Goodbye Acadia. It was a great week.
Week 1 of my 2-week vacation has come to a close. **Exaggerated Sigh**. It was REALLY hard to leave yesterday. Acadia has become my #1 favorite place, unseating Disney. Talk about a contradiction. How can I be in love with 2 so VERY different places?
I love Acadia first and foremost because of the quiet. Sure, there are a LOT of people up there. Parking can be tough, and downtown Bar Harbor is always elbow-to-elbow. But once you hit the trails, the world falls away. Even just a few feet into a wooded trail, you get a sense of isolation. All you can hear are the birds, all you can smell is pine.
When I’m hiking alone there’s a glorious expanse of time to get lost in my thoughts. When I’m hiking with one of the kids, there’s a sense of confidentiality that lends itself to discussions of both the silliest of topics and the most serious.
And the air… it’s hard to describe. You don’t think too much about the air you’re breathing unless it’s either really bad or really good. Back home, I rarely give it a thought. But up there, I find myself noticing several times a day how very clear the air is. It’s always fresh and crisp, with a perpetual sea breeze keeping you cool. And my lungs certainly know the difference. I can hike, bike or paddles for hours without a single complaint from my usually pathetic, asthmatic lungs. All that exercise, and I didn’t touch my inhaler once last week.
Disney, on the other hand, is a very different experience. A Disney vacation is, in many ways, the anti-Acadia. Where the best attractions at Acadia are the wildest, most natural ones, the best attractions at Disney are marvels of human engineering.
The Imagineers at Disney plan each attraction down to the minutest detail. As you approach any given attraction, if you’re paying attention you’ll see dozens of little details that are intended to set the mood. The surface materials on the walkway may change from what looks like a rough cobblestone-and-dirt pathway to a manicured-but-aged concrete walkway complete with authentic-looking cracks. The landscaping changes, the building facades change. In many places, the designers have created items that look old and run down. You might come across a snack shack that looks like a broken down truck, for example. See a mud-splatter on the truck? I guarantee it’s painted on. Every little detail is orchestrated to immerse you in this particular attraction, and it’s that immersion that I love.
Strange, right, how my 2 favorite places can be so very different from each other? The wild and natural setting of Acadia and the every-moment-engineered setting of Disney. I don’t know how to explain the disparity. I like what I like.
And so I said goodbye to Acadia yesterday, and I’m afraid I didn’t do it very gracefully. I was decidedly grumpy, translating all my sadness into anger, as I’m prone to do. All the other drivers were idiots, the curb that scrapped my tire was poorly designed, the GPS was conspiring against me. I owe my kids an apology. They made the mistake of choosing to ride with me instead of with their Dad. It was a LONG ride. I’m going to have to buy them ice cream sundaes today to make it up to them.
Today is better, if for no other reason than its 1 day closer to my next trip to Acadia. That’s the way it always is with me. The last day of my vacation is a day of mourning, but the next day is the first day of planning my next adventure. There’s next summer’s vacation to think about, maybe a visit to my Dad in Florida this fall, maybe a visit to my brother in California this winter? Maybe I can convince my Dad to try kayaking. I’ll bet there are some great hiking trails in Santa Cruz. The next adventure is never far off with me.
And at least I’m still on vacation. A couple of days of sitting on the beach with a good book is just the thing to sooth my soul right now.
Kimba
Photos: Martin, Kimberlee. August 2016.
© Kimberlee Martin, 2016. All rights reserved.