Carriage Roads and Bridges

Our next destination was to the stables to see if we could ride a horse drawn carriage. For a whole series of reasons we didn't think to make reservations early so the rides were full for the day. We walked along a few of the paths and tried to spot as many bridges as we could.

"Forty-five miles of rustic carriage roads, the gift of philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. and family, weave around the mountains and valleys of Acadia National Park. Rockefeller financed 16 of 17 stone-faced bridges, each unique in design, to span streams, waterfalls, roads, and cliffsides. The bridges are steel-reinforced concrete, but the use of native stone for the facing gives them a natural appearance. Over time, the stone cutters grew very skilled and Rockefeller often requested them not to cut the facing too well lest the rustic look be lost."

From the Acadia NPS Website

I thought everything about this network of roads and bridges was SO interesting. They are only open to carriages, bikes, and of course walkers.

We enjoyed our little walk/hike on the carriage roads. The boys got to see a horse drawn carriage drive by too. We should have taken the jogging stroller, it would have been a lot easier to push them in. If we were thinking we would have brought our bikes and biked along the trails but poor Danielle needed my bike to get to work on Saturday and Sunday.

If you look closely you can see the date the year the bridge was completed, 1920. I liked spotting the different years on the different bridges.

I said goodbye to my robber baron bridges and we headed onto fit our last few destinations in before dinner.