We have been fortunate. For us, the past year and a half was different, tough at times, but mostly business as usual or easy enough to adapt to. The one thing we really missed was traveling. We were so sure when we had to cancel our Maine trip last September that we would be back, and everything else would be back in normal working order too, in 2021—certainly by September 2021.

Having already heard about the record number of visitors to the island and the unprecedented stresses they had placed throughout the summer on already short-staffed and struggling businesses, we decided to try to have few expectations and certainly not to assume we would be visiting the Acadia of the past, of our recent past. We decided to treat it partially as a new location and just see what unfolded each day. Flexibility was a key word for 2020 and, as it turns out, perhaps even more for 2021.

That’s not to say there weren’t undertones of anxiety as we prepared for the trip. And the weather just had to make it worse. While every other day this week was pleasant, beautiful, and sunny, severe storms were predicted for Wednesday afternoon through Thursday morning, precisely the times during which we planned to travel. As we were expected to be in Maine by mid-afternoon Thursday, we didn’t have much leeway as far as departure or travel times.

We were ready earlier than expected and decided to leave the house just after 2:30pm. That’s several hours earlier than usual, but the plan was to attempt to outrun the storm as long as we could. Traffic was heavy the entire way, and we experienced the usual craziness (and some much more extreme than usual) through Connecticut and Massachusetts.

A few weeks ago we came across an interesting-looking Mexican restaurant called El Bandito in Middletown, and had the thought of stopping for a small snack there and maybe even looking for a few of those Middletown puzzle geocaches that we’ve solved but never searched for. But today we decided to skip both in an attempt to keep moving ahead of the storm. Maybe next year, I hope?!

Continuing on, we also bypassed our usual stop at Rein’s Deli in Connecticut, and stopped at the Charlton Plaza in Massachusetts for some gas, coffee, and pathetic burgers from McDonalds (as intended, we had absolutely no expectations, and it’s a good thing we didn’t … enough said).

It was at this point we noticed that, according to the GPS, we could be in Bar Harbor by midnight. Rich started giving some serious thought to just driving straight through rather than sleeping for a few hours at the rest area as we usually do. The storms were predicted to arrive in Maine overnight and linger all day Thursday, and we had no real desire to drive through them on Thursday either.

Rich was feeling alert enough, and after a quick stop at our usual Kittery, Maine rest area, we continued on. By this time, the highways were emptying out and things were so much less stressful. Other than making sure Rich was staying awake, everything went pretty smoothly. Our stop at the rest area and some slowdowns for roadwork delayed us a bit, but we were in Bar Harbor by 1:45am.

That was great, but where to pee and get some rest? Nothing was open in town; we checked the public restrooms at the pier and the park (not too surprised to find that they were locked). My only other thought was to enter the park at Sieur de Monts, where we were lucky to find both the restrooms open (if a bit dirty and buggy) and a dark, quiet place to rest for the remainder of the night. The storms came but only in sharp bursts that sounded like someone turned them on and off with a switch. We had a good rest at the foot of Dorr Mountain.