bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We left early to drive to Acadia National Park, about 24 miles from Ellsworth, plus the 8 miles from the RV Park into town. We drove east on Hwy. 3 to the park. We went immediately to the Hulls Cove Visitor Venter. We parked, walked up the 52 steps, and went to the desk. We could use our senior pass, so there was no cost.

We watched the 15 minute movie about the park. There are free buses you can take around the park, but they run every 30 minutes, and there would be a lot of changing buses, so we decided to drive ourselves. In the gift shop they had a book, $3.95, ANP Motorist Guide Park Loop Road, which we purchased.

The construction for the Park Loop Road started in 1922 and continued into the 1950’s. It was financed, in part, by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who was responsible for the creation of Acadia’s carriage road system. The landscape architect designed the road for motorists, while maintaining the fragile natural resources.

Our first stop was at the Frenchman’s Bay Overlook. Below is Bar Harbor.

Below are some of the islands.

Indigenous people paddled their canoes through the bay fishing. The first recorded European was Samuel Champlain, in 1604. He sure got around!

We stopped at the Duck Brook bridge, but we could not get a good picture, as we were on the bridge and there were bushes on the sides. It is the largest continuous concrete arch bridge east of the Mississippi, built from 1951 to 1953.

We continued on to the Cadillac Mountain Summit. At 1520 ft, it is the highest point of land on the Atlantic Coast. The name came from a Frenchman who arrived in 1688. He named the mountain after his village in France, Sieur de Cadillac.

Above are the stone steps, going up to the summit.

Our next stop was at the Sieur de Monts Spring, at the Wild Gardens of Acadia.

 

 

We continued on our way. Here is one of the stone bridges that we passed under.

A beaver dam…

A lighthouse in Frenchman’s  Bay…

Above is The Precipice. They warn you about climbing them. Needless to say, we had no intention of climbing! Below is Sand Beach. The sand is made of crushed shells and marine animals. The temperature of the water is 50-60 degrees. We could not get down to the beach, due to the crowds. The road is one way at this point and there was no parking. In the winter, the sand is pulled out into the ocean and in the spring, the sand is returned by the waves.

We missed Thunder Hole, and will return for that visit. We continued on and went to Bar Harbor for lunch. We easily found a parking place. We ate lunch at  the Westside Cafe. We each had a lobster salad.

The things you see…. a soda fountain!

 

And the LL Bean boot!

 

 

Above is a stain glass clock from the 1800”s. Below, we stopped for ice cream. This is Maine Lobster Tracks. No, there is no lobster in it. It is from Gifford’s Ice Cream a well known Maine ice cream maker. For my DC friends, this is in no way related to the Gifford’s in the Washington DC area.

We left Bar Harbor and returned to the Loop Road. We crossed the Otter Cove Causeway Bridge, built in 1928. The bridge curves on a natural sand bar. This bridge is made of solid rock fill. The engineers believed that the salt would corrode the concrete if they built this bridge like others in the park. There were kids in the water just off the causeway. Brrrr!

We continued on to Jordan’s Pond. The original House/Restaurant on this site burned in 1979. The restaurant is famous for their popovers. So we stopped to have one. We had one order, which was two popovers, and we each ate one. Yummy, with blueberry jam! The popovers have been popular since the mid 1800’s, when people walked to the restaurant to eat one!

From here you can get to the carriage roads. I missed a picture of a carriage, but will try to get one later.

This bird above was just hanging out. It didn’t even move when we drew near!

We left and returned home to the dogs. We were tired, so we went out to dinner in Ellsworth, at the Union River Lobster Pot Restaurant. Bob had fried clams and I had the broiled scallops. Both were very good. We arrived a little before 6 and were given the last table for two. We looked outside and people started lining up and sitting on chairs by the river, waiting for a table!

Sunday- We left at about 9 to drive about 100 miles north to Campobello, FDR and Eleanor’s summer house. Campobello  island is in Canada, so we had to take our passports with us.

We drove to Ellsworth, then north on Rt. 1, allegedly a Maine Scenic Highway. We were not impressed with the highway. As Bob said, it was scenic if all you want to see is pine trees! Miles and miles of them!

We saw Blueberry Land, which was closed. What a tourist trap that must be!

