Acadia National Park ~ Day 1

We decided to come to the Acadia area for a week to get a break from the relentless Florida heat, so here we are - enjoying mid 60's and cool ocean breezes! ~ perfect!

We had an easy/uneventful (which is always good) day of flying yesterday and have rented an Airbnb for the week - it's well located, very clean, and the perfect size for us. 

Today promised beautiful weather, so we hit the trail early, starting with the Beech Cliff Ladder Trail. We planned to do this as an out-and-back trial, but once we got to the top, we realized that we could make it a loop with the Canada Cliffs Trail, so that's what happened. 

First was a quick stop to look at the beach at Beech Cliff:

Then a very uphill hike with lots of rocks and boulders.....

...and eventually a handful of ladders.....

The hike back, on Canada Cliffs Trail. was over more rocks, and we enjoyed some different views....

We were back to our rental car by 10am (so maybe an hour ~ or a bit more of a hike), and headed to the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, passing through a few charming harbor towns...

...and taking a short detour along Cliff View Trail.....

...where we saw some lobster buoys...

We then walked to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse, which strangely had signs that it is a private residence - it'd be weird to have people walking all around our house....

It was late morning by now and we were both in the mood for a cup of coffee, so we started to look for a place and happened upon what we thought was a coffee shop as it is called Common Good Café. 

Well nope, not a coffee shop, but rather a soup kitchen that offers coffee and popovers (along with maple butter, cinnamon butter, traditional butter, blueberry jam, and strawberry jam) for a donation. 

So there we were - enjoying popovers and coffee in the soup kitchen! 😃

We finally made our way to the Acadia National Park Visitor's Center to check it out and decide to take a walk along one of the park's carriage roads , so we ended up walking the 4.2 mile Hadlock Loop (another time that we planned to simply walk out-and-back, but decided to make it a loop at the halfway point). Some pics:

At this point we headed back to our Airbnb for showers and an early dinner. We have a list of a few restaurants - some that Brad found and some that our hosts provided, so we went to Bar Harbor Lobster Pound for an early dinner tonight - just about a mile from our Airbnb. 

As with most lobster pounds, the lobster is cooked outside (the wood fire smelled wonderful): 

There were plenty of seats outside....

Suzanne had the hot lobster roll ~ check out that big piece of claw meat on top!!!

....and for something different, Brad had the lobster tacos....

One word: amazing!!!😋

So an excellent first day to start our week in this area and we are looking forward to more hiking, more adventures, and more lobster!!