Acadia National Park - Maine

 We may have missed Acadia National Park if not for the vets at Vetco recommending it.  I remember seeing it on a map a week or so earlier, but had since forgotten about it.  Thankful for their recommendation.  The drive was slow, but scenic, along the coastline at times through small towns.  We had been driving a long time when the Acadia National Park destination our map guided us to was nothing.  We were close to the park, but it’s kind of spread out and not obvious on where it was.  We were in need of a shower after 3 days, which is a good time for us to start looking to pay for a night somewhere.   We found a private campground outside the park that had showers and you didn’t have to pay for hook ups.  I did charge my UPS lithium battery across the street from us before we left. This thing has been awesome! It helps us charge our phones, tablet, blue tooth speaker as well as cook food in our air fryer.  MVP of the trip - Most Valuable Power. After arriving at camp we organized some things around in the van garage to make more room up front which felt good and then we embarked on what we thought was going to be a short little hike to a lake. Welp, didn’t go as planned, probably a 5 mile hike that we were battling darkness and ended up on a busy road at the end after losing the trail.  Worst hike of the trip.  When we have been without shower for 3 days and we are able to use one, we tend to take a shower at night and the morning.  Feels like there’s more than one layer of grime on us and just feels good to shower.  The next day we had secured the required time entry to Cadillac Mountain from 1:30-2pm which gave us some time for a leisurely start and also fitting a hike in to Beech Mtn Lookout.  Unlike the previous hike, this one was saweeet.  Paula said number 1 hike so far, I don’t disagree.  It was a climb up on granite rock that was good and grippy for footing, but every step took some thought.  We reached the top and there was a fire look out tower that was not accessible past first flight of stairs.  The view was stunning all around us.  We finished the hike and then went up to Cadillac Mountain which again was insanely beautiful.  There was a small trail that we were able to take Gus around on . After Cadillac Mtn, we decided to go into a small coastal town called Bar Harbor that was as Paula would say, “super cute”.   We enjoyed a beer in a garden of a small inn with a live musician and then went to another spot in the park called thunder hole,  Sometimes it blasts water in the air, but wasn’t proper tide for us to see it.  We enjoyed steak, potatoes and salad cooked in the van whithan amazing view.  We crashed on a dark side street downtown and set the alarm to wake up at 4am to watch the sunrise at the furthest eastern point of US.  Ideally this could be watched from Cadillac Mtn, but that takes more planning to get the correct timed entry.  We woke up at 3:30 without the alarm and proceeded to find a spot which was more challenging than it should have been.  The one way streets in the park are long without ways to turn around so I made a wrong decision and couldn’t get back for 20 minutes to the place I wanted to be.  It all worked out, but added a little stress to the situation.  The first dots of sunlight were exciting to see because of the anticipation leading up to it.  After the sun had risen, we decided to head for the border of Canada at Calais.