Another Schoodic Ride

 Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Hi Blog!

After our long drive to Philly on the weekend to return William to his parents, and a long day on Monday of exploring Winter Harbor, on Tuesday, we decided to take the bikes back to the Schoodic Peninsula to see the Schoodic Institute. We hadn't visited it with William because William had no intention of visiting anything that remotely resembled school! 

After drying out our kayaks, it was time to hit the trail. We were able to start our ride right from our campsite!

Unfortunately, the weather was not as clear as the first time we had biked the loop. We were faced with both a low marine layer and smoke from the distant wildfires out West.

The Schoodic Peninsula is the only part of Acadia National Park that is on the mainland. The peninsula has a rocky granite shoreline containing many volcanic dikes. 

Here is a picture of the park map. Our campground, Mainstay, is right next to the ferry dock pictured on the left.

As we looked across Winter Harbor, Cadillac Mountain appeared ghostly.

The Winter Harbor ferry brings another group of tourists from Bar Harbor.

The Schoodic Peninsula is home to the former United States Navy base, NSGA Winter Harbor, which has been converted into a National Park Service training center. The Schoodic Institute offers educational experiences in three main fields - Marine, Forest and Bird Ecology. We stopped by their Visitor Center located in Rockefeller Hall. This building was built in 1933 by the National Park Service to house Navy personnel, in an exchange with the Rockefeller family, who wanted Navy land on Acadia peninsula to complete their estate cum national park property there. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. commissioned noted architect, Grosvenor Atterbury, to design the building here on Schoodic Peninsula in the French Norman Revival-style. This is definitely not your typical Park Service Visitor Center.

After learning all about the cool projects various professors and their grad students were working on, we continued our ride to Schoodic Point. 

We considered ourselves lucky having been here with William on a nice day. For these tourists, this is the only view they will get.

Just a few miles back toward the mainland and the fog lifted. We made a quick stop to fuel up on some wild blueberries and then it was back across Schoodic Head to our campground.

The End!

Tomorrow, we move up to Eastport, Maine for more coastal adventures! Stay tuned.