Bezabor: Down East! (posted 10/4/05 at Southwest Harbor Public Library)(Top: Mocha Joe (our van) at Liberty Point, Campobello Island, New Brunswick.
Bottom: A small portion of Million Dollar View at Grand Lake, along US 1 above Danforth, Maine)
Monday, 10/3/05 – (written at Southwest Harbor Library)
After a very good night at Seawall Campground (temperatures in the high forties), we broke camp to another sunny day and drove into Southwest Harbor. We stopped at a West Marine store and bought a 12-volt lighting fixture (I’m looking for a better interior lighting solution for the van) then went to the library to connect to the internet. We were able to receive and answer email but the Blogger site was down for maintenance so I could not send in my updates. We lunched at the Seawall picnic grounds along the ocean.
We finally had time to go into Acadia National Park today. We drove up Cadillac Mountain and the view the whole way up and at the top was awesome. We had been in the park years before but had never made the trip up Cadillac—we didn’t know what we were missing! We then cruised the Park Road, stopping at many of the turnouts and getting out to scan the area below with binoculars. We also enjoyed a walk through the wild gardens and visited the Abbe Museum, which specializes in local native American artifacts.
We returned to Seawall Campground for the night. Foraging for firewood in the campground area was not allowed but someone had left two big partially-burned birch logs behind the big granite fireplace in our campsite. It took me awhile but I was able to saw them with my backpacker’s handsaw and then split them and they gave us a long-lasting, fragrant campfire till bedtime.
Sunday, 10/2/05 – (written offline at Seawall Campground, Acadia National Park)
We again arose early—around 0630—to the sound of wood chopping and doors banging. Our neighbors in the campground were making a breakfast fire (cut the wood the night before, dummy!) and we were a little too close to the restrooms’ banging doors. But no matter, it was a going to be a fine day so we decided we’d break camp right away and find a nice scenic pulloff somewhere to have breakfast. We decided to tour the launch ramps around Somes Sound, then perhaps kayak later. We had some trouble finding the Sargent Road Picnic area but finally found it (someone had apparently taken down the sign to keep it a little more private) and had breakfast there. While Labashi was making breakfast, I looked around the picnic area and saw an odd sight--- a partially open Pelican case sitting on a rock. When I opened it, I knew immediately what had happened. It was filled with very expensive eyepieces and filters for a telescope—someone had been out viewing the stars last night and while packing up in the darkness had left the case. I knew the brand Tele-vue to be one of highest quality--- there was easily three thousand dollars-worth of lenses in that foam-lined protective case.
We used our handy-dandy magic marker to make up a sheet of paper with the message “FOUND / on this rock / on 10/2/05 at 0900 / Pelican case / Call / Identify contents” and placed it in a plastic bag and put it on the big rock (with a smaller rock to hold it down) and took the case with us. We didn’t know what else to do…..somebody was going to be very upset about forgetting that case.
We then headed over to another launch area, this one at Bartlett Landing. According to the guide book it was at a very small parking area and it was unlikely we’d find parking. But I suppose since it was off-season, we had no problem—in fact the area was pretty quiet the whole time we were there. It was so pleasant there and had a more remote feeling than Somes Sound so we decided to go ahead and paddle.
With temps in the low 60’s, a clear blue sky, very light winds, and high tide only about an hour away, we had it made. We edged along the little bay, then crossed to Bartlett Island to explore some of its coves. The first was pleasant and led us around behind an island and into a second cove, where we saw another bald eagle! It was again a male and it flew away from us, the white tail very clear and the white head showing only as it rose to land in a tree on the far side of the cove. But shortly after it landed, a group of ravens started making a fuss. They harassed the eagle until it finally gave up and flew away. They only chased it a few hundred yards but it was clear they were in charge of that side of the cove.
We continued paddling in a southerly direction along the island, eventually approaching the end of the island. It was at this point where we saw one, then two, then four harbor porpoises traveling together. They were only 50 yards off and on a course perpendicular to ours. When we started paddling toward them, they turned toward us and went under only 10 yards or so in front of us, then surfaced again some 20 yards behind us. Labashi was ecstatic (and so was I!).
Right about that time we also saw a seal nearby but we chose to stay with the porpoises. We followed them at some distance for awhile and then noticed that the tide was starting to run, carrying us away from our launch ramp so we turned and headed back. It was certainly more work to paddle upstream against the tide but really not bad at all. On the other hand, I’d rather not be doing that when the tide is running at full ebb so we headed for the launch ramp at a good strong pace.
