Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park
29 May 2019
We'd planned to walk in the morning, but we awoke to fog and mist. We hang out in the hotel room until the light over the harbor gets brighter. We have lunch at the Independent, a cafe run by an up-front progressive. For the past three years the place has plastered with anti-LePage and anti-Trump propaganda, which has been perfectly fine with us. Two years running we've struck up conversations with the owner. Last year he was hosting progressive gubernatorial candidates here in the evening and invited us to stop by. Not being residents of Maine, we didn't. LePage lost, Maine turned blue, and now all of the political decorations are gone, save for a newspaper clipping of the owner being escorted out of a Trump rally. That gest us talking to him again. He remembers us from last year, which, considering what we look like, isn't much of a task.
The map of Acadia is gone too, replaced by photographic prints from the gallery next door.
Bass Harbor Head lighthouse has the Maine landscape I was going for when I committed my glass atrocity.
The Bass Harbor Head lighthouse trail is closed right now. In a small tote bag, enclosed in bubble wrap, is Maine #3. I'm taking it onto the Ocean Path in search of a matching coastline.
Where the trail meets the road, a tiny bird is hopping among the branches of a tiny shrub. There are already two people looking at it when I get there. The bird seems undisturbed. I get a few shots before it flits away. I have no idea what I'm looking at. (With no help from the interwebs and good sleuthing from friends in the know, I learn later that this is a warbler called the Northern Parula.)
Once in a while we still get misted on. The light is even, which is good for photos, but the reds and greens of the coastline are drab today.
Every so often, when I see a stretch of coast that Maine #3 might look like, I unwrap the glass and pose it. I know this is stupid. It's also very me. This piece nearly wound up being tossed into the color scrap bucket. But, like a stray dog with mange and three legs, it's slowly winning me over. (I mean, really, after two semesters I can't pull a straight line? I blame the aventurine. It's soupy compared to the light blue over it.)
Anyway, this isn't quite the right coastline.
Sorta. The trees are bent.
Parts of the path veer away from the ocean and into the woods. The flat, crushed gravel gives way to mud, stones, and puddles.
There are a few short side trails that lead to ocean views.
Aha!
The trail is sometimes lined with little fir trees. The pollen cones are out. While most of them are yellowish-brown, some cones are fuchsia, and some are in between, sometimes all on the same tree. Pollen cones and (eventual) seed cones?
It's too bad today is so dreary, and it's worse that my 40x zoom isn't working at all. Half the pictures I want to take I can't. I hadn't realized until this trip how much I rely on it. Maybe too much. Maybe that's why the motor quit.
The wildlife here must be used to people. This gull appears to be in deep conversation with this hiker.
The trail curves away from the shore again.
And back. I climb out onto a rock outcrop, where a gull hangs out, undisturbed by all of us tourists.
Jack waits by the trail, deep into his phone, not paying any attention to the coastal drama.
Maine #3 poses for another shot.
We're starting to get fog. I guess I'm not going to bother driving up Cadillac Mountain.
More pollen cones:
These trees will grow anywhere they can.
The Ocean Path ends at Otter Cove. Between the fog and my lack of zoom, I can't get a good shot of the causeway at the other end.
Okay, one last bit of wonky glass tomfoolery.
Rather than retrace our steps through mud and puddles, Jack suggests we walk back on the road. We pass a lot of trees with Old Man's Beard lichen hanging from the branches.
Although I've driven and biked this road numerous times, it's one way. I've never seen it from this direction.
When a tour bus rounds the corner, we jump back down onto the trail, where we watch someone passing rope down to a fellow rock climber. "Oh, hell, no," I say out loud.
Back on the road for a bit, I cross to get a picture of reindeer lichen.
A fern grows between the granite boulders used to line the road.
At least I can still take close-ups with this camera. This is more reindeer lichen.
We get back to Thunder Hole. For the first time in the four years I've been here, the path is open all the way to the bottom. Jack stays at the top while I venture down.
So this is the hole that makes all the noise.
I go back up the stairs and off to the right to find the tree I always take pictures of and from. In this light it's not nearly as breathtaking. Oh well.
Still, though, give me this view any day of the week.
We drive around Park Loop Road to Jordan Pond. The Bar Harbor Cam trained on the pond and the mountains isn't even on the web site anymore. When last I saw it, the mountains were covered in snow. The camera is still on the side of Jordan Pond House, though.
We walk down to the pond.
A red squirrel is on the side of the path. It doesn't run away when I approach. "Scuse me," I say, as I walk around.
I kneel down by the water to take pictures.
The squirrel, now perched on a rock next to me, starts chirping at me.
"What?" I ask.
"Chirpchirpchirp."
"Whaaaat?"
"Chirpchirpchirp!"
"What what what?"
"Chirpchirpchirp!"
I turn forward again to take some more pictures.
"He's still looking at you," Jack says.
I turn sideways again. "Hi!"
These critters must be used to handouts. I got nothin'.
Now that we've been driving Park Loop Road I really want to take my bike here again. The thing is, I'm pretty sure I don't want to climb Cadillac Mountain again. I'm not sure I've trained enough for the three-mile ascent, and the descent is no fun at all. I've biked up it three times already. If I go again it's going to become a thing I have to do every time I'm here, and I don't need that kind of pressure. What am I trying to prove? And to whom am I trying to prove it? Besides, I'm not going up if it's foggy or windy, and I forgot to pack my tail light.
We go into the gift shop because we've been amusing ourselves with all of the moose paraphernalia on the island. I've been buying moose socks of every description. There are plenty of cheap moose keychains as well. If they sparkle or have moving parts I buy them. Jack likes to take pictures of all of the tchotchkes and dribble them onto his Facebook every day or so.
I see a cheap tail light for sale and pull it from the rack. That's one excuse gone.
Along a wall are 1920s-style prints advertising Acadia National Park. One has a fellow on a 1970s-style road bike, wearing loafers and a golf cap, riding along a paved park road. I look at it, put it back, walk on, and then go back for another look. What the hell. I've biked the park enough times to have earned this. But I should go up the mountain again if I buy this.
Near the register is a wall of keychains, and among them a cheesy moose in three moving parts, with "Acadia National Park" stamped on the back of the rearmost part. I pull that down too. It'll go on Miss Piggy's front pack. Now I have to climb the mountain.
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