First stop Bar Harbor, on Mt. Desert Island. We came here with Marty’s family: sister Sue, brother-in-law Larry, father Art, and his wife Sarah. The first two mornings dawned perfectly sunny, with endless blue skies. Exactly what we had really not seen much of in Maine all summer. The Bar Harbor Inn is right on the harbor and so over breakfast we watched the lobster boats heading out, fishing boats returning, and a few private yachts, some of them very large, bobbing at their moorings. By the third morning tropical storm Danny had begun to appear with significant wind and rain. The water now had whitecaps, the boats stayed in the harbor with a forecast of much worse to come, and we had to feel sorry for the couple in a nearby sailboat that was bucking and straining and on which sleep would not have been very restful.
The hiking on trails and strolling on carriage roads are some of the extraordinary opportunities of Acadia National Park, which covers much of the island. On a family carriage road walk, Larry, a professor in the forestry school at the University of Georgia, gave Julia, and the rest of us, a tutorial on tree identification so that she could answer one of her three questions (see below). With Larry’s valuable guidance, we also visited two of the gardens in Northeast Harbor open to the public – Asticou Garden and Thulia Garden --- both in full bloom.
The next day on a hike we came across a park ranger who answered the other two questions.
The final evening’s activity was Reel Pizza, a Bar Harbor movie house that serves food (guess!) while you watch. We saw the new Myazaki anime “Ponyo,” which is typically joyful and mysterious.
As a warm up to the official beginning of (home) school next week, Julia was given a research project consisting of three questions. Here are her answers:
1. Why are most of the coastal rocks on the island pink?
Because there is feldspar that mixes with the granite, making it pink.
2. What is the significance of the name of the island and who named it?
Samuel de Champlain was mapping the area in 1604 as part of the St. Croix settlement. He observed the barren-top mountains from what is now Frenchman’s Bay and recorded “isle mont dessert” in his journal. The name stuck.
3. How many trees on the island can you identify?
Cedar, spruce, white pine, moose maple, balsam fir, white birch yellow birch, red maple, hemlock, and pitch pine. Thank you, Uncle Larry!
