Acadia National Park, Wildwood Stables &... Martha Stewart?

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Linda B. Merims lbmerims@curl.com

I caught this morning's _Martha Stewart Living_ show.
She did 45 minutes about carriage driving at Acadia National
Park in Maine.  The filming was done at Wildwood Stables--the
overnight horse camp recently discussed on Ridecamp as being
in danger of closure.  She even drove a carriage while
interviewing the concessionaire (whose name I forget), the
lawyer fellow from Kentucky who got kicked out by the
Park Service because the corporation under whose name he
had signed the concession contract had ceased to exist, and
who has been given a one season's reprieve before the Park
Service puts the concession up for a Request for Proposal
rebid.

Turns out Martha owns a house on the same island peninsula
where Acadia is, and has become interested in carriages
and carriage driving.  The show tended to emphasize the
more persnickety aspects of driving (how your clothes have
to match the style of your carriage), but it also had a few more
hardcore demonstrations, like rein handling and 5 minutes
of step-by-step on how to put on a harness.  I'd have
preferred some good cross country, but, well, it *is*
Martha Stewart, after all.

All of which is a long way of saying that area people should
look into enrolling Ms. Stewart as an advocate to keeping
the overnight horse camping with equal or greater capacity
going when the Park Service's Request for Proposal goes
out.

Not to mention the Rockefellers.

Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
lbmerims@curl.com
Massachusetts, USA