What the Walrus said . . .

I have been in Maine now for about a week. I started off in a great RV Camp, Chewonki Camgrounds, run by two sisters. I was the sole resident at their site and the first resident for this season. The site is going through some changes and upgrades, and actually will start fully opening in July of this year. With luck, they will have room for me on my return from Labrador. It is a wonderful park with clean bathrooms and a nice tennis court, and whiule I was there, the sisters were in the process of painting the pool!! Please visit Chewonki Campgrounds if you are in the area and need a safe and nice place to stay!!

I have now been in Acadia National Park, Maine, in the section of the Park known as Blackwoods, for the past four days. When I drove into my camp site at around 2 PM on Day One, it was 90 degrees and amazingly gorgeous! Yet by 8 PM the weather was quickly advancing toward cold and breezy, and by midnight it started raining and the temperature dropped overnight into the mid 40’s. One saving grace, my middle son, Grant, had talked me into trying a spray on sealant for my tent. It seeemed that I had discovered a couple of small seam leaks and if anything touched the side of the tent that water would wick into the inside. Any moisture in the people side of the tent is bad . . . even if things don’t get wet, they just get damp . . . and damp gets freaking cold!! HUZZAH . . . the spray sealant worked like a champ! Inside is now nice and dry, maybe still a bit damp, but better than before.

Getting up on the morning of Day Two was challenging. I do not like cold weather AT ALL!! The morning was started with slightly damp clothes, sock and shoes, hit and miss drizzle, rain and fog, just the stuff to kind of kill any happy thoughts! Breakfast saved the day! I broke out the Nomad Kitchen in the rear of the car, fired up the two burner stove, boiled water for coffee to get things rolling. Next I got out the eggs and bacon, cooked them up in the rain, consumed a delicious banana-strawberry smoothie, and I was set to go!

Changing out the lenses on the Nikon and Olympus to ones more suited for landscapes versus wildlife, I headed out in the drizzle, thinking positive thoughts that the weather would break soon, and the glorious sun would return. NO SUCH LUCK! LOL

The entire day was rain or fog, or rain AND fog, sometimes mixed with gusty winds. There was not a furry creature to be seen (no Moose!!) and most of everyone camping around me did not venture farther than the bathroom. However, I was actually having a blast on my hiking adventure! The ocean crashing against the rocky cliffs, even though shrouded in thick fog at times, was still beautiful. The sounds of the surf and the salt mist . . . it was like being a kid on the coast of northern California again. There were two interesting things that I noted. First, there is no sand on the beaches . . . there are rocks, nicely rounded, worn smooth by the constant rotation in the surf, varying in size from large bowling balls down to golf ball size or smaller. When the waves crash across them, as the water retreats back to the sea, the stones all try to roll with the flow, and they clatter together making this very distinct sound . . . much like shaking a bag of marbles, but on a much larger scale. Second, the water here along the shore is amazing crystal clear. It took me a bit to understand why . . . then I realized . . . no sand or sediment mixing in the surf to cloud the water. I could easily see twenty or more feet down into the water from the cliff edges. I was WAY TOO close to the edges! LOL

I have established a few rules for myself on this trip. Rule #1 is simple . . . Do Not Die! Dying would kind of screw up the whole goal of the trip. Rule #2 is Do Not Get Eaten, Molested and/or Ravaged by any wildlife! Why . . .Please refer back to Rule #1! Also, any rending of flesh (mine), regardless of how bad could bring this adventure to an abrupt halt, and again that is not my goal . . . plus I had always promised my mother that I would never be a food source, and I truly want to keep that promise! Rule #3 is Do Not Break ANYTHING! This includes myself, my cameras and lenses, my tent and my car. This requires me to engage my brain and apply common sense, both relatively new and sometimes daunting tasks. The biggest issue here requires that I remind myself that I am NOT in my twenties anymore, and that I do not heal as well as I used to. Also, since I am retired, breaking high ticket items will not be that easily replaced unless I want the remainder of my life to involve Top-Ramen meals forever!!

On Day Two, I woke with the idea that I was going to hike up the Southern Crest Trail to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Day Two was also another foggy, drizzly morning but I had made the decision and I was not going back, regardless of the weather. Heck, it was only a mere 4.2 miles up to the summit. EASY-PEASY!! Please remember for a second though, I have not walked that far, let alone UPHILL that far, in a very, very long time, possibly years . . . maybe decades!! Yet . . . I am an average healthy 65-year-old male and come on . . . it is only 4.2 miles!! Well . . . not quite true camperettes!!

I donned my rain gear and my Camel-Pack, took some salami, cheese and cracker treats, grabbed my walking sticks and outward bound I went. It took almost a mile to get to the trail head . . . but I was doing fine! Up I went . . . all by myself with absolutely no other living human being for possible miles. Yet, I slogged on!! The trail is actually very nice and well marked in most places. I got off trail once or twice, but easily backed my way out of trouble and back on track. The light rain was not going to dampen my spirits, even if it did turn parts of the trail into a bog. Up I climbed . . . higher and higher knowing I was getting this done . . . thinking I was easily hitting a three mile per hour pace. I was tearing it up . . . until I hit the first mile marker and my heart sank. I was maybe hitting a two mile pace with about 8 miles to go, ten if I opted to take the side trip to Eagle’s Crag (which I did on the way down!) Onward I climbed, having removed the rain gear at the three mile mark since the rain had stopped and the fog was thinning, plus I was sweating horribly inside the rain gear and was again wetter inside then out.

