Pretty pictures from Acadia

Since I am bogged down researching and writing essays right now, here is the last installment of my pictures from the now not so recent trip to Acadia.

Warning: This post is picture heavy, and full of gratuitous "art shots".

Bleeding Hearts from Mom's garden.

Lilac leaf and flowers from the yard.

Wild blueberry flowers taken on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, a closeup of a rocky puddle with lichen and moss.

Tuesday evening.

Lichen. Very obvious focal length.

Also from the garden on Monday morning.

Tuesday.

Barnabas and Ben overlooking the ocean on top of Penobscot Mt.

Spiderweb on the bridge.

Watercolor painted on the Tuesday evening while Barnabas rappelled.

Cadillac Mountain through Jackpine needles on Champlain Mt.

A Cairn on Champlain Mountain.

The entire mountain was made of a rosy granite spotted with green and gray lichen.

Thunder Hole.

Granite breaks into simple geometrics. It's part of what makes the trails so easy.

This one's for you Dad

Happy Father's Day and all that. 

I found a puzzle for you.

This is a tree that grows beside my residence hall. Clearly, there is something strange going on. What are the (I'm assuming) two types of tree here?

A little history of The Vines, my residence hall.*

It was built in 1889 by Sydney Howard Vines (1849-1934) after he was elected a fellow at Magdalen College, where C. S. Lewis was a fellow between 1925-1954. Vines, after which the building was named, was an excellent botanist, though not a great teacher. He eventually withdrew to his house to tend the garden. Eventually it passed into the hands of Oxford United Hospitals as a nurses' home, then to Oxford Brooks University as a student residence hall, and finally to SCIO, the program with which I am studying, in 2004. 

I'm thinking that Vines grafted two trees together just to see what would happen and it seems to have flourished.

*Adapted from the SCIO Handbook

Bonus:

This is a 1,100 year old yew tree next to the Norman Church in Iffley. I never got a full shot of it, so ignore Dr. Jenkins. They were sacred to the Saxons and were often put on the south side of sacred burial grounds. The church was built after the tree was already a couple of hundred years old in c. 1170 and hasn't changed much since.

Acadia: Friday

Edit: I had a couple of posts which I was preparing but then they got lost, so here is one from Acadia. 

On our last full day at Acadia we decided to take it easy. Everyone was feeling a bit worn-out from hiking and biking. My everything hurt. We spent the day as a family riding around the Loop Road and seeing all of the sights to be seen directly off the road. The first thing we did was climb the South Bubble, a not quite mountain on the edge of Jordan Pond. Sylvia and Mom went around the easy trail but we went straight up the rocky slope on the South side. 

We paused to catch our breath and let our legs stop hurting.

Almost at the top, we found a ledge that overlooked Jordan Pond and the Cliff Trail that we took on Tuesday.

At the top we found the Bubble and tried to push it off.

It didn't work.

The entire family!

There is not trail there at the moment, so Barnabas is contemplating adding one.

Post hike maybe-this-will-make-it-feel-better stretch. It didn't.

After descending we drove to Thunder Hole, which we reached at low tide. When the tide is higher the surf bursts from that hole with a bang and soaks everyone nearby.

Sometimes you just need to nap.

In front of us is the Monument of Monument Cove. Not very impressive from this angle, but no one felt like climbing down. This was just before a Ranger stopped and told us not to fall down. Most people don't try to, so I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish.

Back at Sand Beach Sylvia and I strolled along the surf looking for interesting things.

Which we found, including a live starfish.

We finished the day with a walk around Bar Harbor. Barnabas and I joined Dad, Ben, and John after they had talked with this native and ship's carpenter. He invited us onto the Margaret Todd, a four masted Schooner.

Mind the Gap!

Note the correct phonetic spelling on the sign.

Governors for dinner.

Acadia: Thursday

Thursday morning dawned with bright sunshine and a mild breeze, perfect hiking weather. Mom being a bit sick, we left her at the campsite and traveled up the Loop Road for our next adventure. We stopped at Sand Beach to drop Sylvia off so that she could paint while the rest assailed the nearby mountains.

The first leg of the journey was Beehive. John had planned to come with us but decided to go with Dad when he saw where we would be going. The three oldest headed straight up the rock face, following the old path. This one was far more trecherous than Jordan Cliffs as we climbed up the granite blocks that form the south end of the mountain. At one point in the trail we had to step across an iron grill set into the gap between two cliff faces. Most of the time we pulled ourselves up the rocks, looking for the next rung, if we were lucky, or just a solid hand hold, if not. 

We were able to pause almost at the top to look down and see the scene behind us. At the top we met a man and his dog. He said that he has come to Acadia twice a year for twelve years and that what he loves most about it is that "every time you turn the corner you see the best view you've ever seen." I'd be inclined to agree.

Smile! Somewhere down there is Sylvia.

The two small figures waving are Abe and Dad across on the other ridge. We hiked together up to the next ridge where Dad left us to go fish. We continued on up to Champlain Mountain.

A nosy seagull tried to eat my lunch.

On the way there we found another marshy spot, complete with bullfrog.

On the way up. By this time it had gotten rather hot and we had not brought enough water.

Spectacular views. Bar Harbor is further over on the left.

Ben stopped for a few panoramic photos. Even those barely do justice to the grandeur of the view of the ocean and deep blue sky.

Another 10-second dash. Cadillac Mountain is on the left.

Finally got some cell reception!

Ben calibrated his phone's altitude at every marked spot.

Taken by some friendly hikers.

Dad got pretty excited by all the dwarf jackpine.

We returned to find Sylvia with a completed landscape.

The Beehive on the way back. We decided that backing down on tired legs would not be a great idea.

Arrived safely

After a long bus ride to Boston I boarded my flight to Heathrow. During the entire process of applying and getting me here I felt rather detached from the reality of what was happening and so it was only in the last 48 hours that it has really hit me that I was indeed going and that it was happening right now.

The flight was long, made longer by cramped leg room, two crying babies, and seats not built for sleeping. But I survived and made it through customs without a hitch. You have no idea how happy these blotches of ink make me.

The bus stop was not hard to find and I snapped this just before it arrived. A thousand apologies for the lack of focus, but that's about what my mental state was at the time too.

One of the passengers was a fellow student, which we discovered when we got off together. Our residence was just an easy walk away and we unpacked and had the afternoon to ourselves before our first round of orientation. Another student and I took a meander around the town.

The first thing that really struck me about this place is how old everything is. You can fake 'old' in architecture by using the appropriate building materials and style but you cannot include "centuries of decay" on a building material list. One of the ways that this is immediately apparent are the plants, specifically the roses, that fill the front gardens of the little brick houses that line the extremely narrow streets.  

The other thing that struck me was this shark: 

Our meander took us past the almost complete Islamic Studies building. There they have used the same stone as the surrounding buildings and will just have to let it weather properly.

After coming back I tried to get some logistics worked out, including directions to my church but fell asleep at my desk. We all met up for orientation and got bikes for those who wanted one. Since we were free for the time being, my roommate, another student, and I biked down into the city center where we found a delightful pub, The White Horse. It is set down into the pavement with one window that looks out over the cobbled streets. Dark, aged wood interior and worn tables seated by locals in for a nightly pint helped complete the English pup atmosphere. We sat quietly in the corner enjoying our drinks before heading back.