Sparky Gets Lost

It had to happen sooner or later...Sparky, who can't find her way out of a paper bag, decided to do a hike while at Patten Pond RV Park in Ellsworth, Maine. No big deal....check out All Trails app, ask the wonderful hosts at Patten Pond where some good alternative hikes are instead of fighting the crowds at Acadia. By the way, Acadia is a twenty mile drive to the Hulls Cove Visitor Center from this park, so something closer was more desirable. The hikes she found were only a couple of miles long, and loop trails, so she wasn't worried, neither was Eldo (What???? I always worry when she goes hiking by herself, explains Eldo.)

Sparky decided on a moderate hike called Pennys Preserve via Peter's Brook Trail, a 2.8 mile hike and not too far from Patten Pond RV Park where we are staying. It's fifteen miles and a 23 minute drive near Blue Hill, Maine. Hike through a forest, view a waterfall and some old granite quarries. Dogs are permitted to run loose after entering the preserve, which is VERY unusual for most public trails, but this is a privately owned parcel of land, so they allow that. 

Bug repellent? Check. Hat? Check. Water? Check. Check in with Eldy upon arrival? Check. Phone and the All Trails Map app that will track you while you hike? CHECK. (Key detail here.) So-o-o-o-o...Sparky has not used this app much because she hasn't needed to. But after starting the hike and finding the blue blazes painted on the trees to be sparse and not very prevalent, she decided to whip out the app and start tracking. The trail is red and it looks like this on the map:

You click the navigate button on the app, and a little arrow starts tracking you as you move, making ANOTHER red line the same as the trail line. (key detail). Sparky is hiking along, and after about 1.75 miles, realizes that #1. She picked the wrong trailhead parking lot (which was only a two vehicle space lot which might present problems later getting out) and #2- the trail she was on, Pennys Preserve, was not going to take her past the "3 bridges and a waterfall" listing that was on the OTHER trail, called Peter's Brook Trail, that intersected into this one. Or maybe she had it backwards. Maybe she was on the Peters Brook Trail and she was going to miss the cool stuff on the Penny's Preserve Trail. Whatever....She's simply going to back up her little ole self making the arrow on the map retrace her path and take her back to the parking lot where she will go find the OTHER trailhead parking lot and see the bridges and waterfall. She's not sure what happened next.  The trails are poorly marked. No clues that the trails will loop back to either parking lot. The arrow on the map turns when you turn and marks a little red squiggle when you demonstrate confusion as you twist and turn, trying to figure out which way is where. There were several signs with a map that said, "You are HERE." 

But Sparky wanted to be THERE and unsure of herself, and logic failing that these were LOOP trails, and that she would eventually return to the parking lot, escaped her for the moment. What compounded her panic was there was NOBODY on the trail for a very long time. She kept looking at her navigational arrow on her trail map and after awhile, it looked like this: Seriously....

All those little dots between the dashes are temporary stops. Finally, she found herself at the waterfall with no idea how she got there,  and she saw PEOPLE! Woo hoo! She asked the group how to get back to the parking lot, and they said, "Oh, just go up that trail up there, (pointing in a vague direction). Sparky had already been on that trail TWICE and from the map it looked like she would be repeating the same smaller loop again. By this time, she was a little panicky. She knew in her mind that if she kept on the loop trail she would eventually get back to the parking lot, but she was just panicked that it would be a repeating loop and she wouldn't exit it in the right place. So she decided to just set off. A few minutes later, along came a couple, with their beagle out for a Sunday stroll, and she told them she was lost and could they direct her towards the parking lot? They said sure, just hang out with us. They said they had parked at the Peter's Brook Trailhead which was the opposite of Sparky's truck position, but she didn't care. It was company, and off we went. They were really nice company, and their dog very sweet.

