Shore Path, Bar Harbor, ME
13 June 2023
There was no sunrise to wake up to. Overnight we had rain, and now the island was under a heavy blanket of clouds.
After breakfast I made coffee in the hotel room and used my geeky map mug.
There would be just enough time for a short ride before the chance of rain went way up. The air was in the mid-40s and damp. It was windy. I decided I'd be better off on the carriage roads. I mapped a 13-mile route that would go southwest from Eagle Lake to Aunt Betty Pond, then catch the north half of the hilly Around Mountain road before turning north up the east side of Eagle Lake.
My biking backpack contains all my peripheral gear. I dug in and wore a cap, arm warmers, a jacket over my short-sleeve jersey, leggings over my shorts, and long-fingered gloves.
I drove to the Eagle Lake carriage road entrance. The parking lot was half full.
Last night's rain had stopped in time for the gravel not to be wet. I headed towards Aunt Betty Pond, which starts with a 1-mile warmup climb.
When I stopped for pictures at the pond, I was hot enough to take off my hat.
Stupid idea. It didn't take long for my toes to get cold after that. It hadn't occurred to me to slide in some toe warmers, let alone pack booties. It was June!
I don't know my Acadia mountains. There was a 2-mile climb somewhere between Parkman and Sargent Mountains. That helped with the toe situation.
The wind was picking up.
Farther along there was another good view.
I did see other riders. They were all coming towards me. What did they know that I didn't?
Every now and then I'd feel a drop of rain. I didn't stop again, not even to put my hat back on, until I reached the top of Eagle Lake, at which point I was several hundred yards away from my car.
Packing Janice away, I got a good look at her chain. I'd figured it would be full of carriage road dust, but it wasn't. It still shined like the new chain it was. Last night's rain had tamped down the dust.
I took a few pictures of a little pond next to the parking lot.
There was a beaver dam tucked back there.
During the drive back to town, a drizzle began.
We went back to Bar Harbor Beerworks for lunch, eating indoors there for the first time. On and off there was mist and rain.
I took a screenshot of the weather. In all the times we'd been up here, this was the clammiest we'd experienced.
I had my arm warmers on under a thin, wool cardigan, under a windbreaker. These layers were not cutting it. I found a cheap sweatshirt with a moose on it in one of the less glitzy tourist shops. When I was packing, I'd decided against bringing a sweatshirt. Dumb. It really was the perfect layer.
We walked up to Village Green to see what was going on in the two-day Indian Market sponsored by the Abbe Museum. Large tents were spread out all over the green. Inside were artists, basketmakers, jewelers, and musicians, all from one of the Wabanaki tribes. Half the tent spaces were empty.
I got talking to a Maliseet beadwork artist from Canada and ended up buying a pair of earrings from her.
A painter had a small mural in her booth, a landscape with people and a banner that said something about the importance of language. Surrounding the mural were small paintings of animals, with their Passamaquoddy names underneath. I walked in as she was pronouncing "kocokikihlahsis," the word for chickadee. (cuch-o-kee-kee-la-sis). Under a moose was "mus," because English stole the Wabanaki word. Unfortunately, neither the chickadee nor the moose were for sale, as the whole thing was part of the language mural. (This Passamaquoddy-Maliseet online portal is the coolest thing. Mount Desert Island is "Pesamkuk." Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, is "Unamakik." We stole their land. The least we can do is call it by its proper name.)
Frenchman Bay was green, greener than my camera made it look.
I got restless sitting in the hotel room, so I took a walk on Shore Path. The tide was out. I climbed down to Balance Rock, a piece of litter a glacier left behind.
The murky sky made tide pool colors pop.
The bay was choppy.
The wind blew the grass sideways along the path.
I pretty much had the place to myself.
The rock layer colors popped too.
I wandered toward the pier, passing the hotel's endless pool on my left. The wind was blowing the water sideways.
To my right, the shrubs on the path were bending every which way while the wind made whitecaps on the water.
The leaning tree hadn't come down yet, despite the wind.
I walked down Margaret Todd's dock and got a picture of her and three other harbor boats anchored in the water.
Clockwise from top: Margaret Todd, a boat labeled "pilot" in big letters on its side, a lobster boat, and Tubby, the harbor's maintenance boat.
There'd be no point in looking west tonight. The forecast was for clouds and rain for the rest of the week.
We had dinner at the Veranda, an over-the-top posh restaurant at the Balance Rock Inn. I sat there in my tourist sweatshirt. They served me anyway.
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