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We did take a side road, out to the water, but it was not worth the trip. There was a few feet of water to look at.

 

We did see a lighthouse, across the bay.

 

We arrived in Lubec, ME, right on the Canadian border. We stopped at Beth’s Lobster House, which was based in a truck, and had lobster rolls. They were okay, but no where near as good as the ones in Oakland! We sat out at her picnic table looking at the water while eating.

We continued through town and crossed the bridge to Campobello. It took us almost 45 minutes, sitting on the bridge, to get through the border. Each car was taking, on average, 2 minutes. We sailed right through once it was our turn. .

We went immediately to Roosevelt Campobello International Park. The park was free. We went to the Visitor Center and wandered through the exhibits until the start of the 15 minute movie.

Then we went out back to the house.

Above is FDR and Eleanor’s bedroom. Below is their, non-private bathroom.

 

Above is the school room. There was a tutor all summer and the kids had lessons each morning.

Kitchen above and laundry below.

The house did not have electric until 1952, as Eleanor did not want the electric. FDR came down with the polio while at Campobello. He was taken out by stretcher and never returned.  Below is the view and the backside of the house.

 

We moved on to where the original house was located. When FDR was 1 year old, his parents visited Campobello Island for the summer. They liked it so much they purchased 4 acres of land and built a house for the summers. The house was eventually torn down, once the other house was built. This is where the house was originally. I think the view was better here!

Next we walked over to Hubbard Cottage, which was next door. FDR’s mother purchased it for $5000. We both liked this house better, even though it was smaller.

The porch is beautiful and wraps around the house.

Hubbard Cottage had a very open feel to it. I really liked this dining room with the oval window. The view was better also!

We left and went to follow the carriage roads.

As you can see, we drove out to the Bay of Fundy. The tide was going out, and the water was moving very rapidly. Below are harbor seals romping in the water.

We stopped by the Mullholland Point Lighthouse on Campobello Island. It was from the 1800’s, so it was there when FDR was!

We traveled back over the bridge and re-entered the USA.

We started back south on Rt. 1 and turned left to visit the Quoddy Head Light House in Quoddy Head State Park. $2 for the two of us. Put in service in 1858.

This is the eastern most point of the USA.

We returned to the main road and drove back to the MH. We ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

Monday-  We retuned to Bangor to the Best Buy. The hard drive on my laptop was broken. We had decided that since the computer was over 3 years old, we would just buy another one. So we purchased the computer and had the Geeks set it up. We went to lunch at Dysart’s, again. Then shopped. The computer was finally ready at around 3:30. We picked it up and returned home. I worked on getting it set up and downloading my software. I was not happy that Microsoft has discontinued support, and would not allow me to download Windows Live Writer, which is the software I use to write the blog before posting it on WordPress.

Tuesday- Because we had been gone so many days we decided we would take the dogs with us. We packed up and drove into another area of Arcadia NP, this time, down Hwy. 102 to the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. What a bust that was! It was not open to the public, had a very small and very busy parking lot and there was only this to see. We lucked out and got a parking place.

We walked the dogs down to it, took the picture and left. We drove east on Hwy. 102, and stopped to walk the dogs in picnic area. We turned around and returned, stopping at this natural sea wall.

We stopped at Southwest Harbor to take this picture.

We continued on our way to Bar Harbor. We stopped at a deli in a Sunoco station, and bought a sub and salad, which were very good. We took them to a picnic area and ate lunch.

From there we went along the Loop Road, along the ocean until we could find a parking place. We walked the dogs along the path that winds along the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

Not the idiot kids above, climbing the rocks. We walked down to Thunder Hole, which we had missed the previous time due to not being able to get a parking place.

Thunder hole is an open area on Mount Desert Island, part of Acadia. When the ocean waves are large ( not today unfortunately) the water fills this area and gets trapped. When it does, it produces a thundering noise and the water shoots up in the air, due to the trapped air in the crevice. Unfortunately, we did not time this right to get to see it.

We left and returned to the MH, ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

Wednesday- We are running out of things to do in the area, so we went in search of Lighthouses. Maine has a lot of lighthouses, but many of them are on islands and we would not be able to reach them. We found one not too far away and thought we would head to that one.

