Acadia Park, not Arcadia Park

We have not been out on any adventures in a couple weeks, so we rented a Acadia Gem EV car to drive through the park. I got 20 percent off, one of the perks of working in Bar Harbor. Plus we could take the dogs with us. We like to do as much as we can with them so they aren’t stuck in the camper all day.

I thought this would be fun, but it didn’t start out so fun. The EV cars only go 25 mph, so it’s basically a dressed up golf cart. You can only take it on certain roads. They provide a map of where you can take it around town and through the park, Acadia National Park, not Arcadia. Somewhere along the start of the trip, I missed a turn and ended up going towards a road we couldn’t be on, so I had to turn around in the middle of the road, which I was already frantic about and Brian was yelling at me saying I was trying to throw him out of the car, blah blah blah, but we eventually made up.

We made it back to the Park Loop Road and drove the entire 27 mile loop. We did not stop at the major attractions that we saw on our 4 hour Trolley tour (there is never any parking), but we did get to stop at some nice pull offs. The main thing I wanted to do was stop at the visitor’s center to get Moxxi and Tucker Bark Ranger tags, but there was no place to park… Maybe I’ll stop on my way home from work one day and get them. I never found the Welcome to Acadia National Park sign either… We have so much more to explore in this park.

After we left the park, we returned the EV Rental and walked around Bar Harbor some. We stopped at Bark Harbor and got some Pup Cakes for Moxxi’s birthday (will post pics the day of her birthday) and we got some treats for ourselves at Pink Pastry. I got a slice of blueberry swirl cheesecake and Brian got a carrot cake cupcake. We didn’t get pictures of our treats, sorry!

It was a fun day after all. The dogs were tired or else we would have walked the shore path to get more photos. They slept the whole way home and slept much of the evening and through the whole night.

We have also been busy planning our winter route. We were thinking of doing all the southern states then making our way up into Nevada to see one of my oldest besties, then making our way up to Yellowstone, but we want to save up some more money before we travel without working.

Brian got a job at a campground in Seville, Florida (near Ocala National Forest). He will work two days a week, November through April, in exchange for our full hook-up site. There is no pay, but if I get bored enough, I will go get a part-time job somewhere. A free site in exchange for two days of work a week is a pretty good deal. We will be saving a few grand doing this.

We also decided that we will be coming back to Maine next summer and I will work the same job. They have asked me quite a few times if I was coming back next year and I love this job so I will do another year. I have secretly been thinking I will work a job I have been eying on the workamper website in Arizona next winter (it is at a 55 plus campground and you have to be at least 40 years old to work there, and I will be 40 next year, 40 ugh, can you believe that?!?!?!). I think after working full time next summer and throughout the winter in 2024, we will have enough saved that we can take summer 2025 off and travel without working!

Bonus is that I will be in a warm weather for a birthday, FINALLY. I have had so many trips planned in a warm weather climate for my birthday the last few years, but they all got cancelled either because of COVID or they changed our 7 day cruise to a 14 day cruise…. So finally, I will be warm on my 40th!

~Happy Travels!