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shawmutt

Aquarium Advice Addict
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Dec 21, 2002
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Greencastle, PA
I'm back, and exhausted. What a trip! Just got finished skimming the 9,662 posts--good thing this site can survive without me :D.

We went to Connecticut first, had a great time with some old friends and hung out with family.

We drove to New Hampshire next. We had an awesome campsite right next to a stream at the Crawford Notch campgrounds. We set our tent up and did a little sight-seeing and hiking. My wife spotted a moose and we stopped so I could film it. We went back to the campsite, I bought wood from the campground store and had a nice fire going by nightfall. We roasted marshmallows and had a couple drinks. We were tired from all the hiking we did that day, so I just put all our food in our cooler and closed it tightly and went to bed for the night. About five the next morning, my wife woke me up, whispering that she heard a noise. I tried to unzip the tent, but the zipper got caught in the fabric. I peeked through the little I did get unzipped, and saw a huge black bear digging through our cooler! I clapped my hands loudly and shouted “get outta here!” The bear took off. I threw a pair of pants on and set about freeing myself from my nylon prison. Finally the zipper got unstuck, and I poked my head out into the cold morning air. The bear was back, eyeing me suspiciously while munching on my marshmallows. I slowly stood up, and edged over the picnic table. The plan was to reach the picnic table and bang some pots together to scare him away. Evidently he had enough, because he snorted and ran off into the woods, marshmallow bag hanging from his mouth. I put my cooler back together, and my wife and I started walking back to the car to put it away. We saw the bear about 40 feet off the trail, calmly munching on someone else’s cooler. We walked to the car and I put my cooler away. I grabbed my camcorder, hoping to get a brief shot of the thief. We walked back to where he was; I turned on the camcorder and raised it to get a shot, and the bear hissed at me! I was so unnerved I almost dropped my camcorder! I was not expecting a hiss from a bear. We backed off quickly and left him alone. The second night I walked my cooler back to the car.

We climbed Mt. Washington on the third day; it took us ten and a half hours to climb up and down again. It was my wife’s first climb and my third. The next stop was Acadia National forest in Maine.

I won’t waste a bunch of time describing Acadia. It was a tourist trap. Everything was overpriced. We drove down to Bar Harbor were appalled at how busy the whole place was. I was hoping for a quiet town atmosphere and some good food. We got out as quick as we could and headed to the state park. We pulled on this one way street that started the nature loop, and drove for about fifteen minutes, thinking we’d at least see a bit of nature and get some good pictures. We came upon these booths in the middle of the road. In order to get a pass and drive further, we’d have to shell out twenty bucks! Now mind you, this is fifteen minutes down a one way road, there was no way out. I just flatly told them I’m not paying twenty bucks for a couple hours worth of driving. They directed me to this gravel road behind the booths, and I finally found my way out. We spent the rest of the day in our overpriced hotel room and left the next morning for New Brunswick, Canada.

New Brunswick was great. My wife had never been in Canada, and she was delighted by it. We spent the first few days visiting family around the Woodstock area, and then took off to St. Andrews. St. Andrews was everything I wanted Acadia to be. It was a quaint town, not too busy, and everything was reasonably priced. We got a really nice bay front suite for a hundred Canadian dollars a night (about $80 American). There was a lot to love about St. Andrews; I’d definitely go there again. We went on a three-hour whale watching tour and saw a couple finbacks, porpoises, and a bunch of seals.

I’ll have a few pictures soon, my wife had to send them out to get developed (yes we’re still using film :p).
 
It sounds like you had a great trip! I would have been SO scared to see that bear eating my food. Welcome back!
 
Welcome back, sounds like a great trip. Did you get over to Nova Scotia or PEI at all?
 
It's nice to have you back, Shawmutt! I'm glad you enjoyed your trip, and escaped unscathed from the bear! 8O

Thanks for mentioning your experience with Acadia National Park. I want to go up there someday, and then also into Canada. (I was at Niagara Falls almost 20 years ago!) So maybe we'll plan just a day at Acadia and the rest of our time, when we do plan this trip, for Canada. I would love to see Nova Scotia!

Toirtis, I think Shawmutt is originally from Canada (Shawmutt, please correct me if I'm wrong! :wink:)
 
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