I’ve written several blogs about the incredible beauty found at the many national parks that line the West Coast of the United States. However, as I look back it appears I may have neglected the equally breathtaking parks located on the eastern portion of the country.
One of the most popular national parks in the northeast spans nearly 50,000 acres along the central coast of Maine. Acadia National Park covers a huge expanses of ground from the coastline to the mountains. Visitors can travel from the rocky coastline, which gives way to cobblestone beaches before ascending to the rugged mountains with sheer granite faces and hearty forests.
The park was recently in the news after President Bush’s daughter Jenna announced that she was proposed to by her now fiancé in Acadia, specifically on top of Cadillac Mountain, the tallest mountain on the Eastern Seaboard. According to park rangers, Cadillac Mountain is the first place in the country that receives rays from daily sunrises.
There are numerous ways you can tour the park, but by far one of the most popular is via the carriage roads that wind through all of Acadia. According to the park’s website, the roads were a gift from John D. Rockefeller, who contributed greatly to the park. For decades those roads have taken travelers through some of the most beautiful, peaceful and tranquil parts of the park.
Down the road a bit… off the coasts of two other eastern states is another treasure in the National Park System.
Assateague Island National Seashore, a 37-mile-long barrier island located off the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, seems to changes with the wind, water and sea level.
One side of the island offers the chance to sit and watch the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean, while the west side of the island offers the calmer waters of the Chincoteague Bay. Though, regardless of which side of the island you are exploring you are bound to run into the park’s most famous inhabitants—-wild horses. They have been on the island since the 1600s and to this day the four-legged animals continue to stop traffic. Herds of wild horses are seen on roads and beaches throughout the island. It’s a rare sight that visitors from around the world travel thousands of miles to see.
Have you ever visited Assateague Island National Seashore?
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