Tea with Eleanor Roosevelt

     September 29th was sunny and cold.  We drove to Lubec and across the Roosevelt Memorial Bridge to Campobello Island in Canada.  When we passed through customs we were told we must surrender our pepper spray gun and extra cannisters because pepper spray is illegal in Canada. Who knew?  Goodbye $75.  

View from the Roosevelt Memorial Bridge

       On the island we toured the summer home of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Though large, the 18 bedroom house is not ostentatious, but well-suited for a home with children. The house is part of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park which is owned and operated cooperatively by both Canada and the U.S. 

FDR's Summer Home ~ Having some repair work done on the front.      

View of the water from the house.       

One end of the long living room.

 

Master Bedroom

 

Kitchen

 

Dining Room

       The highlight of our visit was "Tea with Eleanor".  At teatime (3:00pm) we were treated to delicious ginger cookies and bottomless cups of tea.  We spent a delightful hour and a half learning about Eleanor Roosevelt's fascinating life, the things that were important to her, and her love for people.  Two wonderfully passionate and interesting ladies, Carolyn and Debbie, regaled us with stories of Eleanor, who they obviously admire greatly and hold in high esteem.  Mark was dreading the "tea", but afterward said it was very informative and had we skipped it, we would have missed the flavor of the place.    

Tea with Eleanor

He's so excited about having tea :)

 

Debbie and Carolyn ~ Our Wonderful Hostesses with a gift for storytelling

 

      After leaving Campobello Island we drove to the West Quoddy Head Light Station which is located on the eastern most point in the USA.  

West Quoddy Head Light Station

 

       We spent the night at Cobscook Bay State Park where a site with NO hook ups was $32.70 for non-residents. 🙁

Acadia National Park ~ Schoodic Point

From Robin:  I had a post all written about our day at Schoodic Point, but the ipad ate it 😩  So I told Mark it was his turn to write a post. . .  This one is mostly from him with a little input from me.  He mentions "the old people's pass".  Since he is now 62 he was able to purchase a Lifetime National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass for $10 which we can use to enter any National Park in the U.S.  The regular ANNUAL National Parks Pass is $80.  Besides grandchildren, it may be the only other advantage to getting old:)     

       Today (September 28th) we drove to the Schoodic Peninsula where another part of Acadia National Park lies.  When we arrived at the Schoodic Point Information building, I told them I had the old people's pass and the ranger said that with the old people's pass (and the seasonal discount) we could camp at Schoodic Woods Campground for $15 and that included electricity!  Now that's a good deal!          Before exploring the park with our truck camper, we took the shuttle bus around the park to get an idea of what we would be seeing. The only other couple on the bus was from Lansing, MI.  No RV's or vehicles pulling trailers were allowed on the park road, but they let us go with our truck camper because we can fit into a regular parking spot.  Our first stop was the Frazier Point picnic area with nice views of the water.  

 

       A little further on we pulled into an overlook with views of the lighthouse on Mark Island.

 

 

       We then drove to the rocky coastline of Schoodic Point.  It was very cold and windy, but a lot of people were sitting in the sun in the shelter of the rocks.

 

 

 

      After Schoodic Point we stopped at Blueberry Hill to hike up to Schoodic Head.  We did a loop of three trails (Alder, Schoodic Head, and Antler) that would bring us back around to Blueberry Hill where we were parked.  Alder Trail was an easy, mostly level path, but Schoodic Head Trail and Anvil Trail were both steep and rocky, poorly marked paths through the woods.  We met a couple who had given up and turned around part way.  They said the trail was too hard to follow and they were afraid of getting lost.  We plowed on ahead, but we did lose the trail a couple of times. When we got to the Schoodic Head Lookout, there was no one else there except for a couple from Switzerland and we didn't see anyone else the whole way back down to the truck.   At one point we were lost for awhile and getting a little nervous, but Robin found the way out.  We think this hike was the most difficult one of our trip so far.  We were glad to see our truck at the end of the trail!  

Blueberry Hill

 

See Mark ahead on the trail?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heading back down from Schoodic Head on Antler Trail

 

 

 

We made it!

 

Bar Harbor

     We woke to rain this morning (September 27th).  We didn't have to check out of our campsite until noon, so Mark did our laundry while I posted to the blog.  Our afternoon excursion was to Bar Harbor.  We had a delicious lunch at Adelmann's Deli and Grill and were able to sit outside at a picnic table since the rain had passed leaving overcast skies.  After lunch we strolled around town people watching and looking in shop windows.     

Busy Bar Harbor

 

Boats in the harbor

Cruise ship in the harbor

       Down at the Harbor we walked across the sandbar to Bar Island.  At high tide the sandbar is under 4-8 feet of water, but at low tide you can walk across to the island which is part of Acadia National Park.  We considered hiking the mile long trail to view Bar Harbor from the summit of Bar Island, but decided not to because we still needed to walk back across the sandbar and through the town to where we had parked the truck camper.  I didn't want to over do it again today since we will probably be hiking some more tomorrow on Schoodic Peninsula which is also part of Acadia National Park.

Walking on the sandbar to Bar Island at low tide.

View of the cruise ship from the sandbar

 

Bar Island

 

View from Bar Island back to the town.

Returning back across the sandbar.