100,000 Miles and Counting

I woke up at the hotel and turned on the news and found out that there was an earthquake 10 miles north of the hotel. This now makes 2 earthquakes in 6 months that I've been through that I haven't felt. Dang it! Anyway, I got ready and headed out for the day. Along with National Parks, I can't pass up a scenic byway, so I planned to go on a couple and I found one that was only a mile long in Manchester, NH. Apparently I hadn't written myself very good directions because I ended up dead ending at some ball park in a shady part of town. Oh well. I struck out east on the Independence Byway and turned left when I hit the ocean. The New Hampshire coast (all 18 miles of it) was beautiful. I walked along the sand in the Atlantic surf collecting some shells. I took the Coastal Byway all the way up into Maine and the houses were gorgeous (although most were for sale). Very ritzy. Although the coast was beautiful the drive was terrible. It was a Sunday and there were tons of tourists walking and driving around. I like to avoid interstates though so I stuck it out all the way up to Freeport. I went over to the Desert of Maine. I knew it was a tourist trap and would cost money but I thought maybe I could get a picture for it. It was all fenced off and I just caught a peek through the gift shop. It looked like someone just bulldozed some sand in the forests of Maine. I left there and went to L.L. Bean. I knew Freeport was associated with L.L Bean but after going there it's obvious L.L. Bean OWNS Freeport. There's a hunting and fishing store, home store, bike and canoe store, retail store, and outlet store. I went through all of them and ended up buying a coat at the outlet store. I can't resist a great deal. I headed up Route 3 to get to Acadia. On the way, my car hit 100,000 miles. Ever since I started planning the trip I knew I would be hitting the mark somewhere on it so I kept an eye out. Such a milestone. It's kind of sad actually
Acadia was a weird park. Most of the parks out West were started as whole tracts of land but Acadia was cobbled together by summer people donating land. I kept waiting to drive into the park because I kept driving through residential areas. I drove to Seawall campground and set up my tent and had some dinner. It was still light out so I walked across the street to check out the ocean. I'd never seen tide pools before and I had a good time walking over the rocks and seeing what was down there. It was too cloudy for a good sunset so I went back and settled in for the night.