The Expanse
| Date | Aircraft | Route of Flight | Time (hrs) | Total (hrs) |
| 12 Aug 2020 | N21481 | PBG (Plattsburgh, NY) - BHB (Bar Harbor, ME) | 2.0 | 2134.3 |
When we arrived at Eagle Aviation in Plattsburgh Wednesday morning, Emily recognized me immediately from my visit in early July. Before I could say anything in greeting, she spoke with urgency.
"I owe you such a big apology! I am so sorry for what happened!" I do not think that I have ever received such an effusively sincere apology. I assured her that everything worked out fine, but she remained skeptical that no harm was done until I explained that Avis gave us a better deal than Enterprise. Hearing that, she relented. Even after several days, no one at Eagle knew what happened to the original Enterprise rental dropped off the previous Friday.
Warrior 481 waited patiently for us on the vast concrete expanse of ramp at Plattsburgh International Airport, a decommissioned Strategic Air Command base. She survived the squall line that moved through the area the previous evening. Unbridled sunshine had already wrung her cabin cover of moisture and fuel in the tanks contained no detectable water. We were charged the self-serve price for taking fuel from the truck and, once the baggage was repacked into the Warrior, it was time to go.
A painting crew was striping the runway center line and we were asked to avoid it entirely. With a runway that is 200 feet wide, that did not present much of a challenge. I chose to perform a midfield departure rather than taxi two miles to the north end of the airport. Despite the rapidly warming day and being fully loaded, we reached pattern altitude before running out of runway.
Welcome Return To the Realm of Mist and Vapor
I picked up our IFR clearance to "Bah Hahbah" with Burlington Approach in the air as we turned eastbound over Lake Champlain.
From aloft, we witnessed the transit of ferries connecting New York and Vermont.
For the journey from Plattsburgh to Bar Harbor, the direct path afforded by air travel was the way to go. Actual flight time was just shy of two hours, whereas the drive from Lake Placid or Plattsburgh would have required eight.
Our initial 7,000 foot cruise altitude put us above many of the clouds floating over Vermont, but in the distance, remnants of the squall line stretched to a higher altitude. They showed enough vertical development to be bumpy. Rather than subject my family to riding through them, I requested a clearance amendment to 9,000 feet. This was granted and we climbed slowly to the new altitude.
In the climb, I deviated slightly around those clouds still in the way, playfully slaloming around them like a race plane around a pylon (but admittedly much more slowly).
We leveled at 9,000 feet, skimming just above the cloud tops for the remainder of our flight to Bar Harbor. When we departed Plattsburgh, IFR conditions prevailed at our destination and I spent part of the flight briefing the available instrument approach procedures in preparation for arrival.
I also noticed that the cylinder head temperatures (CHTs) of my front two cylinders were running hotter than the back two cylinders. Usually, the front two cylinders run the coolest. While none of the indications were particularly concerning, this was an unprecedented difference in temperature distribution and it made me wonder if something within my new engine had changed. We were high enough that the Surefly electronic ignition module should have been advancing the spark timing. While that would increase CHTs slightly, I did not necessarily expect that it would affect the relative temperature spread across the cylinders.
Weird.
The WFC Invades Maine
Once we crossed the from New Hampshire to Maine, Boston Center handed us off to Portland Approach. It occurred to me that Tom and Alicia should be en route to Wiscasset, ME (KIWI) at that very moment and I panned the traffic display in search of N1185X. Sure enough, I located them just as they were about to cross over Brunswick Executive. Though we never heard them on the radio, Tom later indicated that he heard Portland hand us off to Bangor Approach for the final leg of our flight.
Around the same time, Ed was also en route to Stonington, ME. I found it deeply satisfying to know that three aircraft from the Williamson Flying Club were plying the skies over Maine on their separate missions.
What Would Lee Iacocca Say?
Conditions at Bar Harbor improved to VFR before our arrival and no instrument approach was necessary. While I was a little disappointed by this, I was nonetheless deeply satisfied by the ability to charge at a destination under low clouds with impunity. Instrument capability was insurance and it allowed us to press forward with confidence. We spent about 0.1 hours intermittently passing through the clouds on descent toward Bar Harbor and landed third behind a jet and a Cessna Skylane.
