Acadia Bridges

Brian and I have made several trips to Acadia National Park since we began RVing eleven years ago. It's always been one of our favorite places and is particularly special to Brian. He was stationed in Winter Harbor on Schoodic Point while in the Navy, don't ask how many years ago. Schoodic is part of Acadia NP but not in the main part of the park by Bar Harbor.

This year we decided to focus our time on hiking the Carriage Roads. Between 1913 and 1940 John D. Rockefeller Jr. financed and directed the construction of 57 miles of Carriage Roads for the use of hikers, bikers, horse riders, and horse-drawn carriages.  There are 17 bridges on the Carriage Roads and each one of them is unique. We had some really nice hikes and gave my new hip a pretty good workout. Following are some of the more interesting bridges we hiked to.

Cliffside Bridge was one of the last Carriage Road bridges to be completed in 1932. It doesn't cross a stream or a road but rather is a creative solution to a difficult engineering problem. Spanning roughly 250 feet with the appearance of an English castle, it hugs the steep cliffs of Penobscot Mountain. There are several viewing platforms on this bridge, as well as on some of the others, that are a good place to take a break and enjoy the view. 

Hemlock Bridge is named for the hemlock trees surrounding it and was one of the most expensive to build.

Hadlock Brook Bridge depends on spring runoff for water flow, not much flowing when we were there.

Waterfall Bridge was a favorite. The waterfall can be seen under the bridge arch and there was enough water flowing this time of year for some brave souls to get wet.

Amphitheater Bridge was one of our longest hikes. It's known as one of the 'crown-jewel' bridges of the carriage road system. Completed in 1931, it is also one of the longest bridges (245 feet). The stonework is pink granite and is amazing because of the precision work and patterns of raised pieces.

Cobblestone Bridge is the oldest of Rockefeller's carriage-road bridges, and it is the only bridge made completely with cobblestones. It's one of those things that make you wonder 'how did they do that?' Future bridges were made with cut pieces of granite so this bridge is really unique.

With three arches and four turret-style viewing platforms at the top, Duck Brook Bridge is the tallest and probably the most ornate carriage road bridge. Completed in 1929, it was also the most expensive bridge to construct.

Penobscot Bridge

Since bridges seemed to be a theme for this portion of the journey, we decided visit the Penobscot Bridge which is near Acadia National Park. We have gone over this bridge several times while traveling north on US 1 to Ellsworth, where we stay to visit Acadia. There's an observation room at the top of one of the bridge towers that looked like it was worth checking out. It offered some spectacular views.

Florida Cruising and Music

We spent some time visiting with Brian's family while in Florida. His sister Laurel lives in Port St Lucie, and we were able to park in her driveway. Brian put in a full hookup for us when we stayed there a few years ago and it worked out well for us this year too. She's a great hostess and it was nice to spend some time there.

Brian's brother Bruce and his wife Eileen live pretty close to Laurel in the Stuart/Palm City area. We were lucky enough to get a river cruise on the St Lucie River in Bruce's boat.

When we were scuba diving we were pretty interested in identifying all the different fish and we were pretty good at it. We find ourselves doing the same thing with birds now. While on the river we saw some birds but the only one I got a decent picture of was this osprey. It's pretty cool how many states we have seen them in.

After we got off the boat, Bruce took me on a golf cart tour on the way back to their house. We saw all sorts of birds including this one which we called the mystery bird for a while. After doing some searching we think it's a tricolor heron with breeding plumage. I won't be offended if anyone has a better ID.

This is a little blue heron.

Another limpkin. We saw these on our Rainbow River trip as well.

Bruce and I saw a flash of pink over by one of the ponds and it turned out to be a roseate spoonbill. Pretty obvious where it got its name.

These cute little ducks with the orange beaks are black belly whistling ducks.

These odd ducks (excuse the expression) are Muscovy ducks. We saw them at John Prince Park near Boynton Beach when we move the Bus down there to visit our friend Chuck.

Brian and his friend Chuck go back to (different) high school days in New York and we always try to visit Chuck while we're in Florida (previously California).  He's a bass player and has played with many different artists. These days he's staying very busy playing with different bands in the Boynton Beach/Boca Raton area. We were pretty happy that we got to see him play several times while we were there. One night we went to the Fish Depot Bar and Grill and not only listened to some good music but had a good dinner as well. That's Chuck in the baseball cap.

We stayed an extra day because Chuck was doing his regular Monday night gig at the Funky Biscuit where he is one of the Funky Biscuit All Stars. These guys are real pros and play backup to visiting musicians on Monday Night Jam Night. Chuck was backing up John Carey on harmonica the night we went. For music fans - yes that is a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie speaker.   http://www.johncareyband.com/

This is the first time I've uploaded a video. Hopefully it works for a little sample of the performance we saw ... 

http://www.funkybiscuit.com/

Rollin' on the River

After getting the Bus all fixed up in Red Bay we moved on to Florida. We spent a week or so with our friends Denny at Patti at their place north of Panama City.

So good to see them again and catch up on things. Their property is close to 5 acres and they had a spot near the house for us to have a full hookup, which was great.

Our next stop was at RV friends Paul and Helen who live in Inverness, close to Ocala and part of Florida's Nature Coast. Once again we were able to park on Bus on their property and have an electric hookup.

Paul and Helen invited us to take a cruise on the Rainbow River in their boat. The river is fed by a spring so the water was super clear.  Beautiful day for a cruise and lots to see.
Captain Paul at the helm below.

There were numerous cormorants and anhingas. Both put their wings out to dry and are hard to tell apart from a distance. Brian did his research and we learned the difference between the two.
There are several anhingas in the tree below. The female anhinga has a light colored neck, the male's is dark.

A cormorant drying its wings off -

Since anhingas mostly inhabit freshwater we have seen them in Arizona as well as other areas of the country. They have a longer neck than the cormorant, their bill is slender, long and pointed, and they have a long fan-like tail.

Anhingas are also known as the snake bird for the way they look while swimming.

Cormorants are found mostly in coastal waters and rarely fresh water, and have a shorter neck compared to the anhinga, Their bill is long and curved with a sharp hook, and they have a short, stiff tail.

We saw quite a few herons, both hunting and flying.

We saw another bird that was a new one to both of us called a limpkin. It's known as the crying bird because of its weird call which is very distinctive.

I got a kick out of this owl scowling at the anhinga - obviously it wasn't a deterrent in terms of keeping the anhinga off the dock.

There were lots of turtles,

an alligator

otters

and people enjoying the river as well.