Tom's National Park Adventure

The plan was to be in place to see the first rays of sunlight before anyone else in the country! You know what they say……. If you want to make God laugh…… tell him you have a plan!

We tried to get a timed entry to be at the summit before daybreak this morning. The process to make this happen requires timing and a very fast internet connection. We thought we had the timing down, but our internet connection was our Achilles heal!

The entry time we wound up with was for 6:00am. We were on the top of the mountain at 6:00am and were able to see some amazing vistas of the ocean and too many islands to count. Since this is the highest point of elevation on the east coast of the United States, the views are incredible in all directions. The wind is also pretty vibrant at that time in the morning too! It’s also cold! The combination of cooler temperatures and windy conditions almost guarantees that you won’t be hanging out there for an extended period of time!

We headed back home and cooked up a big hearty breakfast. My son in law drove into Bar Harbor for donuts. Everyone got cleaned up, packed a picnic lunch and headed back out to do some more exploring.

We ended up finding “The Wild Gardens of Acadia”

This is a nice little collection of all the different types of plants found in the different types of terrain in the park.

We left the gardens and made our way to Sand Beach. This area is one of the few natural sand beaches on the island.

The water temperature is very cold. Of course that has little effect on grandchildren!!!

Since there are nine of us to move around, we split up the cars and either went back home or went into town for some more groceries. By the time we got home, we were tired and ready for naps.

After dinner we said our goodbyes. Ethyl and I will be here for another day while the rest of my family is leaving early in the morning.

It’s not very often that I get to interact with all of my kids and grandkids on the same day. Today was one of those days and I will treasure it until I’m lucky enough to have another one!