We’re at Jenny’s sister’s house on Highland Lake in Bridgton for this part of our trip. We’re slowing down a bit and relaxing a bit more for these few days, and that’s fine. I took a kayak out on Tuesday, went for a nice walk on Wednesday, we did a little shopping. I didn’t buy anything, but Amazon better have all hands on deck when we return home. And we’ll see for Thursday.
July 10: Back to the park, this time for a bike ride on the carriage roads in the park. The carriage roads, like the land for the park itself, were a gift from John Rockefeller. They are wide packed gravel. We parked at the Hulls Cove Visitors Center, got on our bikes and headed south, eventually getting on the Around The Mountain Loop. We did part of the loop and turned around for a total of about 16.5 miles and an elevation gain of over 1,200 feet. Most of that gain seemed to be in the last mile or two before turning around, making the climb almost equivalent to a Category 4 climb in the Tour de France! We seemingly hardly had to pedal for a long while after heading back to the car.
July 11: Hike day on the Jordan Pond Trail. This one is a 3.2 mile loop around Jordan Pond. The trail has three personalities: fairly smooth packed gravel, almost a mile of boardwalk, and a stretch of fairly rugged boulders. The pond itself is used as a water supply and has extremely clear water. The trail has great scenery, and great views of the North and (especially the) South Bubble Mountains. On our return, the line to get in to the Jordan Pond Restaurant was long, so we left the park and found some pretty darn good lobster rolls a few miles away.
Tomorrow, July 12, we leave the Acadia area and head west and a little south to Bridgton, ME, where we stay with Jenny’s sister, Susie, for a few days.
Our site here In Acadia Seashore Campground overlooks the water and is very pleasant.
Next we had a drink and a slice of pie at a restaurant on the harbor. They get their lobsters from the lobstermen just next door.
On July 9 we headed deeper in to the park, first stopping at a visitors center to ask rangers about sights and trails. We gave ourselves a driving tour of part of the park, then went to the top of Cadillac Mountain, where the claim to fame is the first spot in the U.S. to be able to see the sunrise.
We crossed to the U.S. on July 6 near Woburn, Quebec at a very small border crossing. There was no line at the crossing, but the CBP official was more thorough than at other crossings. He actually came in to the RV for a few seconds and scanned our passports. We then got on Route 27 in Maine, also called the Maine High Peaks Scenic Byway, and arrived at our Harvest Host stop for the night in Kingfield, ME.
We got to our KOA campground south of Montreal on Wednesday, July 1. On the 2nd we headed to our downtown hotel. Friday, July 3, was the big day: Stefan’s PhD defense. Room 103 of McGill’s McConnell Engineering Building filled up by the 2:00 start time. The thesis committee took the first row and a half, and other attendees — family, friends, and classmates — took the rest of the seats. To start, the thesis committee chair asked everyone to leave the room so the committee could confer. We were then called back in, and Stefan got started.
Stefan took his allotted 20 minutes to summarize his work in a presentation. Next came Q&A with the committee, and that took about an hour. Stefan answered with knowledge and poise, and was very impressive throughout. Everyone else then had an opportunity to ask questions, and perhaps the best one was asked by none other than your’s truly. I actually shared the question with Stefan in advance.
After all the questions were asked and answered, the attendees and Stefan were once again asked to leave the room. When we returned, Stefan’s advisor made the announcement. Stefan passed and had earned his PhD! We gave him a standing O.
The day before, Jenny and I went with Stefan to Costco to pick up food for an after-defense party, which we stashed in Stefan’s office. The food and drink were pulled out to a couple of picnic tables in a park on campus, and about 20 of us celebrated the achievement.
Jenny and I did a little wandering and shopping during the day on Saturday, and took Stefan and his girlfriend to dinner Saturday night. We checked out of our hotel Sunday around noon, and are now back the RV.
