Summer Travel Map

Friday, July 20, 2007

Finishing up in Maine, and in the rain

July 20, 2007
Bar Harbor, ME

On Wednesday, the weather started to turn wet, but we decided to stick with our plan of driving up the coast. I had a couple of objectives for this drive. First, it would give me a chance to test out the route that we’ll take when we leave here. Second, we’ll be able to visit Campobello Island, summer cottage of FDR.

We drove north from Trenton, and tried the route recommended by Streets & Trips. We quickly found ourselves on a narrow bridge with a 10’ width limit. Even though this should be OK for the coach’s 102” width, I’m not sure I want to go that way. We backtracked a bit and took another route north, but the road was pretty rough. Either way, we ended up on ME-9, which took us to Calais, ME, where we’ll cross over into New Brunswick on Saturday. We found a good truck stop right before town with diesel for $2.94/gallon, so that’ll make a good place to top off before we cross the border where process are well over C$1/litre and over $4/gallon with the exchange.

From Calais (doesn’t it sound like we should be in France?), we drove southeast, then east to the town of Lubec, ME. This place bills itself as the easternmost town in the continental US (as opposed to Eastport, which is supposed to be the easternmost “city”; consider the hairs split). Next to the town dock is a small bridge to Campobello Island, which is actually part of New Brunswick. I’d planned ahead, so we had our passports and the pup’s vaccination papers handy. The only issue with border crossing is that the dogs bark when we pull up to the window, so it’s hard to hear the questions from the customs officer. We made the crossing without any other difficulties, and drove the several miles to the Roosevelt Park. We toured the visitor’s center, watched a short film on the history of the place, and then walked through the “cottage”. Our friends Dave and Sandy Thompson have a beautiful lake “cottage” in Loring, Ontario, but even they don’t have 14+ bedrooms on the second level, complete with separate rooms for tutoring, servants, and writing. After looking through the house, I walked down to the dock to see the view from the water.

It’s interesting how memories can come rushing back with the smallest cue. As I was touring the house, I couldn’t help but feel that I was back in my grandparent’s house. The first cue was the aroma; somehow, it just “smelled” familiar. Second, many of the interior details reminded me of the grandparents’ places as well. This makes some degree of sense, as they were probably of a similar vintage (early 1900s).

Another reason for visiting Campobello is that there’s a family legend that my father’s father actually worked on the FDR yacht in the ‘teens. I don’t have anything to say one way or the other, and the level of detail available on the tour wouldn’t really shed any light on it, but it was fun to visit and imagine how things were circa 1918.

After the tour, we drove back over the bridge, check through US Customs (2-3 minutes), and drove to Quoddy Head Lighthouse for some photos. Of course, this is the "easternmost point in the US"). It was pretty foggy by this point, so I may have to do some Photoshop work on the images. I’ll post some later, though.

We then headed back home, returning on US-1. I thought this might be a better route for us on Saturday, but there are several construction zones with unpaved stretches and one-lane sections. I’m not sure how they’ll be on the weekend, but still have some time to make a final call on the route.

We headed for a highly rated “lobster pound” for dinner, but got there too late (they stop seating at 7:30 PM – go figure), so we just went to the next place ¼ mile away. We each had 2-pounders, which were pretty good – but not as good as Brown’s. :-) We shared a table with a family from Vermont, since it was raining pretty hard and the covered seating area (picnic tables with plastic tablecloths) was pretty full. We enjoyed the meal, and then headed home for a nice Alamos Bonarda wine from Argentina.

Yesterday was a “home” day, since it was raining all day. Geri made dog food in the morning, and then I started a pot of sauce (aka, “gravy” in Philly) with a recipe I’d found before we left Phoenix. It called for pork and sausage, with the pork being ribs. If I’d have read the recipe more closely, I’d have left it home (e.g., no San Marzano tomatoes here, no food processor or food mill to do the puree), but we had the ribs in the freezer and needed to use them up before crossing the border. It cooked all day, and came out pretty good in spite of the processing compromises. Near the end, you remove the ribs and pull off the bones and fat, and then add it back in. The recipe is probably a “keeper” but with some modifications.

For lunch, Geri made us some meatball grinders (what can I say -- more stuff that needed to be used) with a quick sauce. She’d bought the meatballs at Stew Leonard’s in CT while we were there, and they were pretty good. They’re advertised as “so good you’ll never make homemade meatballs again”. Well, they were good, but they’re not Geri’s!

Our mail came, so I spent some time going through things and updating our records and Quicken files. It’s a process we go through about once a month (whether we need it or not!), since we receive most bills online and pay everything electronically. I got through most of this batch in one sitting. I also made some additional reservations for post-Canada, and updated our directions so we know where we’re going. We called it an early night after a nip of grappa, and slept pretty well.

It rained on and off, sometimes pretty hard, during the night, and it was still pretty wet this morning. I finished up the finances, making sure that we have everything paid and all money moved as needed (I’m not sure we’ll have online access consistently while in Canada), so we’re pretty much set at this point. Geri did laundry today, as well. We do a lot in the coach, but once in a while it just makes sense to use a park’s facilities, when you have volume. She did all the bedding and more, so she got quite a bit done today.

In the mail, I got a notice for Jury Duty, so I called them to let them know I wouldn't be "in state" for the period they wanted me, which was the whole month of September! I filled out the paperwork like the Supervisor of Jurors said, and can only hope that I don't end up in contempt of court.

Tonight, we’re “ordering in”. Twice a week, someone sells lobsters in the park. They steam them for you to take back to your coach, at half the price of local restaurants. It’ll be a good deal for us, since we won’t have a mess to clean up tonight or tomorrow morning. It’ll also give me a chance to work on posting some photos tonight!

1 comment:

Dave Thompson said...

I got a little confused at one point, but then realized that you had only driven the RR over to the NB Island. I'm sure that the dogs barking, small as they are, puts the customs officers off doing much of an inspection.

Seriously though, I wonder if there is a way of carrying wine with you "in bond" so to speak, that comes in with you and returns to the States. I suppose if your entry and exit points were the same you could arrange for storage, but that's not usually the case ... no pun intended.

It does seem like you're having a lot of lobster though -- and the good ones -- not those poor cousins from the Carribean, the spiny kind. The General Store in Loring never has lobsters, fresh or frozen ... and Jakes does not serve lobsters ... perhaps the local delicacy should be snapping turtle ??

Now that your itin is not going to take you to Loring this fall I'm going to have to make other arrangements to get the six of us together in one place (you, me, Geri, Sandy, Amontillado, Oaked Ontario Icewine). Life is tough.