After loading up from our three-hour paddle we were hungry and decided we’d lunch back at the picnic area where we had found the Pelican case. The note was still there so obviously whomever had lost it had not been back yet. We had a leisurely lunch of the best genoa salami ever and then toured the west side of the island. We found a couple of dirt roads on the map and explored those, then drove down toward Southwest Harbor via the back roads. Along the way, we saw a sign for ‘Island Astronomy’ and thought that would be a good place to check whether they had heard of someone leaving their lenses at the picnic area along Somes Sound. But there was nobody around--- of course not—it’s Sunday!
We continued through Bass Harbor and over to the Seawall Campground where we decided to stay the night. We had just finished supper and were going to take a short walk around the campground when our cell phone rang--- it was the owner of the case!
As it turns out, the case belonged to the owners of Island Astronomy and their home and shop was not very far from tonight’s campground so they came over. They had had a public event last night and indeed had missed the case while packing up and had gone through a panic this afternoon when they realized the eyepieces and filters were missing. We had a long and delightful conversation with them.
Afterwards, Labashi and I sat around the campfire under a sky-full of stars. We could see the Milky Way and at least twice as many stars as we normally see at home. We saw one satellite but no shooting stars.
Saturday, 10/1/05 (written offline at Blackwoods Campground, Acadia National Park)
Well now, it’s October! Our 26th day on the road and all is going well. We woke this morning at Herring Cove Provincial Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. Labashi had been awake early and so we decided at 0615 to break camp and go back to Liberty Point to look for wildlife.
That turned out to be a good decision. Shortly after arriving we saw minke whales just a little way offshore. We would tend to see one twice, first with a small spout as it exhaled, then again on the surface after a few body-lengths of swimming, then nothing. We also saw one, then two smaller animals we thought were baby whales but later decided they were harbor porpoises. We also saw five or six seals coming close to the point and playing in the waves set up by the tidal flow.
On land, we had hundreds of chickadees around us for some reason. They filled the pines behind us, chittering away. Small groups of ten or twelve of them would come to the pine tree right in front of our van. If we stood outside the van, one or two of the boldest of them would pass by us very closely. As we sat in the van, one even darted at the windshield, dodging through the kayak’s tiedown lines… quite a show of acrobatic flying! We later noticed there were two beautiful hawks in the area, making passes through the pines, then circling back, resting a bit, then making another pass. They were magnificent birds, rufous-breasted and rather small and elegant, but fantastic fliers. One flew up toward a pine, and circled it twice very tightly and very quickly, then landed gracefully. I’ve never seen that before.
We then took a three-hour walk along the Sunswept trail from Liberty Point to Raccoon Bay, then back to our van via the gravel road. This was absolutely a primo trail. It had been recommended to us by a staffer at the New Brunswick Information Center when we first arrived on-island. He had simply mentioned it was one of his favorites.
The views everywhere along the trail were stupendous. We were atop a rocky cliff and were following a lineup of small coves, each rock-hewn and topped with pines and looking out over the ultra-blue Bay of Fundy with Grand Manan Island in the distance. The chickadees and harbor porpoises seemed to follow along, for there they were whenever we’d look. Then, as we came through an area of very dense foliage, we heard a loud noise— screaming and much wing-flapping. We could not see a thing but could tell from the sounds that whatever it was was not far away. Then, through the branches, I saw it, a spectacular bald eagle. And just as I looked, it dropped off a branch and fell out of sight. I explained to Labashi that the eagle had been ‘over there, by that deformed tree trunk’. She checked it briefly with her binocs and said, “that’s no tree trunk, that’s an eagle!”. And sure enough it was--- another male bald eagle. It was looking away from us and at first we could not see the white head; it was blocked from view by a large pine branch. But we slowly eased along the trail and found a spot for a better view. We never were able to get a photograph, though, there was just too many branches between us and the eagle. Finally, as we tried to get closer, it spotted us and dropped down off the branch and out of sight down the cliff.
We continued to Raccoon Bay and then hiked the road back to the van and had lunch on that wonderful, spectacular Liberty Point.
After lunch we cruised the gravel back roads of the nature park, then headed back across the bridge to the U.S. Going through Customs was very easy both ways.
We then went to West Quoddy Light, which we had been able to see from the Canadian side. We enjoyed the visitor’s center but decided we had had enough walking for the day so did not stay to walk in the nature reserve part of the park.