At about three and half mile point up the trail, the terrain shifted rather rapidly from pine forest, mulch and roots to glacier smoothed rocky outcroppings covered in an almost arboreal forest growth. I was still holding my pace, but the varying size rocks were making it more strenuous, hiking was now mixed with bouldering at times. However, the scenery was incredible, if you could see it through the fog! A young woman made me feel so much better, as she cheerfully said “Goodmorning” and jogged past me and up the trail. I HATE YOUNG PEOPLE!!

Anyway, I made it to the summit in about 2.5 hours, which for my age is not bad in my book. I say that because I did not see anyone in my age range on the way up or down doing the same hike, which means I am either healthier than most of my peers . . . or just crazier! I hung around in the fog at the summit long enough to wolf down the salami, cheese and crackers, help a few tourist families take group photos so ALL the family could be in the photo at the same time, lose all the muscle heat I had built on the way up, and headed down the mountain. By the way . . . DOWN sucks! The individual rocks and rocky slopes I traversed on the way up, proved very daunting on the way back down. I had to slow myself lest I slip and thus violate Rule #3. I could imagine the cost the Park Services would bill for recovering a broken or mangled me off the slopes, if I was lucky enough to have someone actually realize I was broken and mangled. I made it back to the camp site about six hours after I headed out with an estimated 12 miles completed . . . so, the old guy had survived, and I think I did pretty darn good! We shall not discuss the muscle cramps that struck my legs at around 10 PM!!

With all that said and done, the night brought crap weather back with a vengeance. The entire day had been grey with varying density of grey and wet. Then around 2 AM, the night skies opened up with thunder and lightning, mixed with heavy rains . . . and I woke wondering what today was going to be like, hoping my rooftop tent was not an attractive target to a lightning bolt!

Day Three, again, making myself a wonderful feast for breakfast to get my mood adjusted and fill my engine with wholesome, healthy energy . . . I set about getting the tent and car straightened out. It is amazing how quickly all of my stuff can get mixed and unmatched. I am usually so good at being organized, but not so much right now! I also have been running out of energy . . . the electric kind. With basically two days of rain and now going into my third, it appeared, it had been hard to keep the phone charged and work on the computer to process photos when the Jackery Battery Pack is slowing going dead!

I had decided last night that if the weather did not change, if the glowing orb in the sky failed yet again to rain down on me with light and heat and energy . . . that I was pulling the plug and heading for a hotel. Obviously, the universe heard my thoughts, and shortly after breakfast, the skies parted, the fog burned off and it became a beautifully blue, sunny day. Plus, the solar panel was charging the Jackery battery!! There is a God and he does like me . . . today!!

With the weather cooperating, warmth starting to permeate where damp had existed, I again grabbed the cameras and headed out. The first time I did this, if you recall, was in the drizzly fog and rain. Yet today was glorious!! Blue skies, fluffy white clouds, a green and azure ocean with frothy white breakers on the rich browns, grays and reds of the cliffs. I was in photographer heaven!!

This is where I need to go back and discuss Rule #1 and Rule #3. When I was a younger man, I would have thought nothing of scaling down a rocky cliff face to get out onto a wave washed outcropping to get that one perfect photo as the ocean surged around me. Now . . . not so much!! LOL It does seem that as I have become older, wiser and more filled with wisdom, the closer I move to my end of days, the less I am in a rush to get there! Thus Rule #1! As I look down the slope of a partially collapsed earthen embankment, and I think about “Can I make it?”, I now also think about “Can I survive it?” along with “How in the hell are you going toi get back up?” So today I was tempted by the universe on numerous occasions as I crept along the top edge of the cliffs, looking for those great rocky perches where I could get that amazing shot . . . and a couple of times my application of the rule may have saved me from disaster! I will add those photos that I did get, from some relatively safe perches here . . . and let you come to Cadia and find those other scary locations on your own.

Day Four . . . and I needed to get this blog updated. I have packed my stuff and headed to Bar Harbor for a few hours to get caught up. As soon as I publish this, I head back into the park for my last night. Tomorrow, I am breaking camp and heading to a hotel. Five days without a shower, regardless of how many towelette baths I have taken, just does not work for me. I need to do laundry, clean out my car and restock my food supplies. My YETI has totally thawed out and I am not sure everything in it is still safe to eat! LOL It truly needs new ice about every three days, which is proving hard to do in National Parks. I also promised myself at least one large lobster for dinner and Bar Harbor seems to have loads of lobsters ready to invite to dinner!!

As I head toward the hotel though, since I cannot check-in until 3 PM. I am going to drive the park loop, so I should have a few more photos for you tomorrow. Hope you are enjoying following along!!