As we exited the runway, Columbia Air Services directed us to the lower (low rent / piston) ramp. Compared to the previous fall, both ramps were quite full of aircraft. A woman from the line crew helped tie Warrior 481 down while Kristy, The Bear, and I wrangled the cover back onto the airplane. She dropped Kristy off at the FBO to sign for fuel, then drove The Bear and I with our luggage to the tiny commercial airline terminal to pick up our Enterprise rental car, a black Jeep Wrangler.
I have noticed a pattern in recent years whereby Enterprise provides cars with partial tanks of fuel. I am not a fan of this practice and am certain that it is a sneaky money-making initiative akin to the rounding error scheme used in Office Space (but less clever or subtle). It is almost impossible to gauge how much fuel is needed to replenish what was used so that the cars are almost always returned with more gas than they had on delivery.
Driving a Jeep Wrangler is its own worst advertising. Featuring sloppy steering reminiscent of a 1950s era Farmall Cub tractor and an unrefined, noisily unresponsive engine paired with a jerky automatic transmission, there was little about the Wrangler to impress. (So much for courting Jeep as a corporate sponsor for this blog.)
We had a reservation at the Bar Harbor Grand Hotel, but arrived prior to check-in time. We left the Wrangler at the hotel and set out for lunch on foot, stopping a block away at Blaze, a restaurant specializing in wood-fired pizzas. Considering that we were in Maine, neither Kristy nor I could resist getting lobster rolls and they were wonderful.
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| Where do you get your pet supplies in Maine? Why, "Bark Harbor", of course! |
After lunch, we explored downtown. While the sidewalks were generally crowded, masking recommendations were being followed scrupulously.
We ended our exploration along the waterfront in view of the Porcupine Islands before heading back to the hotel.
Acadia National Park
Bar Harbor is one of several municipalities located on Mount Desert Island, the largest island off the coast of Maine. Do not be fooled by its moniker, it is not a desert island by any means. Rather, the island was originally named by French explorer Samuel de Champlain for the absence of vegetation on its rocky mountain peaks: L’Isle des Monts-déserts (Island of Barren Mountains).
Mt Desert Island is home to Acadia National Park, a 47,000 acre jewel among national parks that dominates much of the island. The park takes its name from L'Acadie, the first permanent French settlement in North America that included parts of Maine. "L'Acadie" was derived from a Native American word meaning "the land of plenty" and later anglicized to Acadia. (As a child of the 80s, quirky pop group Men at Work convinced me that Australia was the land of plenty with their compelling lyrics. Now I know better.) Among the twenty plus mountain peaks of Acadia is Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the eastern seaboard and the first place in the United States to be illuminated by sunrise between October and May.
Gurgle Hole
One of the top destinations in Acadia is Thunder Hole. When the tide level is neither too low nor too high, wave action in a cave along the rocky shore produces a thunderous concussion. Obviously the effect is synchronized with the tides and is a function of weather conditions. Hearing it requires both proper timing and good luck.
Close to the cavern, water could be heard gurgling as it rushed in, compressed the air headspace, and belched back into the sea. Neither our timing nor the prevailing conditions were suitable to experience the thunderous output of this rock formation and though we visited later as the tide came in, we never heard anything particularly thunderous.
The Bear is Part Mountain Goat
The Bear has always loved climbing on rocks and the Maine coastline was absolutely enthralling to her. We explored a stretch of shoreline trail between Thunder Hole and Otter Point.
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| Otter Point |
As shown here, the mountains of Acadia are well-rounded, indicating that they were polished by glaciers, nature's rock tumblers.
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| That darn troll is back again |
By virtue of our travel during the Age of COVID, we became connoisseurs of hand sanitizer. We discovered that some are more pleasant to use than others based on their residual odor (or lack thereof). The third floor hand sanitizer station at the Hampton Inn in Lake Placid? Foul. But the Porta Potty in Acadia National Park near Thunder Hole had hand sanitizer with the fruity aroma of apples, triggering a flashback of stocking Salon Selectives shampoo in the early 90s at one of my college jobs. Whoever procured this stuff for Acadia gets a big thumbs up from me!
Food with Faces
My family was hot and tired, so we returned to the Bar Harbor Grand Hotel, checked in, and immediately set about identifying a dinner venue. We decided that we wanted to avoid the crowds of Bar Harbor and found a highly rated lobster shack on the north end of the island called Rose Eden Lobster. This is a no-frills establishment specializing in cooked crustaceans. We got the special: two whole lobsters plus a pound of crab legs and two ears of corn for $40. Drinks were available from a vending machine and dining accommodations were picnic tables. Not posh, but delicious.
