Schoodic Point & Winter Harbor
Another beautiful, sunny day in Maine on a day off of work can only mean one thing, Betsy and I should look for something else to see in the area. So after throwing some ideas around we settled on taking a drive to the other part of Acadia National Park, Schoodic Point, which is at the tip the Schoodic Peninsula. Although it is only about 15 miles from our home at Narrows Too to Schoodic Point as the crow flies, the drive up to Route 1 and along the coast takes approximately 45 minutes. We turned off Route 1 and headed towards Winter Harbor, ME on the Schoodic Peninsula. Jay, and several other people, had told us about a great place to buy fresh lobster in Winter Harbor, the Winter Harbor Lobster Co-Op. As we were headed into town, we realized the Co-op was only open until 3:00 pm and it was already 2:25 pm. Good thing we had a cooler in the car. We stopped to go lobster shopping before heading to Schoodic Point. We parked and headed into the small, nondescript store directly above a little cove. The menu was fairly simple: they had live lobsters for sale or you could have them cooked; they had already picked lobster meat for sale in 1/2 lb., 1 lb., and 5 lb. containers; they had frozen scallops for sale; they had haddock for sale; and they had crab meat for sale. Since I’m not a fan of “picking” lobsters, we were definitely interested in the containers of fresh lobster meat. If we had not been prepared, there may have been some sticker shock. The picked lobster meat was $38 / lb. It does sound pricey, but when you do the math, it is actually cheaper than picking your own lobster. We purchased two 1 lb. containers of lobster meat and I couldn’t resist a 1 lb. package of scallops for $20. It may have been an expensive stop with a final tally of $96, but I don’t often splurge on fresh seafood, and this is about as fresh as it gets. (Thanks for the seafood treat Betsy! My non-seafood loving wife!)
With our stash safely tucked away in a small cooler, we headed on towards Schoodic Point. Schoodic Point provides one of the best places to view pounding surf during rough seas as well as stunning views of Cadillac Mountain to the West. It is also one of the best places to view diabase dikes. These are large veins of dark basalt that forced their way through the older granite along the Schoodic shoreline. Both the older granite, and the much darker basalt, are igneous rocks that were formed from the cooling of magma during past volcanic activity. The contrast between these two can easily be seen throughout the peninsula. As we navigated the road through the park towards the Point, we felt we had to stop at a couple of places to take in the view. We were both intrigued with a house on an island right off shore. (Could easily have been on the popular TV show “Island Hunters” on HGTV.) After parking in the lot at the Point we ventured out onto the granite rocks that ran down to the ocean. The crashing waves were amazing to watch and we regretted the fact that we had not brought our chairs so we could comfortably sit and take in the view. A couple of the rocks did well as a seat while we had a small snack and sipped on some bubbly. (Seltzer water that is!)
After enjoying the beauty of Schoodic Point we hopped into the car and drove back to our home at Narrows Too. Oh, but my day was still going to get better. Once home Betsy whipped up a tasty recipe turning our fresh picked lobster into one mouth-watering lobster roll. (With a gluten free roll, of course!) Add in some deep fried crispy crowns and top it off with two bottles of our favorite mineral water, Topo Chico, and life was good at Site 116!
We both highly recommend a visit to the less crowded Schoodic Point if you ever get to Acadia. We immediately decided that we would both be back for another visit this summer . . . with our gravity chairs, of course!