We slowly drove down the coast and took the long way by diverting to go through Cutler, then worked our way down US 1 to Ellsworth for the turnoff to Bar Harbor and our goal for the night—the campground at Acadia National Park. Shortly after Ellsworth we passed a WalMart, then went back to check—as we suspected this one in such a busy, touristy area that they did not allow overnighting. We went on to Blackwoods Campground (part of the National Park) only to learn that the campground was full. But we got lucky--- we had arrived around 1900 hours and the ranger decided it would be all right to give us one of the handicap camping spots reserved until last — so we got in! After a hearty dinner of baked beans and hot dogs, I’m ready to turn in!
Friday, 9/30/05 - (written at Herring Bay Provincial Park campground, Campobello Island)
The winds died down overnight after one last hurrah--- enough wind to make us briefly wonder whether we were in danger from the trees around us toppling onto the van. But by midnight the winds had subsided and morning broke cloudy, then by 0900 or so started clearing and before long there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Overnight temperatures had stayed in the forties so we didn’t need the heater in the morning.
We broke camp and moved on to Lubec, then crossed the international bridge into Canada at Campobello Island. We had planned to visit the Roosevelt International Park but first went to the far end of the island at East Quoddy Light to look for any sea life. We saw no sea life but noticed salmon pens in nearby Head Harbor. Watching the aquaculture pens, we could see a comical sight—sea gulls lined up around the netted-in pen watching the salmon jumping. They didn’t so much jump as skip across the surface on their tails--- I’m sure they were driving the seagulls crazy.
We learned that these pens each contain up to 15,000 Atlantic Salmon and are unique to the Bay of Fundy area and some similar such areas in Norway and, I believe it was Argentina. This type of aquaculture requires the twice-daily exchange of water available only in areas with such a large tidal range (the tides of Campobello Island run about 25 feet). We also learned that that Atlantic Salmon aquaculture industry was a brand new industry in the last 20 years and had grown to a $150 million dollar business around Campobello and the Bay of Fundy.
We then did the standard tourist visit to Roosevelt Cottage. It was actually a gem of a place to visit, just like the AAA book says. We learned about FDR’s early years and about the amazing vitality of the summer tourism industry at the turn of the century— a great Merchant-Ivory movie could be made there. The Roosevelt cottage had 34 rooms (some cottage!) and has been very carefully preserved just as it was in FDR’s time. We enjoyed seeing all the everyday things used at the time and envisioning the cottage with a full complement of guests. We loved little things—like the pot-bellied wood stove in the laundry which was designed to hold five or six laundry irons and keep them hot all the time—just pick one off the stove and when it cooled too much, put it back and pick another. Very well thought out!
After the cottage visit, we took a drive through the nature conservation area of the park. We ended up at Liberty Point and before long saw our first seals, then a few brief views of minke whales. As sunset approached, we took a drive back up to the other end of the island to again check out the view from East Quoddy Light. The tide had gone out, exposing a rocky ‘beach’ which we could cross to the lighthouse. Earlier in the day, the lighthouse island had been separated from the main island.
As darkness came on we retreated back toward our campground for the night which was Herring Cove Provincial Park. But we wanted some local food so stopped at the Family Fisheries restaurant. Labashi had the seafood casserole and I had a fantastic bowl of lobster stew. My stew was only $6.50 for a ‘cup’ that was bigger than the bowl on the American side. For dessert, Labashi had a slice of an excellent raspberry pie and I had my first grapenut pudding. My pudding was sort of a vanilla custard with a quarter-inch-thick layer of warm grapenut-filled topping, then a generous dab of whipped cream. The grapenut topping had an interesting taste- a piquancy reminiscent of ginger.
We planned to be at the campground before 2000 hours which we had learned earlier in the day was closing time there. But we neglected to figure in Atlantic Time--- in other words when we crossed the bridge into Canada, we were in the Atlantic Time Zone, an hour ahead. So we arrived at the campground after hours. But it was not a problem—they just had a sign out telling us to go ahead and pick out a spot and pay in the morning.
Thursday, 9/29/05 – (written offline at Cobscook State Park, Maine)
We were lazy this morning. The wind was blowing fairly hard right away and the weather-band radio said it would pick up from this morning’s 15-20 knots with gusts to 30 to 25-35 knots with gusts to 55 knots in the afternoon. We read our guidebooks and maps until about 0930 then went for a walk before the wind got worse. Our walk turned out well--- we checked out the views from the adjoining picnic area and then walked the nature trail which was an excellent one—about a two-hour walk overall.
We lunched at the New Friendly Restaurant in Perry at the recommendation of our guidebook and each had a super fish chowder (at a more reasonable $4.50 per bowl). (I bet that’s good in cold weather!)
