Bridge Climb and Thunder Hole

Pumpkin Patch RV Park
Hermon, Maine

Yesterday we drove down to Acadia National Park.  It was pretty crowded but we were lucky to always find a parking place when we needed one.

There were beautiful views no matter where you looked.  It had been about 50 years since we last drove up Cadillac Mountain, but not much had changed.










This is Thunder Hole, where the water travels up a narrow channel and then crashes against an indentation in the rocks.  The resulting sound (thunder) and spray entertains all the visitors.  The photo at the visitor center was much more dramatic than my photos but I learned that it doesn't really "thunder" except at high tide during a hurricane.  I wonder how many hurricanes they get in Maine.

We ended the day in Bar Harbor where we even found a parking place on the street for the truck.  Since we have been in New England, we have seen lobster rolls advertised at McDonald's.  I don't know if every McDonald's in the country has them this summer or just the ones in New England, but I think I'd rather get my lobster from a place that doesn't have a drive-thru.

It was raining fairly hard this morning so we didn't leave the RV until after lunch.  We took a short drive down to Prospect, Maine to visit the first Fort Knox.

Yesterday was the Pirate Festival but the Pirate ship Roo was still there today.














This fort is a lot like Ft Adams in Rhode Island only this one is much smaller.  It was under construction for about 25 years and never completely finished due to the difficulty getting funds authorized by congress.

On another trip east, we visited the DuPont Powder Mills in Wilmington, Delaware.  Explosions were so frequent at the powder mills that DuPont had to offer death benefits to get workers.

Next to Fort Knox is the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.

This bridge the only bridge in the Western Hemisphere with an observatory at the top.  The difference between this bridge "climb" and the one we did at the Sidney Harbor Bridge in Australia was this bridge has an elevator that takes visitors up one of the supports to 420 feet above the river.  The only climbing was the stairs to the top two floors.

 










In order to have unobstructed views from the top, the elevator stops two floors from the top and a stairway goes up the last two floors. The entire observation area is glass walled.  The elevator is so fast and smooth that it doesn't seem possible that you have traveled so far up the bridge.









I'm not admitting to getting older but we were very happy to see that elevator - I think our bridge climbing days are over.