Acadia National Park

We must have the shadiest campsite in the park, A10. Normally good; bad for using our solar panels to charge our Jackery battery. I said, after dealing with ice at Yellowstone last year, I was buying a Dometic camping fridge. Which we did, using an Amazon card for a 5% rebate and having a 20% off coupon. Still about $1500 for the setup. Not having soggy cold food: priceless. Fortunately, the Tacoma has an AC outlet in the bed, so we plug either the fridge or the battery in when we drive. We can also charge phones, iPads, and Grant’s hearing aides from either battery or car. Not exactly camping like my parents did.

We have cell service at our site. I suspect this is more a bleed over from all the nearby towns rather than the National Park Service having added towers. This means I can read downloaded library books on my iPad while lying on my cot. Yes, we’ve added cots to our baggage, thank goodness, (even though I find mine pretty uncomfortable), because there is no way I could get up from a sleeping bag on the ground. We also bought a screen room that goes over the picnic table: sun, rain and bug shield. Very nice. Our Coleman Instant Tent lived up to its name because all we had to do is stake out the bottom and grab the attached poles to pop it right up. My only complaint is that the sides, unlike the front and back, don’t have loops to stake out so rain pools where the walls meet the floor. I claim I’ll add them when we get home. Could be true. As is the thought to add extra zipper pulls to the screen house.

Cell service means I could make last-minute Cadillac Mountain parking reservations on the recreation.gov website, which we needed to drive up to the top. Done. I also scored a sunrise parking space. I had to be online exactly 10:00 AM, when the spaces went live. Many years of trying to get Bahia Honda cabins served me well. Now we just have to get up at 3:00 tomorrow morning and drag ourselves up there to enjoy the first light to strike the US. Grant says it will be raining. He hopes. That evening, I want to stay up to see the stars since it’s a new moon. Grant is counting on rain to get to bed at a decent time. These long northern summer days wear us out. Now I understand why some tents are advertised as dark tents. Not a need in Florida.

Cell service also means I could set up a Marriage Enrichment Zoom meeting to say goodbye to our dear friend Kip who has stage four pancreatic cancer. He and wife Kristine started our group more than 30 years ago, when they decided they would prefer a more local group, rather than driving to Miami once a month. Lucky for us. 

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