Two days ago we left NH and drove 212 miles to Maine- state number 47 for me. The drive was very pretty through the northern part of the state along Route 2. We drove North East and then South around Mt Washington. As we got to Gorham we could tell this was the tourist town of the area. The Auto Road to the mountain is near here on the East side of the Mountain. It was a beautiful sunny day and we could see the mountain peaks. If we were towing a vehicle I would have driven to the top just for the views.

On our way, Javier requested to try Elevation burger. There was one near on our route. I saw there was a Walmart near it and that is always helpful with parking a big vehicle. It turns out Wal-Mart parking lot was right behind a plaza with all sorts of places. While the boys went to check out Elevation burger, the girls went for lunch at Panera. The verdict from the boys was - it was not that good and they took so long with the food, Gil actually got a haircut next door while waiting.

We arrived at our campground in the town of Trenton, between Ellsworth and Mt Desert Island and found out their advertised shuttle from the campground to the Gateway Center stops running at 6. That is not going to work for us since we want to be able to have dinner out some of the time, so we decided to rent a car. I began to second guess my choice of campground, the other campgrounds are directly on the shuttle route.

The next day, after a late start, we drove to the visitor center, watched the documentary and purchased our pass. I read in the information about the park, they recommend we use the Island Explorer shuttle not to deal with traffic and parking. We chose to visit the lighthouse in the Southwest Harbor first. For that we had to take the shuttle at the visitor center to the Village Green located in Bar Harbor to then transfer shuttles to the one going to SH. We quickly realized that the shuttles were not going to work for us. There is a long wait to transfer from one to another, so we decided to go back to the visitor center, get the car and drive to the places ourselves.

Before we left Bar Harbor, we checked the tide schedule for our hike the next day. We drove to the lighthouse and also took a hike around the area. Due to the later start and all the running around we did before we decided to drive ourselves, we did not have time for much more. We made one more stop for a short hike and called it a day.

I have to be honest, so far I am not that impressed with the park. Not sure if it is because it feels disjointed since it goes in and out of populated areas. Let's see if my feelings improves as we get to explore more.

Driving around I got a chance to see the campgrounds that are on the shuttle route, and now I am convinced we made the right decision for a campground. The campgrounds on the route are quite distant from the park, and the shuttles would have been slow, still requiring a car. We would have paid a lot more and the sites look more cramped.