Park Units 97, 98, 99: Katahdin NM, St. Croix IHS, Acadia NP

We (Jason, Jill, Catherine and I) started our summer road trip from Connecticut after a nice visit with family. Our first day goal was to make it to Millinocket, ME, an 8 hour drive. To break up the trip, we stopped at Lowell National Historic Site, one of our favorite places, and did The River Transformed Tour which is about the engineering of using water to power the factories. We also did the Boots Mill Museum and Mill Girls & Immigrants exhibit. As before, we loved it all!

We arrived in Millinocket late that night, then headed out early this morning for Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. This park is only 2 years old, and when asked for directions to the site, the hotel clerk said, "Oh, I've never been there. I'm not in favor it that!" There was no signage anywhere, and the visitor's center in town wasn't open yet, so we used a Maine map and Google satellite view and headed out to explore.We started down a well-graded gravel road and nervously heeded the warnings to stay out of the way of the logging vehicles (we never did see any). After about 30 minutes on the gravel road, winding through the forest without another vehicle in site, the road got bumpier and rockier, and we came to a few forks in the road. Jason continued to guide us carefully with the sat view and map. We joked about driving in Mario Cart and avoiding the obstacles. Eventually the road narrowed to one lane in deeper woods. I kept whining, "This can't be the way to the park," and Jason would reply, "it is! Only another 1/2 mile...1/4 mile...." After another 30 minutes of carefully working our way through ruts and gullies, and over

large rocks, we stopped. The gully ahead of us was too deep, too rocky, too terrifying in my little Mazda. Oh, did I mention we didn't have a 4-wheel drive car? We then noticed that we had almost no gas. In over an hour, we had still not seen another person. Tired, shaking, and exhausted, we gave up and turned around. An hour later, we were at the visitor's center learning that the road we chose was difficult for even the park 4-wheel drive vehicles! Luckily, we were able to enjoy some of the beautiful waters and woods of Katahdin.

We next drove a few hours southeast to the coast and visited the Saint Croix International Historic Site. This site commemorates the first European settlers in the area. There is a small visitor's center and interpretive trail. The town is lovely with many historic buildings and we had a terrific lunch at Crumbs.

Late afternoon we traveled south a couple hours to the Schoodic Point area of Acadia National Park. We found a picnic area with a beautiful view of the water and sat to do water color paints until sunset. It was peaceful, beautiful, and relaxing! Tomorrow we will visit more of Acadia.