When I finally extracted an intact lobster from the bucket, The Bear squealed like Bernadette Peters in The Jerk upon seeing snails on her plate of escargot. The Bear is simply not used to eating anything with a face, especially anything with the crimson, beady-eyed visage of a lobster.
I politely turned my lobster the other way so that it was no longer staring at her. Whether it was looking at me reproachfully or not, it was delicious. Huge kudos go to my friend Alex from high school who taught us how to eat whole lobster on our last visit to Maine.
The Place To Be
Last October, I visited Mount Desert Island and hiked around the Bass Harbor Lighthouse. It is the sole lighthouse on the island, originally built in 1858. I visited on a weekday during the off-season and generally had the lighthouse to myself. I thought it might be an intriguing sight for my family as sunset approached. Evidently, I was not the only one to have that thought.
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| Bass Harbor Lighthouse photographed October 21, 2019 |
The lighthouse is located on the southwest side of the island at the end of a long, narrow access road. We arrived after a thirty minute drive only to find traffic backed up on the access road. Not only was the road narrow, but there were no shoulders and no places to park. While I waited in the line of traffic, I sent Kristy and The Bear ahead on foot to visit the lighthouse.
By the time they returned, I had managed to reach the entrance of the small parking lot and was waiting for the next available space. As they climbed back into the car, I saw no movement in the parking lot suggestive of an imminent departure and decided to leave without seeing the lighthouse again myself. Clearly, I had underestimated the popularity of this destination.
Unexpected Jerkiness
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| Our hotel - my token postcard shot at sunset |
After the disappointment of the lighthouse, we decided to compensate with ice cream. As the sun set, we walked from our hotel to the village green and Mount Desert Island Ice Cream. Not only did the shop boast unusual flavors like Butterbeer for the Harry Potter fans, Cranberry Bliss Bar, and Lemon with Cardamom; the allergy information on their website was so impressive that throwing money at them became a moral imperative. (The Bear has a peanut allergy and ice cream places can be particularly fraught.) We waited a long time in line for our ice cream. It was worth the wait, despite another customer mocking The Bear for her dismal performance during our game of 20 questions.
As we waited, a large family rode past on bicycles, the passage of each person marked by an illuminated headlamp in the darkness. "We got ours this morning!" exclaimed the high pitched voice of a little girl as she pedaled past the long line of ice cream aspirants.
With ice cream in hand, we found an available bench on the village green and enjoyed our delectable treats. The Bear and I both went with Butterbeer, Kristy got the Cranberry Bliss Bar. As we finished, I noticed that there was a movie playing on the opposite corner of the green and walked over to see what it was. Much to my surprise, it was The Jerk, a film forever enshrined in my personal pantheon of essential movies because it introduced my nine year old self to the word "shithead". Still, it seemed like an odd choice for public exhibition on the village green.
On the Bubble
The next morning, we let The Bear choose our destination in Acadia National Park and she chose Bubble Rock. Located at the top of South Bubble Mountain, Bubble Rock is glacial litter, a car-sized boulder carelessly left on the edge of a precipice by the last glacier to creep through.
The trail is relatively short and of moderate difficulty.
Instead of Bubble Rock, we considered visiting the peak of Cadillac Mountain. But this point of interest is very popular in the morning and we wanted a less populated hike after the crowded streets of Bar Harbor.
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| Not it - keep going! |
Examining striations on exposed rock faces of the mountain, it was not difficult to envision a behemoth glacier scraping its way across.
When we reached the top of South Bubble, the location of Bubble Rock was not immediately obvious. We did not expect needing to hunt for something the size of a VW Bug.
Still looking...
We finally found it. The Bear has always been fond of rocks, but has never encountered an individual rock so large and incongruously placed as this one.
No Playful Semi-Aquatic Mammals in Sight
From South Bubble, we explored the prominent rocky formation that is Otter Point.
Here we are with the loathsome Jeep. The masks hide their expressions well, but neither is smiling.
A panoramic view from Otter Point.
The Bear stood on a promontory overlooking the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
There is much to see in Acadia National Park. We did not attempt to experience everything, but rather picked a few highlights and enjoyed exploring them at our own pace. By mid morning, we departed Acadia and returned to the airport.
In a week characterized by highs and lows, Acadia was most definitely a high point. However, I will target the off-season for any future visits because the crowds affected my enjoyment of the natural beauty showcased there.
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