Then we went into Eastport where we tasted mustards at a mustard-grinding mill-- reportedly the last of our country’s stone-ground mustard mills—and of course bought some very good mustards (maple-horseradish and maple-ginger) and, uh, some
chocolate-covered ginger root (umm—good!).
In downtown Eastport we visited several artist co-ops, the nation’s oldest chandlery (a bit of a disappointment there), and just enjoyed a walk through the area—even with the high winds. Eastport’s heyday was apparently the 1880s and it’s now undergoing restoration of many of its storefronts. We need to come back to see how this progresses.
With the high winds, we decided to call it a day and go back to Cobscook State Park for the night. We spent it catching up on the blog and reading.
Wednesday, 9/28/05 – (written offline at Cobscook State Park, Maine)
Wednesday was another picture-perfect sunny day. We awoke to the sun warming up the van and decided to move on to the Down East area of Maine. We continued down US 1 through the potato-growing area of Aroostook County and on to the lakes district above Calais (‘CAL-us’). We took a two-mile walk at Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge and then drove the auto-tour route. We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife but did very much enjoy the opportunity to see the backcountry.
We continued down US1 through Calais and on to Cobscook State Park. We had spoken to a ranger at Aroostook State Park and he had recommended Cobscook and even recommended his favorite two campsites. Cobscook is fantastic! It sits on a series of little peninsulas and the campsites are strategically arranged around the peninsulas overlooking Whiting Bay or Burnt Cove or Cobscook Bay. Our campsite overlooking Burnt Cove was spectacular--- we had a pine grove to ourselves (actually we had most of the park to ourselves—we only saw one other couple). We still had a bundle of firewood left over from Baxter and we used it to good advantage, mixing it’s ultra-dry sappy, explode-in-a-shower-of-sparks wood with some of the slower-burning wood left by previous campers here at Cobscook. We stayed up late (2200 is late for us!) staring into the fire and taking side trips to a little rocky outcropping from which we could see the sky and the Milky Way. Labashi saw three shooting stars, I saw one. There were so many stars in the sky that we could only pick out the constellation Casseiopeia. The stars were reflecting into the water of Burnt Cove and we could simultaneously see three or four airplane beacons at a time. When I first walked out on the outcropping, I thought I was seeing fireflies but they were the reflections of the airplane beacons in the water. And as we sat around the fire later on, we heard coyotes howling—just briefly, but definitely the wild, wild sound of coyotes. What a night!
Tuesday, 9/27/05 – (written offline at Presque Isle Wal-Mart parking lot)
After another rainy night we were ready for some sunshine. And we needed it….we had developed a water leak. When we left the Squirrel Pocket campsite, we had heard a considerable amount of water spilling off the kayak cockpit covers onto the van roof. At our lunch stop, we noticed that water had come in the ventilation bubble on the roof and had fallen on our bed--- not good! We were planning to go to a campground with electricity so we could use Labashi’s hair dryer to dry our mattress but that turned out not to be necessary. The water amount that had come in was actually very small and things had dried out well enough by the end of the day so we were fine for the night and decided the state park campground would be fine (Maine’s state parks do not have electricity to any of their campsites).
Fortunately, our new day quickly turned into a sunny one so I thought we’d go back to the Presque Isle Wal-mart and get some Silicon-Seal or a caulking gun and caulk to seal the leak. On the way, though, we passed an RV dealer and Labashi reminded me that we needed some butane for our cookstove. We got the butane canisters and I told the dealer of my leak problem and asked if he had any good sealer. An hour later, he had fixed the problem with a high-quality lap caulk used for RV roofs.
We decided we needed a maintenance day to get things back on track--- we had some damp covers and had shipped some water into one of our storage compartments and we had a good-sized bag of dirty laundry. We stopped at a Laundromat and while Labashi handled the laundry, I cleaned out the van and thoroughly dried the dampened covers and our mattress. It took us about two hours but it was well worth it to get everything cleaned up, swept-out, dried out, and re-stowed properly. Kind of a system re-boot after 22 days on the road in our little home.
Afterwards, we went to --- you may have guessed it --- Wal-Mart! The Presque Isle Wal-Mart is a good one for over-nighting. It has a very big un-used parking lot along one side of the store which is well away from traffic and other noises. We did some shopping to restock supplies and then took a long walk to a Movie Gallery video-rental store to rent a movie for the evening. We ended up doing a double-feature--- ‘Sahara’ and ‘Off the Map’. ‘Sahara’ was a decent adventure movie showing some imagination and ‘Off the Map’ was a quirky story of a young girl growing up in remote New Mexico. Great double-feature!
