Newport, ME

I woke up at 4:00 this morning. Yes you read that right. 4. Yes on purpose.

I'd heard repeatedly that it was a "park tradition" to drive to the top of the tallest mountain to watch the sun come up. They say it's the first place in the US that you can see the sun in the morning. Not sure about that, but regardless I figured I'd give it a shot. So I got up at 4...actually more like 4:10 or so, packed my tent and everything up and left by just before 5:00 to get to the summit at 5:30. There were already at least 10-15 cars parked there, though the light was just barely starting to come through. It was really really amazing to watch, and I thought of all sorts of fun details I was going to post about it but i'm way too tired to now. Funny how that works. I will say that I took a picture on my phone to use as my new background. Everytime I look at it it makes me smile, but it really looks like one of the stock pictures they come with. Like it's too perfect. I have to keep reminding myself that I actually took it.

Oh but I almost forgot...a few additional joys that came with waking up at 4. It had started raining. I considered using the rain as an excuse to go back to sleep but I figured I'd regret it later. And besides it was only just sprinkling. That is until I got everything out of the tent and was about to start taking it down. Then it started POURING! So I got the idea of attempting to move the tent over into the trees a bit more so it would at least be slightly drier when I took the rain fly off. Well as soon as I touched the tent one of the rain fly poles snapped in two different places. Still not sure how that happened since it's one of the super bendy ones. Even after snapping a pole, moving the tent didn't help much. So of course, rain was pouring into it as I put it away, which made for lots of fun this evening pulling it out. But we'll get to that.

My plan had been to go out to breakfast after the sunrise, but I think I was still full from pizza the night before. So instead I had a banana and then went for the hike that I'd tried to do yesterday. It had stopped raining by then.

The hike was great, though a lot more intense now that everything was wet. It was still doable, but you just had to be that much more careful about where you hold on and where you put your feet. But then about half way up it started raining again. But I was already half way up a cliff face so it didn't make much sense to go down. So I kept going up. It was pouring again by the time I got to the top, and I was already soaked, so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to dance in the rain. What a way to start a morning....dancing in the rain on the top of a cliff with beautiful ocean views all around me.

I took the "easy way" down but it had gotten pretty intense because it involved walking down the face of some flat rocks. That's no problem when it's dry, but scary as heck when it's wet because there's no traction. Somehow, amazingly, I made it upright with only a few "exciting moments". Not really sure how I managed that but I'll take it!

So I come down from my hike soaking wet and starving and head in to town for breakfast. Of course, because of the one way system, I had to drive all the way around the park to get to town. Once in town, I was walking down one of the main streets and saw a sign that said "Cafe This Way" with an arrow pointing back behind some of the buildings. So I look back there and sure enough there's a little alley with a little cafe at the end of it called Cafe This Way. So I went there. (Ok I'm making that up. It was one of the ones I'd read about so I knew it was there but I still really liked the name and the sign). For breakfast I had their eggs benedict with spinach, tomato, and artichoke hearts which is even more amazing than it sounds. It was the absolute perfect follow up to my hike, and I actually got a little sad when it was gone.

Next I went out and got a sandwich to pack from a little deli. The guy who took my order was foreign, I would guess Eastern European based on accent. He asked me my name and then wrote down "Layse". I think that's the best spelling of my name i've ever seen!

With lunch in my pack I headed out to the bike trails. The bike trails here are really famous. They're old carriage roads built by JD Rockafeller as he was upset with all the cars taking over the park. He wanted you to be able to go anywhere by carriage. There are still a couple of groups that do carriage rides, but mostly they are bike/walking trails now. None of them get quite out to the beach, but you can see a lot of pretty cool stuff. I did a loop that was a mix of two that the visitor's center folks had told me about. It ended up being about 12.5 miles all together, with a beautiful spot on the way overlooking a lake to eat lunch.

When I got back to my car, it was time to say goodbye to Acadia National Park. It's definitely a hard place to leave. I had 3 days there that were so great and so incredibly different. I mean the first day I played on the beach, climbed on rocks along the coast, hiked a few miles, and found an amazing place to watch the waves from above. The second day I did one of my favorite hikes ever which involved essentially climbing a cliff face, and ate lunch from on top of the world with ocean all around me, and then had amazing pizza for dinner at a movie theater. Today I saw one hell of a sunrise, hiked a mini version of yesterday's big hike, had an incredible breakfast, and biked along trails next to a few different lakes. 3 totally different days, all equally amazing. I considered staying longer but I think I had just about the perfect visit there. If anyone is looking for a vacation spot I highly highly recommend Acadia.

So once I got on the road I almost immediately ran in to construction. And kept running in to construction. I took what should've been a very quick shot to get to Bangor but because of the construction it took forever. And then just as I was starting to get close I ran in to what must've been a wreck. A huge line of cars and emergency vehicles flying by in the center. I didn't wait around to find out. I turned around and found a detour using side roads.

I checked in Bangor for an REI or somewhere to get a tent pole but couldn't find anything. So instead I got duct tape. It'll work for now. I also went to a bookstore in Bangor. I was hoping to find some sort of book of hostels since it's starting to get too cold to camp some nights, but I don't always have internet in order to plan ahead for hostels. The only books I could find that mentioned hostels all just said "just look online." Not helpful. I'm sure there must be one out there somewhere. I'll keep looking. I just need something like my AAA hotel and camp site books, but AAA doesn't do hostels.

Anyway I continued on from Bangor to Newport, where I am now. I got in about 6, made some raviolis on my stove, and met my "neighbors". They gave me a TON of firewood, since they are heading out and didn't want to pack it with them. That was very nice of them, but then I felt obliged to make a fire even though i really just wanted to go to bed. So I did, even though they ended up leaving before it even really got going (I didn't realize when they said heading out they meant tonight...I assumed they meant in the morning. But they live right in the area). The good news was that the fire gave my tent more of a chance to dry, but it's still pretty wet. I spread some towels out though so it'll work. Hopefully it'll be bright and sunny early tomorrow to really dry everything out.

Well that's all I've got for now as my brain has completely stopped functioning. Tomorrow will be mostly a travel day. I'm pretty much done with Maine now and heading on to New Hampshire. Still working on the details of the route. We'll see how I feel in the morning.