We ran into the caretaker of the preserve, as we hiked, an elderly gentleman easily in his eighties who happened to be bird watching. He treated us to a brief discourse of the history of the quarry masons that used to work in the area, what a burl was, and the history of his family's ties to the area, along with some sightings of songbirds he was spotting. (A burl is a virus that causes the tree to build tissue around it, creating this big blob on the tree.) In no time, we were at the parking lot trailhead and Sparky's guides offered her to a ride to her parking lot destination, which turned out to be less than a half mile down the road.

Despite getting lost briefly, the trail WAS a beautiful walk through beautiful woods. Sparky did see the waterfall after all, but not the three wooden bridges and that was ok. She thinks she is going to be in the market for a Garmin InReach Mini GPS soon. Not cheap but a lot of features that would benefit a solo hiker. (And yes, she did confide in me that she got a little lost, says a relieved E., glad to have her back safe and sound.) How many miles did she end up doing? the app said 5+, but some of that was the short hop in the car from one trailhead to the other, because Sparky forgot to turn the app off. But maybe about 4.5 miles, she's guessing.

Since that hike was just a teeny bit stressful, Sparky had to take advantage of some free ice cream at the ice cream social at the park that day. Whew!

Because we are leaving the area, and heading back to Wells, Maine, and mainely (haha) the beach, Sparky went out for one last hurrah bike ride on the carriage roads in Acadia. Gosh, those roads are tough--lots of climbing, but it helps if you check your tire inflations before heading out. Just sayin'.....Sixteen miles was enough for today...

And heading towards mid July, the waterfalls and brooks are drying up! As always, check out the bridges along the carriage roads, especially the undersides. There are trails leading down below, but they are usually rocky and a little on the precarious side for an older person. But to view the bridge from underneath is wonderful. You can really see the architectural details that way.

West Branch Bridge Jordan Stream

Jordan Pond was busy with the popover crowd today as Sparky stopped by at the Grab 'n' Go for a quick two lemonades...She was that thirsty!

The iconic Eagle Lake Bridge is a very popular starting point for riding the carriage roads. Very small parking lot, Sparky suggests starting elsewhere....

The blueberries are starting to bloom along many of the trails in the area.

And with that week having whizzed by, we are off tomorrow for Wells, Maine, back to Moody Beach Thousand Trails campground for THREE weeks. See you down the road....

What's Ellsworth, Maine Like?

Ellsworth, Maine       High: 70   Low: 63     Site: 201

Our site--201

Wel-l-l-l....it's less crowded than Wells, Maine, where we came from. It's about 21 miles to the Acadia Visitor's Center. It's about 27 miles to Bar Harbor. It's out in the boonies outside of Ellsworth, about 10 miles out. No close shopping nearby. Not too much traffic on the highways going and coming to get to Ellsworth, but LOTS of traffic the closer you get to Bar Harbor. We like that there is far less traffic where we are. It's a quiet campground, we like that, too. It's shady in many sites, but the trees are NOT a problem. AND--there's a BIG pond (Patten Pond) for kayaking. They rent kayaks--sit ins and sit upon at this park so you can go out and paddle all you want for a very reasonable price! There's a tiny little beach for swimming. 

 A site suitable for a big rig

Do we like the campground? Yes! The staff does a great job maintaining the park. They are on top of the mowing and servicing any problems. It's a small park, about 213 sites and they are fairly close together, so sites for big rigs like us (41 feet towed with a big dually truck) are limited. Class A motorhomes, (the "big box" kind of RV that can unhook their car, THEN drive around the campground, have it a lot easier than we do.) We are about 65 feet long as we tow our RV behind us and we have to stay hooked up to do the looking around when we get to campgrounds to find a suitable spot/site unless we are given one by the campground. 

We were given a suitable site by this particular park which was really nice, because there are a LOT of boulders in the park. It's not easy driving the fifth wheel around all the boulders that mark the roads, mark the sites, and cleverly mark the electrical boxes so people won't hit them with their rigs! Plus there is a lot of turning to maneuver around the campground, so be careful if you come to the park!

