The Great New England Road Trip: Days 24-26, The Other Side of Acadia
Day 24: Discovering the Other Side of Acadia
Day 24 started with mugs of steaming hot tea and the familiar routine of cleaning up camp. We were saying goodbye to the wild beauty of Mount Desert Island, but thankfully, we weren't quite saying goodbye to Acadia National Park.
This time, we were headed north to the Schoodic Peninsula, a portion of Acadia none of us had ever visited before. The drive up and around the coast was beautiful, and when we arrived, we were immediately surprised by how spacious and new everything felt.
Our campsite may have been the longest gravel campsite we have ever seen. The sites at Schoodic Woods are enormous, and we were almost positive we could have fit two or three of our campers into our space! All that space made setup unusually easy, which meant we still had plenty of time to start exploring.
Caleb's parents were back with us for a little while at Schoodic, and it happened to be his mom's birthday. She and Granddaddy had headed over to Schoodic Point to enjoy the scenery, so once we were settled, we went looking for them.
We found them way out on the enormous granite rocks, watching the ocean and all the wildlife around them. We joined them for a while, and in that short amount of time, we saw all kinds of birds and fish, a seal who kept popping his head above the water to look around, and even whales! Seeing a seal in the wild was already a first for this trip, and then we got whales too. It was quite the birthday afternoon, and a pretty spectacular introduction to this quieter side of Acadia.
We continued around Schoodic Loop Road afterward, stopping at places like Blueberry Hill and taking in more rocky beaches, inland ponds, marshes, and ocean views. Schoodic felt different from Mount Desert Island, a little less crowded but every bit as beautiful.
Once we came out of the park, we made a stop Caleb had been anticipating for most of the trip: Me & Ben's, a tiny ice cream shop just outside Acadia. Some of us weren't entirely sure why an ice cream shop required this level of enthusiasm, but once we got there, we understood.
They make their own soft serve and hard ice cream, and everything we tried was incredible. There was a toasted lemon sundae topped with brûléed meringue and served with a lemon stuffed with ice cream, twisted espresso-blueberry soft serve, blueberry sorbet, and portions big enough to make everyone very happy.
We chatted with the owner for a while, and besides making fantastic ice cream, he was incredibly friendly and gave us some helpful tips for exploring the area. Those local recommendations have led us to some of our favorite places on this trip, so we were happy to take notes.
Back at the campground, we got our part of dinner ready and headed over to Grandmommy and Granddaddy's campsite for her birthday dinner. We spent the evening outside eating steak and potatoes, drinking hot tea, and celebrating together, a wonderful way to end her birthday.
Day 25: Thirteen Kids, Several Broken Bikes, and One Mountain
Day 25 began with some much-needed bike maintenance. Apparently, our efforts weren't quite enough, because several of the bikes were still struggling when we set off for a ride later that morning.
Caleb's parents were still camping nearby, and some good friends from Huntsville were staying nearby too. Bike rides with Caleb's dad are always an adventure, but things get especially interesting when two families with a combined total of 13 children start making their way up a gravel mountain path together.
Then several bikes decided not to cooperate, including both dads' bikes, which happened to be the ones pulling trailers with the littlest kids. Somehow, despite the mechanical problems and all the work it took to get everyone up the mountain, we still had a good time exploring another part of the peninsula. We had worked hard expecting a great view at the top, only to discover there really wasn't one. Thankfully, we did manage to find a coastal view for a few minutes along the way, so we'll call the expedition a success.
By lunchtime, we were worn out enough to decide that some afternoon quiet time sounded pretty wonderful. Once everyone had recovered, we headed to the Schoodic Institute and Rockefeller Welcome Center.
We hadn't realized how much history there was to discover on this side of Acadia as well. The Schoodic Peninsula has connections to both John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s influence on Acadia and a former U.S. Navy base that once operated here. Some of the buildings from that era are still part of the Schoodic Institute today, giving this corner of the park a history all its own.
The kids especially enjoyed the hands-on activities inside the institute before we headed outside to meet our friends for another adventure. This time we were setting out on the Sundew Trail, which had been recommended to us by the owner of Me & Ben's as one of his favorites.
