lighthouse and Marshall Point Lighthouse.

Marshall Point Lighthouse

Owl Head Lighthouse

The second Harvest Host was in Windham, NH at Snow Pond Farm. This farm had 23 alpacas, lots of chickens and roosters. The host wasn’t very talkative and the alpacas were not very friendly, but the cats were nice.

Our next stop was four nights in Eastham, Massachusetts about half way down Cape Cod. We stayed at a nice campground right on the Cape Cod Rail Trail and we rode our bikes on it two different times. We also took a bike trail at Cape Cod National Seashore that went from the Visitors Center to the beach.

We visited several different lighthouses while we were on the Cape : Nauset Light, the Three Sisters Lights, Highland Light, Race Point Light, Woods End Light, Long Point Light and Chatham Light. Because of erosion of the Atlantic coastline here, most of these lights have had to be moved inland quite a long ways. Even the Marconi Radio Station where the first wireless telegraphs were sent across the ocean from the U.S to Great Britain fell into the Atlantic in a big storm.

Highland Light

Race Point Light

Two of the Three Sisters Lights

Nauset Light

Chatham Light

We drove down to Provincetown and took in the sights along the way including the Old Harbor Life Saving Station and a hike the White Cedar swamp Trail. Provincetown itself, although quite charming was a total zoo and we got out of there as quick as we could.

We also took nice hikes at the Fort Hill area of the the National Seashore and at the the Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

We left Cape Cod on October 16 and moved a little bit west to Fishermen’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett, Rhode Island. After setting up camp, we drove around to see the area and saw the Gateway Arch (all that remains of an old casino), the Point Judith Lighthouse, and the nearby fishing town of Galilee.

On Tuesday, the 17th, we drove about 50 minutes to the west and spent the day visiting Mystic Seaport and Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. It has lots of old sailing vessels, which have been restored and a very large shipyard in which they rebuild old ships. We saw the Schooner L.A.Dunton and could see how they are rebuilding it, which will probably be a 7 year job. They also have a restored seaport village featuring all the shops and industries that would be in such a village such as a shipwright shop, a Cooper shop, a rope making factory and much more. Many of them had skilled craftsmen who explained what was happening in the shops. There were also museum exhibits which explained the whaling industry and another exhibit which had several ships figureheads. It was a very nice day.

restored seaport village

Whaling Ship Charles Morgan

Schooner L.A.Dunton Rebuilding Progress

Mystic Shipyard

Schooner L.A.Dunton they are rebuilding

Coopers Shop

The last day here we went to Newport, Rhode Island, about 30 minutes to the east and toured 3 of the historic mansions. We toured The Breakers, The Marble House and the Elms. We had audio tours in each of them which helped explain what we were seeing and things about the families who lived in them. The first two “summer cottages” were owned by different Vanderbilts and the third was owned by a coal magnate Edward Berwind. These huge homes were beyond opulent especially when you think that were lived in for only 6 -8 weeks during the summer. It was very interesting. I thought that one of the funniest things was how one of the homes covered all the toilets to make them look like wicker chairs! That must have been quite the place to be in the summer if you were super wealthy.