Day Twenty – Errands

July 10. 2016 – Playing Catch-Up

Our plans to go to Moosehorn have been rained out.  That’s okay, we’ve got stuff to do.  First off we are going to test out the new information about the hot-water-on-demand system.  Dana says we need to leave the hot water running in the bathroom sink while we shower.  That is supposed to keep the shower water warm!  And it works!  Quite a treat after the minute and a half showers we’ve been taking, ending in a freeze out!

This little guy is quite adept at catching his worm!  I didn't quite realize how gruesome the project was!

Then there’s breakfast of French toast and coffee or tea, depending on your preference.  I’m quite fond of the Canadian King Cole tea!

We pack a bit more and play with our maps.  We don’t want all that paper, so we mark them all up in yellow highlighter and take photos.

When hunger strikes we make GF pizza with leftover hamburger meat, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, blue cheese, sharp cheddar cheese and spaghetti sauce with mini-meatballs.  It is SO good!

After cleaning up we pack up our gear in plastic bags and our backpacks and brave the elements to go up to La Grange for wifi and electricity.  We also bring our garbage bag, which is full, and the Igloo cooler, which is empty, the latter for more drinking water.  Most of the water at the camp is pumped from the lake.  It’s fine for most things, even coffee and tea, but sometimes you just want a glass of clean water!

We spend about three hours at La Grange, during which we see both Dana and Sharon at different times.  Dana takes us downstairs where he has his office and four other apartments!  He shows us the photos from one of his two trail cameras and one is a close up of a moose with a huge rack! 

Later Sharon comes by and says it’s the quietest she’s ever seen us!  She tells us where to put the garbage and how to fill the Igloo and invites us up tomorrow, whenever we’d like, for a “smooth” ride to the screen room for a different view of our lake, perhaps sunset and the stars, or whatever we’d like.  She and Dana both really seem to enjoy having company.  Marilyn shows her the book she made of our Poland trip and Sharon is suitably impressed.  I keep blogging so I can be caught up before we leave.

On the way out Marilyn fills up the Igloo, while I deposit the garbage in the "shed," which looks like a mini-barn.  Sharon has planted flowers everywhere and everything she plants springs into glorious bloom!

 

Back to our cabin in the woods and we have popcorn and wine, before making our salad for dinner.  It’s been a quiet but productive day and it is so nice to be caught up and to have no pressures before we leave Tuesday morning.

Tomorrow we’ll give Moosehorn another try since the weather is supposed to clear up, and we’re really hoping for stars tomorrow night.  I’ve hauled the stupid tripod all over Maine just for the night sky, so there better be one our last night!

Day Nineteen – Evening’s Festivities

July 9, 2016 – Weather is always a factor

We are planning to spend part of today figuring out how we’re going to get all our goodies home!  I think I’m all right;  but Marilyn has her grandkids’ Christmas and birthday presents for the next couple of years to transport!!  We have bacon, fried eggs and toast for breakfast – just like in a restaurant! It’s raining and perfect weather to stay indoors, enjoy the view, and basically putz around!  Sometimes you just have to do that!

Marilyn spots a white dot across the lake.  Way, far across the lake.  It’s an eagle but you might just have to take my word for it!

Can you see him??

That's how far away he is!

We’re having popcorn and wine while we hang out and Sharon and Dana show up.  Sharon has two black-eyed susans in her hands for us, all wrapped up in damp paper so they stay fresh until she gets to The Camp.  She tells us that we will be having neighbors later in the afternoon as the daughter of one of their tenants will be staying with her husband and two little girls.  She also reminds us that there is a lobster feast at their old house, 714 as it’s called, and we can arrive at five, or earlier if we’d like!  Dana is making the lobsters and potato salad and lobster soup.  Poor Sharon is only allowed to make the salad and home-made blueberry pie!!

As we are preparing to leave for dinner, our neighbors show up, so we do the neighborly thing and say, “Hi,” before we leave.  We’re a tad late for dinner;  but that’s okay.  We’ve got a great excuse!

The first thing you see when you enter the house is the splendid, magnificent four-inch thick pine table that Dana made!  Truly awe-inspiring!  He has also made lots of other furnishings for the house.  A man of many talents! 

The soup consists of Half-n-Half, butter, a little seasoning, and lots of lobster chunks!  Rich!!  Delicious!! The salad is fresh and crisp with lettuce, tomato, green peppers and onions, with a choice of dressings.  The potato salad is perfect.  And then there are the lobsters - a whole one for each of us.  Good thing we’ve had a couple of practice runs before we make idiots of ourselves!! And there is wine, a nice chardonnay and water and tons of great conversation and laughter!  Dana is a non-stop story-teller with that dry Maine wit!  He taught six-grade for thirty-one years and also worked at the FDR bridge, doing immigration control during that same period.  And he had cattle and ran the apartment building and acquired 500-600 acres of land!  

