Mt. Desert Island (or MDI, as the locals say) has ONE chain business - a single lonely Subway. No McDonalds, no Applebees, no chain convenience stores, no Jiffy Lube. Oh, wait, there's a Rite Aid, too. So that's two chain businesses. Everything else is local and one of a kind.
What you eat here is lobster (natch), whoopie pies, and blueberries in many forms. Whoopie pie stout - I am not making that up; we tasted it in York, ME at SoME brewery. Almost every restaurant serves clam or seafood chowder, and even the roadside shacks have damn fine chowdah. Supposedly they are also big on fiddleheads, but we've only seen one sighting so far. I thought cranberries would be a bigger thing but we see a normal amount of cranberry products - blueberries are absolutely overrepresented, which is okay by me because I'm a blueberry person. I also thought we'd see more maple things.
MDI is large, but there is only one real commercial area - Bar Harbor - and it's not very big. You don't come here to go to Ripley's Believe It Or Not or ride go-karts or play mini golf or party like a rock star. You'd only come here if you're into outdoorsy things - hiking or kayaking, like that. The beaches are not amazing, they're rocks instead of sand, and the water is COLD. But it's so pretty here. The air smells good, all wholesome and such. It's a highly rural area where you come to relax instead of rush rush high entertainment.
Acadia is gorgeous. Don't get me wrong, it's no Yellowstone - not even close - but it's very scenic and peaceful (Yellowstone is not particularly peaceful because every square inch of it crawls with tourists every second of the season). Today we went up to Cadillac Mountain and there were people hiking around, but not enormous crazy throngs of them.
Honestly, I don't get hiking. You've seen one forest, you've seen them all. People hike the Appalachian Trail - why?
But I have my perfect hiking shoes that I got in Cody last year, and there's not really a whole lot else to do here, so we'll probably do some woods walking because we have a whole week and a half left before we head to Montreal.
Fun fact: we see the sun before you all do in the morning (in MD). The sun rises here at 5am, almost a full hour before you all see it, yet our sunset is only 15 minutes or so before yours. I like this because it wakes me up early and I love to get a jump on the day.
I love getting a jump on the day! 
It's why I drag my butt to the gym for the O dark thirty class and when FH and I go to Florida, we (I) like to walk the beach as the sun is coming up or right after it does. I get my couple of hours on the beach in before the crowds do, and I am a happy woman. The beach to his parents' condo is semi-private, so it's not crowded to begin with, but I like my solitude, and it is very serene until about 9-10am.
the pics of the islands from the top of the mountain looks just like mine! Wonder how many millions of similar pics like that are out there?
The good news is that Sept/early Oct is an amazing time to be in SoMD, so I'm looking forward to that. At first it was fun to cuddle in a sweatshirt while you all were complaining about 100* temps, but now I'm ready for some higher numbers. I must admit, the chilly evenings are nice for sleeping and that cool breeze coming in is a snuggle encourager, but I really do need my sun and heat. My tan has almost completely faded. That's how hosed up this is: I had a great tan in the winter and spring, faded out in the summer.
