In Which We Find Out That Stephen King Does Not Exaggerate

Irises at Asticou Azalea Garden
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We spent the entire day today driving 'round the "Loop Road" in Acadia, which is pretty much the requisite first-thing-to-do here.  Even the 15-minute film in the visitor's center admits that there isn't really anything TO Acadia except the scenery, so what you do here is a) drive the loop road and look at scenery, b) take some hikes and look at the scenery, c) ride a bike and look at scenery, d) take a boat ride and look at the scenery, or e) ride a horse/hire a carriage and, you guessed it, look at scenery.  In order to decide which of b-e you want to do, a is a good starting place.  The only problem with that today is that the whole coast was socked in with dense fog.  The host at the B&B said that they've been saying all summer that the Stephen King fog is hovering here, and she keeps waiting to hear that some tourists have disappeared into it.

Japanese Motif
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(If you haven't read Stephen King's story "The Mist," I can tell you it is one of his creepier ones.  And a whole bunch of people get scooped up and somehow consumed by the dense fog.  If you like Stephen King, you'll love this one!)

The host at the B&B said that they've been saying all summer that the Stephen King fog is hovering here, and she keeps waiting to hear that some tourists have disappeared into it.

So we drove around the loop road anyway, but we saw pretty much exactly what you would expect to see in a dense fog:  the headlights of other drivers and not much else.  I took a bunch of photos, but only a very few of "landscapes" (read "fogscapes"); the photo-taking opportunities were so grim I had to resort to taking pictures of people.  The rest of the photos are of things only a few feet away from me, and most of those are the same shot taken a half-dozen times at different shutter speeds, trying to get enough but not too much light.  Glare off of fog ruins photos.

One of the Best Views of the Day
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I've posted an array that sums up the day.  First photo:  the scenic view from one of the loop road overlooks.  This shows the whole eastern coast of the island.  I won't bother posting any more of those (I think I only took one more!), as they all looked exactly the same.  Look at that, and you get the idea.

Other sights we "saw":

A nature center with a small but very nice little garden in which volunteers have planted and maintain a whole collection of the wildflowers that grow in the park so visitors can learn what they are seeing.  There we saw one of the very few wild critters of the day (not counting homo sapiens):  a green froggy.  I append his portrait.

Bubble Pond, where the sun came oh-so-briefly out.
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Sand Beach.  This is the only "sand" beach in the park, and is ordinarily wall-to-wall.  Yesterday, the air temperature was about 62, the water temperature somewhere between 50 and 60, and you can see that there was still a crowd of stupid people frolicking in the waves.  Judging by the incessant wailing and the propensity of those people to turn blue, it was bloody cold.  As we were leaving, I heard one 8-ish-year-old boy advise another that he (the other) "really, really don't want to go in the water."  As icicles were forming on the speaker's ears, I'd have been inclined to believe him.  You can see from the photos that that close to the sea one could actually SEE that there IS a sea there.  Oddly, when we got to the top of the hill overlooking that beach, we could see SOMETHING like a vista, but just inside that little inlet.  The visibility was better up there than actually on the beach; go figure.  But it wasn't better further along outside that protected bay.

Restful Spot near the Japanese Sand Garden in Asticou
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Next stop:  a renowned three-arch bridge.  We had the mileage indicator to tell us where it was; nevertheless, we almost drove right past it, as it was shrouded in dense fog.  You’ll love the photo, though you may have to take my word for it that there’s a bridge in there.

We next stopped at Jordan Pond House where, since the 19th century, people have sat on the lawn and drunk special Jordan House tea and eaten popovers.  We had just had lunch, and so didn't do either, but I took a picture of a bridge (only had to wait while one huge family group of about 12 people stood on the bridge and took every combination-permutation they could think of of themselves with--you guessed it--fog in the background, and then decided to sit on the bridge wall while they discussed what to do next.  "Go see fog," seemed like the only possible course of action).  We may go back tomorrow for the tea and popovers, as our B&B host says that that is a “must do.”

Sand Garden at Asitcou
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The sun came out very briefly—mostly, it seemed, in the higher elevations of the park—so you will see a few photos in which you can actually see water and trees and horizons.  Notice, however, that in the photo from the top of Cadillac Mountain, you can see the top of Cadillac Mountain, but the famous panoramic view  is non-existent.

We ended the day at Asticou Azalea Garden, a free botanic garden blending Japanese and Western styles.  This at least consisted entirely of close-up looking, so there are some nice photos from there.

Another Pretty Bridge
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Tomorrow:  heavy rain predicted all day!  Joy!