Acadia National Park

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

John Keat's words come true in Acadia. Last weekend, I visited the Acadia National park located on the rugged coast of Maine. This is one of the most beautiful parks I ever visited. Compared to Western national park standards, Acadia is a small park. What it lacks in size, it makes up with amazing beauty. This is one of the most visited National parks in US and it is very evident as soon as we stepped into the park.

We started for Acadia on Saturday morning. It took some 5 hours to reach the park. The weather in Maine is unpredictable. They say: If you don't like the weather, justwait a minute. The whole place was covered in fog when we entered. We felt that this weather only added to the beauty. We started exploring Acadia by taking the park loop road . This spectacular 27-mile scenic drive explores Acadia National Park and covers most of thebest places there. Our first stop was the Cadillac Mountian. This is the highest point along the North Atlantic seaboard and is the first place to view sunrise in the United States. The park is full of breathtaking vista points and we covered most of them. By evening, we all were dead tired and decided to check into the hotel and relax for a while. Our hotel had a swimming pool facing the Atlantic ocean. We had an option of either swimming in the pool or in the Atlantic ocean itself . The whole experience of getting into Atlantic ocean and swimming in this pool overlooking the ocean was awesome.

Maine is a gorgeous state. It is very different from most of the other states in US. Our hotel was located in the city, Bar Harbor. It is a quintessential Maine town with a harbor, great restaurants and special mystique. Maine is also very famous for Blueberries. You get everything in Blueberry flavor from Icecream, pies, jam to soda and wine. I think the Blueberry pie and the ice cream are the best.

We started our next day by taking the horse drawn carriage ride. One of the most unique and interesting features of Acadia National Park is the network of 57 miles of gravel and crushed rock carriage roads built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. I was just amazed to know that the world's richest man spent 30 yrs building these roads at that time. But, it's a totally different and wonderful experience taking the carriage tour into the woods and escaping the automobile. The carriage was pulled by 2 horses and each weigh 1 ton. The power they generate is much more than 2hp. After that, we wanted to do some hiking. I found out that the hike to the Beehive mountain is the best. But, somehow we missed the trial and ended up hiking the Gorham mountain. The 360' view from the mountian summit is worth the trouble we took to hike it. This is one of the most scenic and toughest hikes I ever did. You will definitely find solitude by exploring quieter, more secluded mountain paths like these and thats exactly what we found. We were totally exhausted after the hike and we headed to Bar Harbor again for some nice lunch and Blueberry icecream for the final time.

All the beauty of Maine comes together in Acadia National Park. Even though it was mostly rainy and cloudy, we had wonderful time in Maine. I 've never been in such a peaceful place. I am definitely going to Acadia again and next time I will hike the Beehive mountain and visit the schoodic peninsula.

All in all, Acadia is gorgeous and it should be at the top of everyone's “must-see” list.