Escapees July-August 2023

waterfront streets lined with high-end boutique shops, artists’ galleries and bistros with our morning coffees in hand. Twin antique cannons perched high on a hill were aimed right into the harbor, reminding us of America’s struggles to secure and keep its independence centuries ago. Down in the harbor itself, small sailboats and elegant yachts at anchor swayed gently to and fro in the soft morning light. Watching the boats, we could feel the promise of a fun afternoon of sailing out in the bay, and it gave us a sense of the summertime pleasures that have lured wealthy city dwellers to these shores since the turn of the last century. Then we heard a boat engine roar to life as a lobster boat left the harbor on its daily morning rounds to check the lobsterman’s traps out in the bay. Carriage Roads This dichotomy of the breezy pastimes enjoyed by the wealthy summer visitors versus the workaday activities pursued by the locals year-round has always created something of a class divide, especially at the turn of the 20th century. Cars were just coming into popular use across America, and there was an uproar about whether these newfangled automobiles would be allowed on Mt. Desert Island’s roads. The wealthy elite who owned the big summer estates wanted the island to be a rural getaway where they could travel around by horse and carriage and leave the noise and smell of cars and urban life behind. However, the locals who lived and worked on the island all year long wanted to be able to get from town to town easily by car. In the end, after some human road blocks and a few arrests, car travel was of fi cially legalized on the roads in 1913. But that wasn’t the end of the story! John D. Rockefeller, Jr., an experienced road builder, owned vast tracts of land on Mt. Desert Island. To accommodate his wealthy friends, he built almost 50 miles of roads throughout the island that were exclusively for horses and carriages to use. Nowadays, these “Carriage Roads” are ideal for walking, biking or even taking a horse drawn wagon ride. We rode our bikes all over the place on these roads under the canopy of beautiful

Although “Downeast” Maine sounds like a place “down south” in the New England state, it actually refers to Maine’s northeast At lantic coast. The term “downeast” was coined early in America’s history when ships voyaging up the coast from Boston and New York to Maine actually sailed downwind, that is, with the wind at their backs and in a predomi nantly eastward direction. Now adays, RVers can travel easily to Downeast Maine using inter states and country byways, and it is a beautiful area to explore. Acadia National Park Acadia National Park lies about two thirds of the way up the Maine coast, and that was where we started our downeast journey, after coming across from New Hampshire’s White Mountains through the middle of the state. Spanning 65 square miles, the main part of Acadia National Park takes up much of Mt. Desert Island, punctuated by four seaside villages: Bar Harbor, Northeast

“Watching the boats, we could feel the promise of a fun afternoon of sailing out in the bay, and it gave us a sense of the summertime pleasures…”

Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor. In between these classic New England towns there are a lot of scenic vistas along the rugged Atlantic coastline as well as thick, woods where the air was fi lled with the invigorating aroma of balsam fi r. Cadillac Mountain rises 1,530 feet above sea level, providing fabulous panoramic views in every direction, and placid ponds in the interior of the island invite paddlers to kayak or canoe across their mirror-like surfaces. BarHarbor Bar Harbor is the gateway to Acadia National Park, and we strolled the pretty

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ESCAPEES Magazine July/August 2023