Summer Stock Sunday - Acadia National Park

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Jay and I are up in Maine this week celebrating our 20th(!) wedding anniversary and enjoying the wonders of Acadia by both land and sea (which now that we've finally managed to connect to the inn's wifi I can tell you about - sorry for not visiting you all earlier this week, we didn't have internet for the first part of the week). Yesterday we went hiking (me) and biking (him) and then after lunch went off to Seawall to go tidepooling. We didn't have much luck at the tidepools (I think we got the tides wrong) but to our delight right across the street, literally 4 or 5 feet from our car, we saw this not so little fellow chomping down on wild rosehips. We were so close we could actually hear him chewing!

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After the beaver was done with his dinner he took an extra branch back to his lodge for a later snack. You can see him swimming along with it in the shot below, and that big pile of sticks on the far side of the brush is his dam.

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With a sight like that on Thursday we weren't sure that the half-day kayak trip we took today (Friday) would compare but oh boy did it - first we caught a glimpse of a harbor porpoise off in the distance, then we saw a bald eagle up in a tree, and then we saw literally dozens of seals start popping up all around our boats! What an incredible sight, one even surfaced just 10 feet in front of me! (I think that was a little too close for his comfort because he took one look at me and dove straight under again, to resurface a safer 20 or 25 feet away.) I wish I had pictures of them because it was one of the most incredible things I've seen in my life, but I was scared to risk my camera in a dry bag out in the middle of the water. I shouldn't have worried, the bay we were in was as flat as glass, but I will say that not having a camera allowed me to really focus on being present in the moment instead of obsessing over getting the perfect shot, something I should probably remember to do more often. What an incredible gift we received today, even the guide was amazed at how many seals were surrounding Jay's and my boat.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll take the ferry over to Great Cranberry and Little Cranberry Islands for a bit of an island ramble and then it's time to stock the cooler with fresh-caught lobsters and head for home. It's been an amazing trip, reminding me yet again why Acadia is one of my very favorite places on earth, and so worth the 5 hour drive from New Hampshire to get here.

I hope you're all having a wonderful summer. Sign the linkie and tell us all about it :).
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