The Beginning
Acadia National Park will always hold a soft spot in my heart. It was the first National Park I ever visited. I don’t recall if I actually vowed to take The Quest before going, but I surely made it by the time I left.
I was in my late 20’s when I visited Acadia. I remember my motivation: I had just failed miserably at yet another relationship. Depressed, frustrated, aggravated, I needed a vacation, badly.
Up until that point, I always vacationed with friends in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, a beach town that’s only a notch or two above the typical, slimy, cigarette butt-infested beach town. This time, I needed to be away from friends, away from family, away from her. I needed a vacation, yes, but needed to go alone. Reaching into my Boy Scout past, I decided to go back to nature. Get into the woods, away from people, clear my head. I chose Acadia. I had to buy new hiking boots and a backpack (my prior sporting activity – bar hopping – didn’t require much in the way of special equipment). I loaded up the car and headed north.
Driving up I-95 from Massachusetts to Maine is a real butt-numbing experience, I tell you what. But as soon as I passed all the New Hampshire tolls and entered the Pine Tree State, I knew I made a great choice. Just me and my tape deck and the open road and miles and miles of pine forest. Brilliant! The next morning, after a quick stop at the store for a bag lunch and a trail map, I hit the woods.
It was a damp day. Not raining, just a low fog rolling in from the Atlantic. Yet the park was positively alive, and far more fascinating, than the woods of my old stomping ground. These weren’t the tall, sturdy pines of the Berkshire hills, these were gnarled, windswept scrub pine, small trees scraping out a meager existence, anchored to the crevices of the glacier-carved rock, eking out whatever existence the sparse soil and stormy seafront could afford them. The deer and other animals were easily spotted in the woods, making their way through the fog, unafraid of the lone, soggy hiker. But the amazing thing was the lichen and moss. Yes, I said lichen and moss: I was absolutely enthralled by the simplest of life forms. There’s something in the sea air around Acadia that gives them the most amazing green color, in the dim light afforded by the fog, it seemed to cast an eerie glow over the entire area.
I hiked eleven miles that day. The very place is such a wonder: the woods, the glacier-ground hills, the erratic boulders, the calm lakes, the ocean views. Even in the fog, it was beautiful. The dampness made the forest so quiet, so peaceful, just what was needed. Busting through the low fog to reach the top of Cadillac Mountain was icing on the cake. I was a soggy mess by that time, I’m sure I looked quite the site to the clean-and-dry folks who drove to the vista point. I’m sure one of them said “what a freak”, for that’s probably what I would have said if I looked down at a sodden hiker emerging from a fog bank. I think they were the ones who missed out: it’s one thing to drive to the some overlook and sit awestruck at the magnificent views. It’s quite another to hike 11 miles, and up several hundred feet, and sit awestruck at the magnificent views. Things are more appreciated when they’re earned …
I spent another couple of days in Bar Harbor (a great little town), and visited the most excellent Lompoc Café more than once (where they serve ale made by the local Atlantic Brewing Company). But Acadia gave me something that I’ve kept ever since: it rejuvenated a boyhood fascination with the natural world.
After my visit to Acadia, I decided that I would visit every National Park site before I died. I didn’t do too well at first, largely because of financial problems (and getting sidetracked by a handful of other bad relationships). But eventually, I got on track, and been to over 100 National Park Service sites since. I still keep that tattered trail map hanging in my living room, and I’ll always hold Acadia in high regard.
Can’t say the same for most of my former girlfriends, though.
[My visit to Acadia preceded the invention of amateur digital photography. All photos on this entry taken by, and used with permission of, Troy B. Thompson Photography.]
Links:
America In Context 
Thanks for an informative and interesting post. Reading posts about Acadia brings back memories to the great Acadia weekend we had two years ago.
I am working on a new website at http://www.recreationparks.net and have a park page specifically about Acadia National Park. You can find it here http://www.recreationparks.net/ME/hancock/acadia-national-park-southwest-harbor. I’d love to get feedback from you and your readers about the site, ideas for what regional information to add, etc. I’m hoping that many people will vote on the activities at this and nearby parks, since that information will let me setup a search to help people find activities that interest them, and lead people to discover new public parks.