We left the RV park and drove south towards Buckport. We spotted a lighthouse sign and turned left. This was not the one we were looking for…. We drove about 20 miles to the town of Castine. What a find!

The town is very pretty with a golf course, harbor, the Maine Maritime Academy, and the lighthouse. We went straight to the Dyce Head Lighthouse, 1828. It is someone’s home, but you can walk a path around it.

On the way back to town, we saw this inn. The Manor House Inn was originally built for the Commodore of the South Boston Yacht Club in 1900.

We also found Fort George. Fort George was very interesting!

This is hard to read, but what happened was that the British took over the fort. The American General in charge of sailing up during the Revolutionary War, did not attack when the British were outnumbered. Instead the attack happened later and the Americans lost. It was the worst attack on American soil until Pearl Harbor! The General was under the command of Paul Revere, who ended up being court marshalled for this incident, but was found not guilty. Revere’s reputation never recovered! Hmm, had you ever heard of this? We had not!!! This was the site of a major battle of the Revolutionary War.

 

We went down to the harbor through pretty houses and past the Maine Maritime Academy, driving on Main Street. Below is the map of the town.

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Above, to us, was the most interesting house, although not the prettiest. It is called Noah’s Ark, c. 1847. It was the home o f Noah Brooks, 1830 –1903, a Castine-born journalist who was a confidant and biographer of Abraham Lincoln.

We left and returned to Hwy. 1. We drove through the town of Bucksport. As we crossed the bridge, we saw another fort, this one still intact.

It was $3 for the two of us to enter. We started at the visitor center. They built this fort, which was never used in battle, to protect the Penobscot River and bay from the English. The English were just across the river in Nova Scotia, so they were close by, but never attacked this fort.

There are two walls. This is the outer wall, which would take the impact of cannon fire.

This is the one battery facing the bay. 

We entered and turned to the left, going up some steps.  Here are where the second level of cannons would have been sitting.

 

After the War of 1812, Congress decided that the British were not going to attack again, so they decommissioned a lot of forts. When they did this, they sold off the cannons. The offered the fort to the state of Maine, who purchased it for $2000 and then had to go buy back the cannons for another $2000 dollars.

We walked up these steps to the top of the fort.

Here is Bucksport from the top of the fort.

 

Above was the bakery. There were enlisted me quarters and officers quarters. Plus storage and powder magazines.

We left our unexpected side trip and continued a few miles down the road to the Fort Point Light Station, 1836. We had seen it from across the river.

It was also someone’s home, in the state park ($2 for the two of us). In 1759 Gov. Powenall brought 400 men to build Fort Pownall.

This was an English fort on the Penobscot River. It was built originally to fight with the French over the area. It was shaped like a four point star. Soon after it was built, Quebec fell to the English and it was not used for military purposes.

We returned through Bucksport to the MH about 20 miles away. We ate lunch and took a nap. Bob worked on his computer. Both computers were having issues, with getting an error message and doing a restart. He was on with Geek Squad for hours.

We ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

Thursday- We decided to go do some Genealogy. We drove to Bangor and went to the Family History Library there. Other than being freezing, it was a very nice place and the people were wonderful. The temp outside was 93 degrees, hot and humid, but it was so cold inside!

We both did some work on our families. Bob had found an older thumb drive that had some information on it, so he is not starting from scratch.

We ate lunch there and stayed until they closed at 2. We stopped at Petsmart and Petco to pick up dog food. Then returned to the MH. We ate dinner at home, watched TV and went to bed.

Friday- My computer is worse than Bob’s! I worked on the final article and the Roadrunner newsletter. We went to Remy’s, a discount store we saw advertised and Bob bought a new belt. Then we went to Walmart .

We returned, ate lunch, and then I called Geek Squad to try to figure out what was going on with the restart messages.

The gal spend several hours on it but did not get it fixed. So Bob had an appt. for both computers for when we get to our next stop. We leave here on Sunday.

Since we are both having the same issue, we decided that maybe it was Kapersky. So Bob un-installed Kapersky on my computer and it worked perfectly. He re-installed and it did it again. Ah ha! Now we know the problem, but we need to get it fixed as we obviously need a security software. So we are keeping our appointment for Monday.

I hustled to get the Roadrunner Newsletter out today and sent it off the the club president. We ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.

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