Strange Trip Part Thirteen: Shore Path and Sand Bar

Shore Path, Bar Harbor, Maine

16 September 2020

This happened to me last year too. And the year before that. It's hard to explain. I'm walking along the Shore Path and I feel myself dissociating. Sane people don't dissociate. 

Through a convoluted turn of events, this place has become a real-life symbol of me escaping from all of my stressors back home. Nobody can reach me here. When I'm here, nobody can take here away from me. But they might try. I have to absorb all of it, every minute, be here for all of it, see all of it, do all of the things, take hundreds and hundreds of pictures, because I might never get back here again.

When life gets rough at home, I dream that I'm here. Sometimes I'm walking down Main Street towards the harbor because, somehow, I've been here for three days and I haven't seen the water yet and I'm leaving tomorrow. Sometimes I'm at the water line, at the edge of the hotel, and the tide is lapping at my feet. Sometimes I realize I haven't been up the mountain yet and I need to go into the park. It's always crowded. Jack is there, and sometimes some of the Slugs are too. 

This year is the first time I've dreamed about Bar Harbor while I'm actually in Bar Harbor. It was the sunset dream. Jack is stressed out and the trip is not helping him. We're in a pandemic, in a town that has seen zero cases, but we're walking around in masks, fearful of dining indoors, trying to stay away from all other human beings because we don't know where they've been or if they wear red hats. My email tells me I've tested negative again. There are too many people boarding the Margaret Todd.

It's late afternoon, still windy. I realized I haven't walked the full length of the Shore Path and I need to do that. I'm here, but I'm floating above myself, dreaming and not dreaming.

When I returned from the carriage roads I noticed that the wind had churned the water green.

It tilts the small boats.

I'd stood on the balcony and stalked the lighthouse. There were whitecaps on the bay.

Now I'm at Agamont Park, above the northern end of the Shore Path, at the top of the hill on Main Street, where, in my dreams, I can see the water but can't get to it.

I start down the hill to the harbor parking lot. I want to walk along the shore. It's low tide. There's room.

I'm under the Margaret Todd ticket office. The ramp is still gone.

A smidgen of fog is setting in.

I see you, Egg Rock lighthouse.

The path ends just north of the Burnt Porcupine Island breakwater. Here I can hold my camera up, through chain-link fence that keeps us from private property, and get a good look at the porcupine's snout.

This is the end of the path, looking north towards town. I'm the only one here.

Margaret and Bailey Louise rest in the bay.

Cormorants.

Gulls and cormorants.

Balance Rock and the Bar Harbor Inn:

Earlier today this tugboat-looking yacht arrived. A family of five piled into a motorboat and made their way towards the harbor.

The dissociation dissipates as I approach our hotel room. 

I'm not finished though. There's the sandbar, again, and sunset, again. The tide and the clouds are coming in. I can't see the sun. The sky, though, is worth sticking around for.

 

This might be more forest fire haze.

I have the sand bar to myself.

On my way back to the hotel I walk along the pier.

Two more luxury yachts are docked in the harbor.

Tonight we're going to try Indian takeout. The reviews aren't great, but we like it when the naan is gummy.

If I'm going to do all the things there's one more thing left to do. I have to see the sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain. Tomorrow is our last full day here.