I was so busy eating I didn't get a photo of the whole thing!

For dessert there is Sharon’s beautiful pie (I get to eat the filling) and the “kids” who are living in the house left us home-made Whoppie pies, too!

The hummingbirds and downy woodpeckers come to the feeder right outside the dining room window!

After dinner we go for a ride.  That sounds so innocent!  Dana has been making roads through some of his many acres and they are almost passable!  Good thing his Toyota four-door truck is built to take some abuse!  He and Sharon go out every day, sometimes twice a day, to see what there is to see, whether it’s wildlife or new wildflowers in bloom or blackberries just coming into season.   

You can make dolls out of hollyhocks!

Mean old Mr. Kadey! But the lock is a sham!

Dana and Sharon so thoroughly enjoy Nature and each other that it is a joy to be around them!

As we pass an open area, a young faun comes bounding toward us!  She looks like a giant rabbit the way she is hoping along!  My window doesn’t open and is tinted, so she’s kind of a challenge;  but worth it!!

The white pine is the state tree.

At one point we ford a stream with Sharon doing a Disney-like narration:  Look out, folks, we’re coming to that dangerous stream!  Do you think we’ll make it?  We’ll just have to try it and see!”  Dana has put rocks in the stream bed so make sure we don’t get stuck.  Every time he goes out to Camp he brings back another load of rocks.  You never know when you’re going to need more rocks!

Here's the stream!

Dana had two trail cameras and he's captured deer and moose and coyotes and other critters!

This is Mr. K, that Dana uses to make roads.

As the light wanes we come upon two more young deer!  They don’t even seem to care that the truck is there!

It's pretty darn dark out there!

Eventually we wind up back at 714;  it’s nearly nine o’clock and past their bedtime!  We say our thank yous and good nights and head home and to bed.  It’s too dark to do anything else, anyway, and the truck trip has been pretty exciting and exhausting!  We’ll see what tomorrow brings!

Day Eighteen – Campobello Bound

July 8, 2016 – Off We Go Again!

Brrr!  It’s chilly and we start the day with the ceremonial lighting of the heater!  Breakfast, stretches, maps in hand, and we set off to the Roosevelt Campobello International Park.  Down the gravel road, past La Grange, and right at the Irving - that little stretch takes twenty-five minutes and can’t be more than eight miles.  We get gas and keep moving. 

As we pass through Calais (which the locals pronounce “callous”) we pass an optometrist’s office and we stop in to see if they can fix Marilyn’s glasses frame.  The lady gives it the old college try but is afraid to go too far, lest she break them altogether. 

No, we didn't have Mickey D's version;  we've had the real thing!

Along the way we notice a sign for the headquarters of the Moosehead Wildlife Refuge.  We’ll be looking that up to see if it might be Sunday’s field trip.  We also pass The Clutter Shop!  We can’t decide if they are taking ours or selling us more! And there’s a restaurant called the 45^th Parallel, which we assume refers to its location, midway between the equator and the North Pole.

Although Eastport, ME, claims to be the easternmost town in the U.S., Lubec’s sign also claims the honor! It is also the U.S. side of the FDR Memorial Bridge.  We clear Canadian passport control after the usual questions:  Where are you going?  How long are you staying? Where are you from? Do you have liquor or firearms or pepper spray?

There are signs to the Visitors’ Center and that’s always a good place to start.  We had tried last night to get on line and make reservations for Tea with Eleanor at the Wells-Shober Cottage; but I didn’t realize that when it didn’t connect, it continued trying.  Now I’ve blown through my data plan and they’ve tacked an extra fifteen bucks onto my bill and 250MG of data.  That should certainly get us through the rest of the trip!  It seems cheaper than the ten dollars a month that they offered as an option!  They (the ever-present Verizon folks) also think I’m in Canada way before I am and have another plan to offer!  I don’t expect to use my phone while we’re in the park; but I’m wrong.  Marilyn’s brother calls her about the land deal, so I’m glad I’ve got it!

 Anyway, when we get to the Visitors’ Center we are able to make our reservations for the noon time tea (one o’clock their time) and are free to explore until then.  We take some exterior shots of the Roosevelt Cottage (from the best vantage point.  We know that, because there’s a sign to tell us!) and wander through the woods, looking for birds, before driving to tea.  

This isn't the spot they chose;  but I need the sign for my poor little brain!

 

It turns out you can only see the Wells-Shober cottage if you have tea reservations, so we are among the few who will see all four cottages today.  There is bottomless King Cole orange pekoe tea with real Canadian cream and it is truly delicious.  And really bottomless!  There are ginger cookies made right on site, too, but they aren’t GF.  I nibble a little of one of Marilyn’s and they are pretty scrumptious, too!  Our hostess feels guilty about not having anything for me to eat and wants to run our and get something!  Sweet lady!  I sure don’t need cookies!

