Trees and Travels

     A new endeavor has recently risen in my life. It's not an entirely new idea to me, but it seems far more attainable and realistic than before. This new adventure would involve my boyfriend and me working in one of the many national parks in the U.S. for the summer. A Goal Reborn Angel's Landing, Zion National Park, 2014      Before the beginning of my last year of college, I realized that a career that I could truly imagine myself having would be a job as a park ranger. After I graduated with an only slightly related degree in elementary education, I put in applications at national parks. I found these jobs on  USAjobs.gov . Some of the listings required training that I didn't have. There were some ranger jobs that I qualified for due to my related coursework from college (mostly my science credits). The issue is that I have no experience working in a setting even close to that of a national park. To no surprise, I never got any calls that...

     Finally, my video is finished and uploaded. Can you believe I left my computer on all night while it uploaded to YouTube and it still wasn't finished when I woke up? Anyway, I'll start on a new topic in the next couple days and I plan on having another video up this weekend.  Subscribe  to my YouTube channel please!.

     Now that I've basically chronicled everything I did during my two day Acadia trip, I thought I would mention some attractions and activities that I did not get to do.      One thing that you could do would be to visit the towns surrounding Acadia.  Bar Harbor  in particular would have things for you to do, such as visit many shops and eat at a tasty sea food restaurant. There are numerous other small towns in the area.      Visit some lighthouses. Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse  is the easiest one to get to,  as it is the only one actually on Mt. Desert Island. There are a couple more lighthouses located on the Cranberry Isles.      With that said, you can visit the Cranberry Isles via  ferry . You can also visit other islands that are not part of Acadia but are not far away, but some can only be accessed through charter tours. There are puffins on some of those islands, particularly Machias Seal I...

NPS Acadia hiking info   Getting Around Acadia      One area that one must visit while in Acadia is the Ocean Path. It's 4.4 miles round trip from either Sand Beach or Otter Point, but you don't have walk the whole thing. You can see the main points by parking by Sand Beach and exploring there, then driving to Otter Point and doing your thing there.      We didn't do that though. On the first day we were there, after setting up camp at Blackwoods, we drove to the Fabbri area from Otter Cliff Road to avoid getting on the Park Loop. We saw the Sand Beach area at a different time, as I wrote about in  this post .          The Otter Cliff and Thunderhole areas were very nice. It's no wonder that these spots are some of the most notable and recognized places in Acadia. There are many areas off of the Ocean Path where people walk on the rocks and cliffs. Be careful though; there are slippery areas and rocks may move when you...

      NPS Acadia hiking info   Getting Around Acadia      Continuing on in Acadia, we visited The Jordan Pond House . The park's main gift shop and restaurant are located here. I bought a couple souvenirs here, as the shop was significantly larger than the one at the visitor center.      We went there from the Beehive and Sand Beach, so we were looking for a bit easier hike to relax for a while. We hiked the Jordan Pond Path, which is a 3.2 mile loop around Jordan Pond. The Acadia hiking info site rates the Jordan Pond Path as a moderate hike, but it was definitely on the easier side.     In this picture, the Bubbles are the two mounds in the right-center.       Midway through the hike, we came across the Bubbles Divide Trail. We decided to take it and hike up to South Bubble. North Bubble could have been an option too, since we could have just continued a little farther on the Bubbles Divide and then ...

     Before taking our trip to Acadia, we looked quite a bit at trails and what else we should go visit in the park. Again, see NPS Acadia hiking info  from the Acadia website and Getting Around Acadia  for reference.      Two trails that really caught our eye were the Precipice Trail and the Beehive/Bowl Trails. Unfortunately, the  Precipice Trail  is closed during much of the summer due to the presence of endangered peregrine falcons.      The Beehive Trail did not disappoint though. It has steep climbs, exposed cliffs, a narrow bridge, and iron rungs.      Headed back toward the bottom, you can see people heading up the cliffs of the Beehive. Here's that bridge previously pictured. You can fall right off of that thing!      The hike was pretty short, as the Beehive Trail is only .8 miles. Add some time to get to the trail via the Bowl Trail and return on the Bow...

     Now to move on to the spots we visited in Acadia . . . Here's  NPS Acadia hiking info  from the Acadia website and you can refer to my last post  to use for some reference.      We ended up at Echo Lake as our first stop after visiting the Hulls Cover Visitor Center. The beach is pretty small but it appears to be the only lake swimming area in the park. We saw a few loons swimming around close, which was fun to watch. I'm mad because this is where my junk sports action camera randomly stopped working. I could have got some sweet underwater shots of the loons! Anyway, the beach has a lifeguard too. The water was chilly but definitely a better option than ocean swimming in the area as far as water temperature goes.      The first hike we did in the park was up to Beech Cliff. This was an impromptu hike after visiting Echo Lake Beach and thinking, "Hey, let's go up there!"      Beech Cliff is on the lef...