Monday, 9/26/05 – (written offline at Aroostook State Park, Maine)
It rained heavily during our night at Squirrel Pocket campsite on Second Musquacook Lake (that’s pronounced “mus-QWAY-cook”). At about 0500 hours we heard two gunshots--- some moose hunters were apparently overly anxious for the season’s daybreak start in an hour or so. On the other hand, it may (I told Labashi) have been a case of a moose hunter walking in to his stand before daylight and getting the crap scared out of him by a 1200-pound moose--- yeah, that’s it--- it must have been a case of self-defense.
Shortly after the gunshots, we started seeing the fog and clouds over us being lit up. We at first thought the lights were from jack-lighters, i.e., hunters illegally using spotlights looking for moose and I’m pretty sure some of it was for I briefly saw a round light through the fog on the far shore. But we could have been wrong, for it wasn’t long until a thunderstorm came upon us.
The thunder and lightning were interesting--- the lightning appeared to be cloud-to-cloud lightning; it didn’t seem to be descending to the ground. We’d see a flash and then count the seconds to the sound which didn’t make the loud crack we normally expect of lightning. But it rolled on and on, seeming to cross the sky.
Our temperature that night dropped down to a low of about 37 degrees but morning temperature wasn’t bad... mid-forties by the time we had breakfast and were ready to go, albeit in the rain.
We continued cruising the North Maine Woods. We had come about 40 miles in from Ashland and were about 35 miles from the exit point at St. Francis. It rained the entire time—in fact all day.
The roads weren’t too bad. The worst part was the pot-holes--- you just had to have the patience to slowly proceed through the ones you couldn’t dodge. In the worst-pot-holed areas we were only able to proceed between 15 and 20 miles per hour. Then we’d hit stretches where it was possible to do 35.
We were glad to see the gate at St. Francis and happy to get onto the nice, smooth hard road heading to Allagash. We were a little disappointed at Allagash in that there was little there—I guess we were expecting to find some interesting outfitters. But we did see one interesting sight: as we drove toward Allagash we saw a pickup with a trailer --- a large utility-style trailer without sides--- and on it was a dead bull moose. Obviously the hunter had been successful earlier that morning. But how the heck did he get the moose to fall on the trailer? I can’t imagine how you go about getting a 1000-1300-pound moose onto that trailer. Or, come to think of it, how you get the moose even close to the trailer in the heavy brush and thick woods where we were seeing moose sign. I’m apparently not the only person with this problem--- we saw several signs advertising ‘moose retrieval services’.
We were now on the upper tip of Maine, traveling along the border with New Brunswick which we could see on the other side of the St John River. It was a very pleasant drive and we succumbed to a sudden desire for pizza at a bar in Fort Kent (‘BeeJays’).
We then proceeded eastward, then southerly down US 1. Fort Kent is the northern starting point for US Highway 1 --- yes, the same US 1 that goes down the East Coast all the way to Key West, Florida.
The rain was still coming down and I was being driven crazy by my windshield wiper which was skipping across the windshield, making an obnoxious sound time-after-time-after-time-after-time and still not clearing the windshield. I stopped at an NAPA auto parts store in Madawaska to buy a new blade and listened intently while one of the guys behind the counter had a long discussion with a customer in Swedish. Interesting—and when I mentioned it to Labashi she told me why— during the Civil War, President Lincoln send an emissary to Sweden to convince them not to ship iron to the Confederacy. He noticed that the land was similar to northern Maine and, since Maine needed settlers, encouraged Swedes to move to Maine and convinced Congress to authorize each family 100 acres of land. Interesting!
The other stores where we had stopped tended toward an Acadian background and we would heard Canadian French spoken there. Very cool!
We continued on to Caribou, where I knew the library had free wireless connectivity (they call it “Walk-In-Wireless”) so we spent the latter part of the day catching up on the blog and on our email.
We went on to Presque Isle for the night. Our Explorer guidebook said that a small diner called ‘Winnie’s’ had great lobster bisque and seafood chowder so we thought we’d give that a try. The guide failed to mention that lobster bisque is selling for $17.90 a bowl! So we had a bowl of seafood chowder for ‘only’ $10.90 and a cup (and it was a Styrofoam soup cup!) of lobster bisque for $12.90. We spent over $25 for a supper consisting of a bowl and a cup of soup! And yes, it was VERY good. But then again, I think I’m more of a fish-chowder kind of guy.
We then moved on to our campsite at Aroostook State Park for the night. We had checked out the Wal-Mart there in Presque Isle and it would have been fine but we needed showers, a dump station, and a dumpster by then.
