Acadia – May 3rd

Continued the drive up Maine, from the small family run campground here, and headed over to Acadia National Park. Along the way, we of course ended up finding a much nice camp ground then the one that we stayed at, but c’est la vie…

Acadia is one of the “sleeper” parks – was the first National Park East of the Mississippi, and the Only park donated completely to the government by individuals – even including roads made just for the space. Around the turn of the last century, the then financial powers of the East coast (such as Rockefeller and Getty) saw Acadia area (and particularly the island, known as Desert Island) as a bastion of beauty and solitude. They bought up the land, groomed it for usage, and gifted it to the nation.

For a number of years, it became a hang out for the wealthy, but after a fire burned down most of the mansions and posh hotels that had been built to house the influx of tourists, it suddenly became less accessible to the “comfort class” and so returned to a more pristine mode.

Beautiful space – vistas, beaches, forest, places to climb, hike and walk. More of a “personal space” park – find solitude, or explore some spaces. Delilah had a great time playing in the sand, and made a “butterfly” and I helped her with a castle, Barbara got some quality meditation time in on the shore.

An interesting bit of trivia about the area – the impoverished French peoples that inhabited the area in the 1700s weren’t well treated by the English and German immigrants in the area, and some of them decided to move down to Louisiana area, and try their hand there. Once there, the Acadian’s made a way of life, and their heritage was slowly slurred to be “Cadians” and then later “Cajuns”…

Drove north to the Canadian boarder. Interesting that the crossing was no problem for the cat (rabies documents, transport papers, etc), but they made us march out of the RV, and go through an immigration screening. This was by far the longest boarder crossing interview that we have ever had. We decided that the guy was board, and mostly just liked to talk – but kid you not, we were in there for 20 minutes.

We assumed that finding a camp site would be a problem, so instead opted for a hotel which had an internet connection, but problems on my laptop (still unresolved) didn't allow me to post to blogger using wireless - so we are several days behind now, and using B's laptop.