Maine 2022 Part Five: Sunrise, Great Meadow Loop

 

Jesup Path, Acadia National Park

4 July 2022

1 June 2022

I've been in and out of the bathroom all night. When the dawn light comes through the window, I'm out of bed with my camera.

I've missed the earliest of it, the pinkest part. I'm here for the oranging.

There are a few moments when the pink-orange sky reflects on the water.

I hear the lobster boat coming.

Here comes another one.

There are clouds, pink stripes, overhead.

A third lobster boat approaches.

At sunrise, the clouds turn yellow-white.

Meanwhile, on the balcony, there are more spider webs. I know that Zygiella x-notata are noctournal, and as soon as it gets light, they jump off their webs to hide in the corners. But there's a pair of little yellow specks out here right now that aren't moving. My best guess is that these are juvenile Araneus diatematus, cross orb weavers, if the internet can be trusted.

I crawl back into bed and manage a few more hours of sleep.

I still feel off when I wake up. Jack says, "Your're sick with something," and even though I make coffee and we go down to breakfast, he tells me I shouldn't leave the hotel room until at least noon. I'm not going to argue with him. I'm still feeling floppy and heading for the bathroom every half hour.

I fill a water bottle and add an electrolyte tablet I usually use on bike rides. I make myself drink the whole thing, slowly.

This gives me time to upload some more photos and to take some pictures of a lobster boat hauling up traps near the Shore Path. From what I can see at this distance, he's throwing a lot of things back into the water. 

When I zoom in, I think I can see a few lobsters in his trap.

Eventually, my guts settle down. I want to go on a walk, on a path from town to the Great Meadow and, if we have time and energy, all the way to the Sieur de Monts nature trail.

I fill my backpack with water and the Spider Cam. We walk into town to get lunch at Cafe This Way, a little place off of a side street. They're half an hour away from closing; they're a breakfast and dinner place. We sit outside at a picnic bench under an umbrella. 

The trail guide I have, A Walk in the Park, was written by a trail runner who has catalogued all the offiical and disused trails in Acadia National Park. I've picked out a handful of easy walks, short and flat. I'm Not A Hiker, and Jack is less of a hiker than that. 

Somewhere on south of town is a trail called the Great Meadow Loop that's supposed to link Bar Harbor with Acadia. We walk through several blocks of residential neighborhoods, where the real people live among the vacation rentals, all inland, no views. Could I live here? Maybe. Could I afford it?

When we leave town, crossing a bridge over a stream, we start uphill. The entrance I'm looking for is o the left somewhere, but I can't find it. My phone's map can't find it either. We do see an entrance on the right, but that's going in the opposite direction from where I was hoping we could go. I walk up the road a little, looking for something on the left. Not finding it, I double back and we start on the path to the right instead. 

It's in the woods, and I stop for a few Cyclosa conica hanging from trailside shrubs. We're not deep into the woods, though. There's something up to our left, a cemetery maybe, and to the right we can still see the road. The path is pretty enough though.

Then we find ourselves dumped onto the street. The trail marker is ambiguous at best, telling us to go to the left, or to the right to get back into town on the road.

So we go left, looking for the next entrance to the trail. My phone's map says the trail is along the inside fence of the cemetery. We go in, tentatively. Cadillac Mountain slouches in the distance.

We don't see the trail, so we exit and continue along the road. Just before an intersection, a trail marker appears and takes us off the road, but not far from it.

At least now there are regular markers for us to follow.

We get dumped onto a street again. This time we're following the edge of a golf course. Not exactly what I'd hoped we'd see. Where's this Great Meadow? It's supposed to be a wetland. This is not that.

I'm looking for the Jesup Path turnoff on the right. We almost miss it. There's a set of stairs leading to the road, and the path is on the other side.

Finally, things start to look wet, and we're in the Great Meadow.

Sometimes we walk across a wooden footbridge over the water.

And then things get really depressing. From what we can make out, we'd only been on a path that led to the Jesup path, which is a boardwalk through the woods and wetlands. Jack groans. We walk a few hundred yards on the boardwalk and turn around.

We turn in the direction of Siur de Monts. I think it might end up faster if we walk along Route 3 from there. But it's clear, as soon as we start, that we're better off doubling back to the Great Meadow Loop.

Before we continue on that path, we stop at the road for a rest.

At least we're heading back to town now. We cross another road, and it looks vaguely familiar. I realize it's Park Loop Road, near where I'd stopped for photos two days ago.

On the other side is a foot bridge and a beaver dam.

Blue flag irises are in bloom in the distance.

Lupines are closer.

The path dumps us on the road we'd started in on. I'd missed this entrance by maybe fifteen feet. We're back in Bar Harbor, but it's still a long walk to the other side of town.

This part seems to take forever. It's hot now, and our feet hurt. We walk across town, from the residential area, past a playground and the ballfield, and finally reach Main Street. 

We plop ourselves down at CJ's, drinking smoothies, before we trudge back to the hotel.

I map the route. For all that, from Cafe This Way to the Great Meadow and back to here, we only walked 4.5 miles. If I'm ever going to try to follow a real trail up here, I'll have to do better than this.

Wait. What's that out there?

It's Tubby! With a fresh coat of paint on her deck!

I guess they didn't bother to gussy up the crane.

Does this mean Margaret Todd's docks are going in tomorrow?

Tonight's dinner is up at Salt and Steel on the other side of town. We have a long chat with the owner, who asks if we're locals. "I wish," I respond, only half-joking.