The Maine Lighthouse Museum and Acadia National Park

Friday, June 28 – Day 10

It poured buckets last night. A continuation of the kind of weather that we’ve had the last few days.  Cool and Wet!  Needless to say the Forest Fire Hazard Level is low.  We are on the road again today heading “Down east” towards Acadia National Park.  “Down east” is a term that is used in Maine to describe the tourist region – it is derived from sailing days when the ships leaving Boston would travel “down” wind, in an easterly direction along the coast.

We stopped off at the town of Rockland, which proclaims itself as the “Lobster Capital of the World”, they even have a large rusty lobster statue to prove it. That is not the reason that we stopped here though.  The town also hosts the Maine Lighthouse Museum.  The Garmin GPS had guided us right to the front door of the museum.   Miss Garmin, as we call her, has led us into some very tight spots and when your hauling a 34’ trailer it is not just a matter of doing a U-turn in the middle of the street, to correct a wrong turn.   Anyway there was three consecutive parking spots in front but not wanting to get ticketed, I went and asked the local constabulary if it would be OK to park there.  The police station conveniently shares the lower offices with the museum and visitors bureau on the main floor. An officer came out and checked it and gave us the official blessing to go ahead to the museum.

The museum details the history of lighthouses in America and how the invention of the Fresnel lens was able to increase the intensity of light cast out to sea.  They demonstrated this by using a 42 watt compact spiral fluorescent bulb and projecting this light through a Fresnel lens to produce a very intense, almost blinding beam of light.  Fresnel lenses are still in use today in most lighthouses around the world. Each light house projects its own unique light beam pattern so that mariners can determine exactly where they are in relation to the light house. 

Other displays describe the life of a light house keeper as well as early Coast Guard rescue operations. A bargain price for the museum at $5.00 per person but we got the senior rate of $4.00.  A worthwhile stop.

As we continued east we passed the Penobscot Bridge Observatory in Prospect, Maine.  As it was still raining and overcast we decide to forego a visit this time and come back on the way home through via Bangor.

We arrived at the Timberland Acres RV Park in Trenton, Maine just after 1:30 PM and had the pleasure of once again un-hooking in the rain.  We had a quick bite to eat and then headed into Acadia National Park.  We made a stop at the Park Visitor Centre and watched a short film on the history of the park.  The park is somewhat unusual in that it was a playground for the rich in the latter part of the 19th. Century.  They had built large summer cottages and the Rockefeller family had developed an intricate carriage road system throughout the island.  After the crash of 1929 many of the families sold their holdings here and then after a major fire destroyed many of the properties in 1947 most of the remaining families sold.  Most of this land was purchased by George Dorr, who gave all of the land to the government to be used as a public park.  Dorr, died penniless but Acadia National Park is his testament.