START: Maple Brook Campground, East Burke, VT
END: Schoodic Woods Campground, Acadia National Park, ME
Miles traveled:
Travel time: 0830-1600
We’re definitely further north - it was light out by the time I woke up at 0530. At Wright-Patt it wasn’t getting light until close to 0600.
I spent most of the early morning typing. I hadn’t started writing much for this blog and needed to get on it. I still have a lot of of work to do to get the page up and running smoothly, but I know I can’t wait too long to start writing, or it will all blur together.
Unfortunately, I lost track of time trying to write out everything that had happened the previous days. We had planned on going for a walk, but there was no time. We just packed up and left. We did buy some maple syrup from the camp store before we departed. Apparently the lady that runs the place processes her own syrup, which I thought was pretty cool.
We did notice, among the trees in Vermont, are a lot of light blue lines running parallel to the ground. I guess this is how sap is collected to process into syrup? I didn’t bother looking it up, but I feel pretty confident that’s what those lines are for. They aren’t very large in diameter, and there are usually several sort of bundled together.
We spent most of the day on US Route 2, a very pretty road through there. There were signs threatening moose, but we never saw anything. We did miss a turn, which added 20 minutes to our travel for the day. Oops.
We got to Acadia around 1600. The office had already closed for the day, so we just went straight to our campsite. This is a GORGEOUS campground. Almost every site is a nice one. It’s quiet, spaces are spread apart, there are woods surrounding and in between all the sites. The pictures give you a good idea of what it looks like. When I went to check in the next morning, the ranger said the campground was only 7 years old. If this is the plan for all future campgrounds in national parks, it’s a damn good one!
We walked and rode bikes through the loops of the campground. On our walk we ended up at the amphitheater where a park ranger was giving a talk about insects. Ruby got a junior ranger book to complete and learned a few things about insects.
Later that evening, as we were sitting by the fire, something tried to join us! The fire pit is close to the woods at this site (see picture). The smoke was heading towards the trailer - away from the woods, so we put the chairs between the woods and the fire ring. We heard a slight rustle. Then we heard more rustling! Something was coming out of the woods to join us! We guessed it must be a raccoon. After Michael jumped up (the sound was RIGHT behind him) and I grabbed Ruby to pull her behind me, I grabbed the bright light off the little camp table we had out and shined it into the woods. We heard something scamper away a bit, sounded like it climbed up a tree. We kept shining the light - Michael got a second light out - and we could hear it continue to move around. At one point I heard a hefty ‘thump’ like it had jumped out of a tree and landed on the ground. Racoons might look kinda small, but they can be solid animals, as I recall from that one we “boomed” (as Ruby put it) in the chicken coop.
When I checked in the next morning I told the park ranger about it and he said it could have been a porcupine too. So either a raccoon or a porcupine was trying to join us by our campfire!
