Rainy weekend

redmed and I were supposed to go camping in Acadia, Maine this weekend. On Saturday morning, we loaded a pile of firewood into the car, along with the tent, sleeping bags, food, camp stove, water bottles, hiking boots, and day packs, plus a change of clothes … and off we went. About six hours later, we turned right at the scenic town of “Bangor” (all teenage boys may commence snickering now). An hour after that, we were on Mt. Desert Island. Home to Bar Harbor (all 21+, yet still teenage, individuals may shout “Yes! Bar!” and pump their hands in the air).

All the way, it was seriously bucketing rain. Like, no kidding. Major flooding. Little waterfalls shooting out into the road from the embankments.

We considered being stupid, and made it all the way to the park ranger station before deciding to bail on our $20 camp fee and find a nice hotel instead. I think it was the fact that we were both soaked to the skin during the short walk from the parking lot to the ranger station. There’s “wild n’ crazy,” and there there’s “just dumb.” So, we drove back up the road a mile or so and stayed at The Colony. We got one half of a little duplex cabin (bedroom and bathroom) for $50 a night. Believe you me, it was a good decision. It rained hard all night. Temperatures hovered around 45F. Would have sucked to be in the tent. The firewood stayed nice and dry in the car.

In the morning, we had the traditional Maine breakfast (blueberry pancakes) and then decided to drive the Park Loop Trail. Drive, because it was still just dumping rain. We drove to the top of Cadillac mountain, where the rain was matched by high wind and sleet. The high point up there were a couple of japanese tourist girls getting out of their motor coach, and having their useless little umbrellas sucked almost out of their hands by the sleeting winds. Once again, soaked to the skin, but dammit, we stood on the summit.

Followed around past Thunder Hole (teenagers, please hold your puns), where rocks are ground around in the base of a large hole by the surf, and the waves make a booming sound, like thunder. Awesome. We could almost hear it over the rain. Also there, we saw the first and only interesting bird of the trip: The Common Murre. There were about 200 of them calmly sitting on the ocean, letting the waves roll underneath them.

Decided to visit the “gardens of acadia”, which is a cute little nature walk with signs identifying the foliage. Most of the little signs were only a foot tall, and were thus entirely underwater. I’m not even kidding. We tried to walk up Dorr mountain, but the path was entirely occupied by a moderate sized mountain stream.

We completed our drive around the park loop by stopping off at Seal Cove (no Seals in evidence), and returned to the cabin for a well earned nap. In the evening, we drove into town and had the very best lobster dinner I’ve ever even imagined. There really might be something to this idea of “Fresh Maine Lobster, right out of the icy waters.” It was awesome. Decompressed at a cute little wine bar, and then slept some more. My kind of vacation.

This morning, we visited the Oceanareum, where we got to see their attempts to augment the lobster breeding cycle by helping, perhaps, half of a crop of lobsters to survive, as opposed to the usual 1%. The tiny (12mm) lobsters were pretty cute. They keep them in strongly bubbling water to keep them apart, because apparently the lobsters would simply eat each other if they were allowed to. It looked like fun to be 12mm long and bouncing around in bubbling water.

Anyway, drove back to Providence this afternoon / evening, and now it’s off to bed for me. A big project came through for me to work on for the next month, which should provide lots of geeky joy.