His recommendation did not disappoint. The first portion of the trail led out to the ocean, where the kids spent a long time playing on the rocks before we continued through beautiful moss-covered woods to another view overlooking an ocean inlet.
There was quite a bit of discussion afterward about returning to Me & Ben's, but somehow tacos won out and we ended up heading back to camp instead. Ice cream would have to wait until tomorrow, but before the night was over, we discovered something else worth getting excited about.
Some of the boys found a thicket full of wild huckleberries. We had hoped throughout the trip to gather enough wild blueberries for pancakes but never managed to find a plentiful patch, and somehow huckleberries felt even more exciting.
Day 26: Huckleberry Pancakes, Mountain Trails & Ice Cream (Again)
Day 26 began with the boys hitting the huckleberry thicket as quickly as they could, gathering enough berries to feed our rather large crowd. Caleb's parents had headed on to the next portion of their trip the afternoon before, but our friends were still with us and we had plenty of hungry kids to feed.
Charlene mixed up a huge batch of whole-wheat pancake batter and stood at the stove frying dozens and dozens of fluffy pancakes filled with freshly picked huckleberries. She even put to use some of the pancake-making techniques she had picked up from watching the waitress at Polly's Pancake Parlor back in New Hampshire.
We topped them with fresh Vermont maple syrup, which felt like a perfect combination of several of our favorite discoveries from the trip. Once everyone was sufficiently stuffed with pancakes, we were finally ready to hit the trails.
The hike we had been most excited to tackle on this side of Acadia was the Schoodic Head Loop. We returned to the Blueberry Hill parking area and headed up the Anvil Trail, joining Schoodic Head before taking the Alder Trail back down. It turned out to be a great hike for all the kids. There were plenty of rocks to climb along the way, and this time our work climbing to the top was rewarded with beautiful views.
By the time we started coming down, everyone was starving and ready for lunch. There was only one problem: wild blackberries kept appearing along the trail, and apparently it is impossible for a group of children to walk past ripe wild berries without stopping to pick and eat them. So we stopped, and stopped, and stopped some more. We even found a wild apple tree along the way, although its little apples weren't quite ripe yet.
Eventually we determined that tiny blackberries weren't going to qualify as lunch and managed to get everyone back to the cars! Some locals had recommended a place called Lunch on the Wharf, and after all that hiking, it sounded perfect. The name turned out to be wonderfully literal: it really is a little restaurant sitting on a working wharf.
While we ate, we watched a boat come in and load up lobster traps, with the colorful harbor surrounding us. It was exactly the sort of simple, local place we love finding when we travel and another reminder that some of the best stops are the ones recommended by people who actually live there.
We had hoped to find some water to play in after lunch, but plans are always subject to change when traveling with littles. One fell asleep on the drive back to the camper, so some of us stayed behind while the others headed out on the Lower Harbor Trail in search of water.
Dinner that evening was a bit of a hodgepodge because the next morning we were crossing into Canada. We had heard everything from, "They don't really care what food you have," to warnings that all of our meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables might be taken away at the border.
We weren't particularly interested in testing those theories with a refrigerator full of groceries, so we tried to eat up as much as possible. Thankfully, our kids are equipped with two completely separate stomachs: a dinner stomach and an ice cream stomach. That meant there was still room for one more trip to Me & Ben's.
This time we ordered an assortment that included blueberry sorbet, raspberry ice cream, and butter rum to keep things interesting. Caleb declared the raspberry the best raspberry ice cream he had ever eaten, and the blueberry sorbet was about as good as blueberry sorbet could possibly be. The only thing keeping Caleb from buying pints to stash in the camper freezer was the horrible thought of arriving at the Canadian border the next morning and watching someone throw them away.
So we ate our ice cream, headed back to the camper, and prepared to say goodbye to Maine. After 26 days of traveling, tomorrow we weren't just driving to another state, we were crossing into another country, and none of us were entirely sure what adventures the Canadian border had in store for us.