The main attraction, though, is Taunya, who tells us lots of stories about Eleanor Roosevelt’s life and accomplishments, alternating between bringing us to tears and smiles and laughter.  I had no idea that she had had such a difficult childhood and, although I knew she was a powerful mover and shaker of her time, I didn’t realize the extent of her influence on the United States and the world!

Taunya has a new assistant, Sherrie, who is learning the ropes.  Today she is in charge of seeing to it that everyone has as much tea as they would like.  The presenters have to write their own presentations and Sherrie is doing research on Eleanor and on the cottage, too. She’s only been at the park for two weeks!

After telling the ladies what a fine job they did, and finding out what brand of tea and cream they served, and where to buy it, we go back to see the inside of the Roosevelt cottage.  What a misnomer!  It has thirty-eight rooms! This had been the Roosevelts’ summer home since FDR was a one-year old! He and Eleanor brought  their five children here every summer until FDR contracted polio, when he was 39.  FDR didn’t return to the island until 1933, when Eleanor threw him a picnic, inviting the whole island!  We notice that the servants’ rooms are the same size as the family’s!

The windows are called Robber Windows because they rob the sunlight from the bedroom on the left and give it to the otherwise-unlit hallway.  The glass is frosted to protect Anna's privacy!

Louis Howe was the power behind the throne, helping to write speeches and with many other aspects of the Roosevelts' lives.  He was particularly helpful to Eleanor when FDR fell ill and she worked to maintain his public persona.

Butler's pantry

This stove, the President model, was a gift from FDR's mother, Sara.

The annunciator!

We pass the site of the James and Sara Roosevelt cottage, the original cottage which belonged to FDR’s parents and is no longer standing, and arrive at the Hubbard cottage.  Mr. Hubbard designed the cottage for his wife, who was a concert pianist.  The piano and the pool table are the only original pieces remaining;  but the magnificent oval window in the dining room is still there and jaw-droppingly beautiful! And there is old, original glass in many of the windows!

It’s getting late and we’re hungry.  We’ve been chatting with a young man named Jake who is mowing the grounds for the summer.  He’s in law school and is enjoying not having to use his brain for a couple of months!  He agrees with us that the fun part of the summer is meeting people from all over!

We’ve decided to eat at the Fireside Restaurant, which is in the fourth of the extant cottages from back in the day.  When we ask about GF entrees the hostess checks with the chef and he says he can broil some haddock instead of breading and frying it, as the menu lists.  But when our waitress tells us the specials, I opt for the special sandwich with chicken, mozzarella, lettuce, tomato and bacon.  She can have it served on GF bread!  I get it with cole slaw and their wonderful, housemade mushroom soup!  So delicious!

After “linner” we drive up to the north end of the island to see the Head Harbour Lightstation.  There is something floating in the water, quite a ways out.  I think it’s an otter??  Marilyn spots it first, as we scan for whales.  One of the tour boats saw some here the other day. And we can see another light, far, far away in the distance.

 Driving south we find the Village Mart and shop for tea and cream. We’re really hooked on King Cole and Canadian cream!

We drive back down to the southern end of the island and take an unidentified road, hoping that it leads to the Mulholland Point Lighthouse, and sure enough, it does!  It’s getting late and we don’t know if the border closes at sundown, so we hurry back over the bridge and clear the U.S. passport check. When the agent asks what we’ve bought Marilyn tells him we have tea and cream.  He says, “Ah!  Have you been to Tea with Eleanor?”  He also gets a giggle when she says she bought a hat pin! Such big spenders! We’re home! 

Now it’s just a matter of driving an hour and a half back to La Grange for laundry and computer-charging time.  The door is locked at seven and it’s about seven thirty; but one of the residents, a nurse from Nigeria, is just walking up to the door and Marilyn talks her way in!  All we have to do is make sure we lock up when we leave.  We plug in all our electronics, start the laundry, and try to catch up with our lives.  I post two days’ worth of blogs and get through some of my email.  As soon as the laundry is dry enough, we pack up and hit the trail.  It is about ten o’clock and really dark out here in the woods.  Happily, all the turns are well marked and although we stop and think at a couple of the choices, we get home with nairy a wrong turn. 

Marilyn leaves the headlights on while I turn on the generator and go in and turn on a light. We both have flashlights and we make good use of them! After we make sure we’ve used all the water we need, we turn off the generator (have I mentioned it’s a bit of a hike?), turn off the heater, and head to bed.

Tomorrow should be an easy day, ending with a lobster feast at Sharon and Dana’s old house.  They are kicking out the current occupants for the evening!!