The drawbacks--there aren't any great hiking trails close by. You have to drive to Acadia National Park to find a good hiking trail. There are a few more in the area that are not in the national park in the area, but it's at least 10-20 miles to get to them if you don't want to hassle with Acadia crowds. There aren't any good bicycle trails nearby. You can find ATV trails more easily than bike trails. HOWEVER, Sparky is still researching a couple of things that were mentioned in the glossy photo literature that always captures the imagination and tends to be a little exaggerated sometimes. If the statement about trails and hikes needs changing, you'll be the first to hear it right here! Sparky has been checking out Rails-to-Trails and All Trails and other sources, too. In the meantime, the first nice day, Sparky is going kayaking!

The RV sites are dirt and gravel, more dirt than gravel where we are, so when it rains, which it has been doing a LOT this late July here in Ellsworth, they are muddy and messy! Sparky wants to get a cute pair of rain boots for muddy campgrounds! We're glad our site is marked with boulders on the side so nobody will run off the road and into us

because we are right at the edge site of the park exit AND the dumping station. (It hasn't been too bad, says E.) The dumping station is where people dump their sewage holding tanks into a central location in the ground before traveling to another destination, just in case you were wondering what a dumping station is. The smell DOES carry sometimes, we've noticed, but it doesn't last long. Thank goodness!

Because we are so big and it's peak camping time, Thousand Trails Patten Pond did not have a 50 amp site available that was big enough to hold us, so we have a 30 amp site. This means we can only run ONE AC, (we have two) which is ok, because temps are in the seventies during the day, and sixties at night, BUT we have to watch which appliances run at the same time to avoid circuit overloads and tripping the breaker at the post. We have a list that we refer to occasionally, lest we forget how many amps all our "stuff" uses, but most of the time, we know how to manage our electrical load so the circuit breaker won't trip. Here's a link for RVers if they'd like to check what they have and it's electrical demand: https://www.lilacresort.com/appliance-amperage-draw-chart/

What have we done since we got here? Well, we drove to Bar Harbor one day when the weather was nice, in our big dually truck. It was just as we remembered every July that we have visited cute and quaint and beautiful BUT--super busy, heavy heavy traffic, and driving the dually thru town reminded us of the first time we came to Bar Harbor and Eldy almost had a heart attack. The GPS guided us in our first motorhome WITH THE CAR IN TOW down the main streets of Bar Harbor on July 4th. Little did Sparky know, there were TWO streets of the same name and the GPS gave her the wrong one. Eldy kept saying, "This CAN'T be right!" over and over, and Sparky kept saying, "That's what the GPS says!" We were crawling through the center of town with cars parked on both sides and it was SCARY. We were new at driving an RV with a car in tow. We thought someone would hit us or we would hit them, but we didn't. Today was almost the same. We saw a parked dually truck with the driver's mirror smashed into the side of the truck. That was it for Eldy, and back out of town we went. Parking is a nightmare in downtown Bar Harbor and even more so for a really big truck with big fenders like ours. It would be better to take a trolley next time or park just outside of town on a side street up the hill and walk back down to town. We HAVE to try lobster Mac and cheese for Eldy. There is a restaurant in Bar Harbor that has the most amazing lobster Mac and cheese ever!

We were going to stop by the visitor's center as we came into Bar Harbor, but at 10:00 in the morning, the line was already out the park and into the highway waiting to drive in. It's so crowded at Acadia, you have to have a scheduled time to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain! Hope the trails are not like that! Maybe if Sparky picks a really difficult trail, it won't be too crowded. (Maybe if Sparky picks a really difficult trail, I will be having to call the ranger because she ran into problems! says a worried Eldo.) He worries too much, me thinks.

Ellsworth is going to be a quiet, not too eventful a stay we think, and that's ok...Sparky hopes to get in a hike or two at Acadia IF we can get to the visitor's center really early when they first open. So for now...we will see you again next time. Thanks for reading along....