Adventurous Leila

Hi everyone, we stayed at The Bar Harbor Campground for 9 days. It was really nice there with lots of great amenities; bathrooms (with showers), a pool that was supposedly heated but was still too cold for me, a playground, arcade, laundromat and general store. The campground is on a first come first serve basis with no prior reservations allowed, so we were a bit worried with going over the Fourth of July. But we ended up getting the perfect spot right between the playground and the pool, plus the bathrooms were right by us.

Acadia National Park was only a few miles from camp so we spent many days exploring. One of the park days we went to hike Jordans Pond with Tom, Delmara and the kids but it didn’t go as planned. Me and Juliette were taking pictures along the rocks at the trailhead but our family started to hike thinking we were trailing behind. We turned around and noticed they were gone so we hurried to catch up but didn’t know we went the opposite way. To make it even worse, once we started hiking we came up to two splits and were hoping we chose the right way, but knowing it was a loop comforted me some. I was so scared and felt like I was going to pass out but Juliette kept telling me to calm down. About half way around the loop we finally ran into Delmara and I was so relieved. Long story short my mom was speed walking with Landon on her back the whole three miles looking for us because my dad had went back to the trailhead and didn’t see us. Uncle tom hiked back the opposite way to try and find us and even looked in the parking lot and eventually turned around and caught back up to my parents. Juliette, Delmara and I ended up turning around and going back to the trail head so by the time my parents made it back they were very upset from being worried for over an hour. We all learned an important lesson and I learned that if I am ever lost to stay put as my parents will come back to find me. After the crazy morning we decided to skip hiking and go spend the rest of the day at the beach.

We did multiple hikes in the park but my favorite was the Bar Island hike. During low tide you can walk across to the island. Once you arrive on the island there is a really nice hike, about a mile to the top where there’s a beautiful view point of Bar Harbor. But the crazy part about the island is if you don’t plan properly and make it back before high tide you will be stuck on the island for 9 hours. Luckily we didn’t have the problem of getting stranded! Another wonderful hike we did was called Great Head, the scenery was amazing. You start out on the beach, cross a small river but we found some rocks to cross over. Then you climb up these magical stairs that were covered in fog with the trees peaking through. The majority of the trail is right along the ocean so we stopped a bunch of times to take pictures and check out the view, but unfortunately the fog was so thick we could hardly see the ocean. Near the end you have to climb up and down on boulders, some people might think it is scary but it was probably my favorite part.

On Fourth of July we spent majority of the day at the campground doing school, my mom worked and we prepped our drive day chores since we were hitting the road the next morning. In the late afternoon we were finally done and I was able to go play with my cousins and some other friends we met at the campground. My parents walked us down to Utter Heaven, it’s an ice cream shop connected to a BBQ place right next to the campground. They offer free ice cream to anyone who completes a Jr. Ranger packet, but I wanted better ice cream so I gave my free one to my brother and ordered a waffle cone with a scoop of cookies & cream and a scoop of vanilla. After ice cream we had dinner then packed up to go watch fireworks. A few locals recommended this area to park and watch the fireworks over the bay. We sat right on the beach, Tom lit all Elijahs fireworks within minutes and then the actual firework show started. Personally I liked Elijahs better because the fireworks were so far away they were covered by the fog and smoke and you couldn’t hear the loud bangs very good. After the fireworks were over we went back to camp to get a good night sleep so we could head to our next spot- Moose Head Lake in the morning!