The Maine Shore

Which state has more islands than any other—5280 to be exact? Hawaii? No.
Alaska? No.
It’s Maine. Mark and I plan to tour the parks along the coast this week of Labor Day.

Our first stop the morning of our first, full day in Maine is Owl’s Head Lighthouse. We arrive before 7:30 a.m. yet see that the lighthouse is gated, and the gate is locked. Behind the lighthouse is the keeper’s house, and the keeper and his little schnauzer come out as Mark and I wander around taking pictures. The keeper invites us up to the top of the lighthouse even though it has been closed to the public since 9/11/01.

We have a clear view from up top this September morning and see a couple sail boats in the bay and a big clipper ship passing right in front of us heading in from sea. We thank the keeper and walk down the small stone steps, Mark almost tripping over the dog.

Our next stop is Fort Knox, built “during a period of tension between the United Kingdom and the United States over issues about the Canadian border. The intent was to defend the Penobscot River and Bangor, Maine” (Wikipedia.org). However, the place never saw any action, and in fact, its granite construction is—and will forever be—incomplete. Still, the fort is huge, so big we get lost wandering amongst its three levels of secret passageways, looking through the canon sights aimed out to the water.

After a picnic lunch and more than an hour at Fort Knox, it’s east to Acadia National Park, the first national park consisting entirely of donated land. As always, the first stop is the visitors’ center, where we see the day’s final showing of the park’s 15-minute introductory film. Then a ranger helps us with a park map, some trail guides and an Acadia National Park newspaper, all so we can plan our visit.

Acadia is in Bar Harbor, Maine, and the quaint, main street in Bar Harbor is packed with gift shops, surf shops, tourist offices and restaurants. We have reservations close for two nights. The first night Mark and I dine al fresco while listening to a jazz band. He has a steak; I enjoy a green salad with walnuts and raisins and a cup of lobster bisque.

We start the next morning on the Southwest Harborside. At Echo Lake Beach we park to hike the Beech Mountain trail. Though it’s up a mountain, it is only a 1.4-mile loop, so we decide not to encumber ourselves with water bottles.

The trail is marked moderate but it borders on strenuous and is littered with rocks the size of grapefruits and watermelon to refrigerator size. I don’t like climbing the metal rungs somehow sturdily fastened to the mountain, but I either go up them or go back. So I climb.

We are relieved to reach the top, and this eagle’s-eye view of Echo Lake Beach, where we stood less than an hour before looking up at where we’re standing now, is awesome.

Continuing the loop, we see the parking lot not too far away. Finally at Beech Mountain parking area, we are relieved the climb is over—before realizing our car is in the Echo Lake Beach lot. A bit thirsty, we continue on in what we think is the right direction and pass a couple with a map, who tell us we’re way off. Rather than backtrack, we aim in another direction and get lost.

We find the trail and get lost again and then refind the trail, admit defeat and head down the trail we headed up three and a quarter hours and about six miles earlier, meaning we have to climb down the ladders that I didn’t enjoy climbing up, clamber over rocks and brace ourselves for the steepness of the descent. We try not to think about how hungry and thirsty we are.

Finally at Echo Lake Beach lot, we collapse into the car and rest, doors wide, and each drain an Aquafina. It’s not even noon yet, and we’re nearly spent.

Finding enough strength to depress the gas pedal, Mark drives us to Pretty Marsh, our picnic lunch destination, however, there’s not a marsh in site. But the coastal location is pretty, and we sit at a wood table and eat our sausage, cheese and crackers undisturbed. After lunch we stop along a beach to see the natural sea wall, a bunch of rocks jutting into the ocean. The sea is going out, leaving many small pools in its retreat, undoubtedly filled with tiny sea creatures. But we are too exhausted from our earlier hiking fiasco to investigate them much.

In our room before 2 p.m., we shower and nap before heading to Main Street for some shopping, pizza and ice cream our final night.

Acadia National Park kicked our butts but the kitchy, cool Main Street of Bar Harbor heals all wounds.

Meteor Crater in Arizona

I am confident that after a year of reading "Hints on Health" you have achieved or are on your way to a fit you. As my two main passions are staying in shape and traveling and last year I wrote health topics, this year the column articles will take you along with my husband, Mark, and me as we visit Our Nation’s Treasures.
When you read “Nation’s Treasures,” you likely think of National Parks, like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Acadia, and I’ll take you there, but some of our nation’s treasures are on private lands or are managed by individual states. We’ll stop to see what’s offered in these places too.
A picture will accompany each article, and if you want to see more, simply visit my blog, http://www.ournationstreasures.blogspot.com/. On the blog I will post each article that appears in the paper along with several pictures of the highlighted treasure.
Our first stop this year is Meteorite Crater off I-40 in Arizona, between Winslow and Flagstaff. A kitschy gift shop and an RV park mark the exit, the only development for miles in both directions on the highway. The crater is just south of the interstate at the end of a straight road through desert.
At the crater, Mark shells out the $12 per person fee for us to enter, and we roam the museum a couple minutes while we wait to catch the 9 a.m. show about the history and discovery of the crater.
We learn that in the late 1800s a fellow working for the government determined the crater to be the result of volcanic activity. However, the crater showed no evidence of volcanic ash or rocks so in 1902 a man named Daniel Barringer devised a theory: the crater was the result of a meteor colliding with the earth. And this time there was proof.
In fact, on display in the museum and open for touching, is, at 2 feet in diameter and 1400 pounds, the largest of the three main pieces of the meteorite that created the crater. The other two pieces of the 150-feet-in-diameter meteorite are in museums in Chicago and New York. This meteorite, and all meteorites, is mostly iron, a scant 7 percent nickel with trace amounts of “other.”
We learned that a heavenly body of this type that hits the earth is called a meteorite. While it’s still up in space, it’s called a meteoroid and once it hits our atmosphere, we call it a meteor. We learned that asteroids are minor planets, and comets are masses of gases.
After the film, Mark and I and eight others accompany a ranger out for a one-mile rim walk. The crater is so big: 4000 feet (three quarters mile) across and 550 feet deep. I find it interesting that the crater used to be 700 feet deep. How did it lose 150 feet? Wind erosion.

In the 1950s astronauts trained in the crater for their eventual moon landing. In 1964 a Cessna crashed into the side. The two pilots within, simply curious to see the crater, both were injured but not fatally.
After the rim walk, Mark and I finish our tour of the museum and walk out to the observation deck and look through scopes trained on tunnel openings, the astronaut model planting the American flag at the floor of the crater and the wreckage of the Cessna .
Daniel Barringer, the first to come up with the meteorite theory, worked at the site for 27 years so gained rights to the land. It’s still in the family.