Schoodic Peninsula
30 May 2018
When the tide is out, and when it's coming in but hasn't yet hit the seawall, the bay outside the hotel window is quiet, save for the low, rumbling echo of an occasional motorboat. Right now the water is just reaching the edge of the narrow, rocky beach, and we can hear the first little waves.
I'm on the deck again, drinking coffee and trying to calm myself down. I'm strangely nervous about the bike ride I have planned today. It's the same route I've done twice before, along Park Loop Road and up Cadillac Mountain. I've chosen today because there's almost no wind, it's cool but not chilly, and the sun is out. I'm not even sure what I'm afraid of, except perhaps my transient fear of heights, which might be a problem in all of two places, if I let it. Don't look over the edge, stare at the road, and pedal. Sheesh.
Yesterday morning we sat on the deck and did nothing.
Eventually we got out and headed to a winery. Bar Harbor Cellars gets most of its grapes from Europe, brought to them as juice in cooled containers by ship. There's a small plot of scraggly grape vines in the front of the property. It's not enough yet to produce much.
I wanted to see the Schoodic Peninsula, which is part of Acadia National Park. It's due east of Mount Desert Island, six miles in a straight line. Unfortunately the route from Bar Harbor to Schoodic is 50 miles by car. I almost didn't do it; the drive would take an hour from where we were.
The first turnout wasn't properly in the park. I stopped for pictures, crunching out on the damp stones in my sneakers.
The tide was still going out.
Jack waited at the top of the overpass. I told him he looked like one of those tombs we've seen in English churches, the ones where a sculpture of a prone notable is carved into the top of the bier in which said notable is entombed.
"Ready when you are," I said.
"Not done yet," he replied.
Whenever there was a turnout that would allow me to hop out onto the rocks, we'd stop and I'd hop.
Then we came upon the arcing jetty of stones. "I gotta go play on that!" I said, and we parked. There was a van in the turnout closest to the stones. On the back windows were posters advertising a Polish festival in Cranbury. Small world.
I eventually caught up with the guy from the van. He was from Old Bridge. He was waiting for the tide to go out so that he could try to get to the other side of the rushing stream of water we were standing next to.
I crunched along to the narrowest point. "It's deep up there," I reported back.
That's Cadillac Mountain in the background. (I didn't know that at the time; I was hella disoriented, not having looked at a map to figure out where we might be.)
The landscape had an apocalyptic air about it. I was reminded of a 1969 art film called The Bed Sitting Room, in which people become furniture; you really don't need to see it.
Among the rocks were a few dozen brave plants. This one was late to the sprouting game.
Ah, hikers and their cairns.
We moved on, to the edge of the peninsula.
The tide had turned. The coast was ripe for rock-splashing.
I was sitting high up above a crevice, hoping for some dramatic wave action, when I was hit with a wave of vertigo instead. I never used to have this problem. It appeared around the same time that my hearing loss did, which can just as easily be coincidence as connected.
When the wobbliness passed I carefully stood up and moved on to other rocks.
I used the 40x zoom to get close to a particularly good crashing spot:
Higher up a pool of stagnant water reflected the sky.
On the drive home I pulled into Trenton Bridge Lobster , where yet another of the Bar Harbor cameras resides. I had to admit defeat on this one. Not only could I not reproduce the picture; I couldn't find the camera. Next to the lobster shack is a house where the camera is probably mounted. Without trespassing I wouldn't be able to find it. I took a screen grab later; the camera had shut off earlier anyway.
The sun was going down by the time we got back to the hotel.
Hi, Peggy!
A kayaker paddled in the Margaret Todd's wake:
Grudgingly, Jack agreed to take a very long way around into town for dinner. We walked down to the front of the hotel.
And then I headed for the sand bar, or what was left of it.
One minute later even that was under water:
Two minutes later:
I zoomed in on the tip of Bar Island.
Bar Harbor Cam and I were taking pictures at the same time.
We ate outside on a deck with close quarters. It was after 9:30 when we were ready to leave. A group of Millenials at the table next to us were talking a little loudly.
"If you had a blog what would you call it?"
"Sex and Drugs and Lobster Roll."
Jack chuckled. "That was good."
As we stood up I said to them, apologetically, that we'd overheard them, and, "That was awesome." They all laughed.
"It would be the name of my cooking blog," one of the women said.
Her friend thought a moment. "But then everything you make would have to include lobster."
“Nah,” I said. “Everything would have to include drugs.”
If you're going to barge in on someone else's conversation, best bring your A game.
We stopped for ice cream again and then I sat on the deck in the moonlight to upload the day's pictures. I don't have a tripod, so this edited-to-death photo will have to suffice:
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