Acadia Mountain Trail

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It's hiking day on Acadia Mountain Trail. The beginning of the trail was largely covered with trees so it was shady but not cool. It was pretty hot today. Even though the initial part of the trail was a gradual ascent, the heat was too unbearable that we had to make a few stops to catch our breath. And during that time, I discovered that we should get a hell out of the shade as soon as possible. The biggest mosquito I had ever seen landed on my arm attempting to get some lunch from me. I quickly smashed it, and then more came so we at that point hurried up the mountain to get away from all these blood sucking creatures.

It was definitely hot and humid and I kept thinking how far were we going to have to hike up to get to the summit. Finally the moment came, kind of in a slow motion. The first flat space with open sky seemed like a summit but it wasn't that pretty up there. Well I least we got some views. I walked to the other side of the summit to explore and there we go, real views before my eyes. Large area of blue water and clear blue sky, not only that, the breeze blowing so consistently cooling my body off. I just sat there in the sun forgetting that I was afraid of getting more tanned. From this point on, we got more and more views as we hiked farther down the mountain. We found another wide open space with water and sky views, and also bald eagle looking birds. Later we were pretty certain that they were probably bald eagles because they tend to roam around that part of the park. Cool!!.

After coming back down, Doug surprised me with a birthday present. I was totally caught off guard because I didn't expect that after a long and very sweaty hike, he remembered to give me the present.

We drove around on a scenic loop, got to the lighthouse-tiny one. We took some pictures of the lighthouse and went back on the road to seawall, large open rocky area. I don't think there's a beach there at least I didn't see one. We stopped at Jordan Pond, man made pond, resting there for awhile. Doug took a little nap while I tried to catch a picture of the Mergansers.

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Photos

female Common Mergansers
A large diving duck with a long thin bill, the Common Merganser is found along large lakes and rivers across the northern hemisphere. The long bill has toothy projections along its edges that help the duck hold onto its slippery fish prey("All about birds" by Cornell University)