Saturday, July 16 Arcadia National Park

Arrived here on Thursday afternoon.  Staying in a very wooded campground.  There is no running water or electricity here, so we run a generator to refill our battery for an hour once a day.  It is hot during the day but the breeze is cool.  Bob was going to save water by taking a shower.  He got all his stuff and walked down to the bathrooms.  He forgot that national parks have no showers.  I think it is awful.  It is very crowded here.  They say a quarter of the US population lives within a days drive of here.  There is a free bus service to all the surrounding towns to try to keep cars down.  The park has the typical Maine rocky coast line with moutains behind it .  One interesting thing is that about 30 feet from the water line water flows through the pebbles down to the sea like springs in the rocks.  The park does have a couple of sandy beaches which are extremely popular.  We went to the big one Thursday evening before the crowds descended on it.  We drove around the unpopular side of the island to day to get away from the crowds and took a quick  cold swim at a small sandy beach called Echo lake.  It was beautiful.  We hiked on a carriage road this morning.  Rockefeller wanted roads only for horse and carriages so he began building these 16 ft wide roads through this area before it was a park.  Bikers love them.  No cars allowed.  They wind around about 50 miles.  We went to a unpopular area and had few other people on the road.  We have mainly driven around the island but have taken a few walks on the cliffs.  Drove up to the highest point on the east coast- Cadillac Mountain 1500 feet.  If you are here at Sunrise, you may be the first person in the US to see the sun. This is the 2nd time Becky has seen the rocky coast.  The first time was the Calf. coast. The area reminds her of Point Lobos there- beautiful, dark blue water roaring over rocks.  We went to Thunder rock where the waves crash into a hollow cave that really hollows. Tired of one way roads that make it take a long time to get anywhere and anxious to get to Canada, so will leave a day early- tomorrow.