Washington DC- Annapolis Oct 26- 30

At the repair shop

Arrived early afternoon in Greenbelt Nat’l Park and set up camp.  I noticed that the trailer wasn’t sitting quite right and much to my distress, I saw that the forward mounting shackle had parted from the trailer frame.  This means that we are in danger of losing the axles and wheels off the trailer if the other two shackles were to break.   Using our Aircard and Google we were able to locate a welding shop only a few miles from our campground.  I called them up and they said come on over.  Slowly we made it to this big shop that looked like a scrap iron yard but they were able to weld the shackle  back on to the frame and put in some extra reinforcing.  Disaster averted!

Ed and Pats at Arlington

The next day we went into Washington and met up with our friend Sonya, whom we have known for many years, and has always welcomed us into her home as long lost family.  We spent the next three days catching up, visiting  with her kids and seeing some sights in DC.

Muster for Lunch  USN

I spent a day in Annapolis where I visited the Naval Academy.  It was very impressive, beautiful buildings, spacious grounds, great harbor.  The Navy does a much better job of showing off their Academy to visitors than does West Point.  The West Point tour was mostly by bus and you only got to visit the church.  The Annapolis tour was a walking tour, where you got to go in many of the buildings, see the midshipmen in formation, see what their dorm rooms looked like and get a better idea of what it was like to be a midshipman at the Naval Academy. 

Sanity/Fear

On our last day we went to Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity/and or Fear on the Washington Mall.  It was mobbed.  I think there was some 70 to 80 thousand people.  Unfortunately there were not enough giant television screens and speakers to see or hear very well, but it was fun seeing the crowd and all the creative signs people made.  It was a very sane crowd, I saw little or no fear.  We did manage to see Stewart’s and Colbert’s opening shtick, but the crowd move in around us and some we couldn’t see or hear much.    BUT WE WERE THERE. 

Lancaster County Pennsylvania Oct 24-25

This is Amish-Mennonite country.  I don’t know much about them, but what I have seen on TV and the movies.  The country is rolling fields with tidy farms and antique shops along the road.  The houses are large and look to be modern with cars and farm machinery in the yards.  What few people I’ve seen, dress in an old style, long dresses, white bonnets, plain pants and coats.  We saw an old couple completely dressed in black, pushing a wheel chair with an even older woman in black, down the highway.  On the way to church I suppose. 

We’ve seen many carriages, most of them completely enclosed, so the passengers were not visible.  We did pass one open carriage with two teenage girls.  It was a small carriage, pulled by a pony, the girls seemed to be enjoying their Sunday drive. 

The villages here have interesting names, Compass, Blue  Ball, Bird in the Hand,  Virginville, Intercourse, and Paradise.  It seems to me that there must be deep passion beneath those long dark dresses and straw hats.  I have the definite impression that this is a mixed neighborhood with Baptists and Presbyterians  mixed in with the Amish and Mennonite. 

Interlude in Intercourse

It is all very bucolic and definitely different from any other American suburbs and countryside.   We visited a quilt museum in Intercourse and the hand work was magnificent.  Next door was an antique shop full of authentic antiques made in China.  Just down the road from here is the town of York, which is the home of Harley-Davidson.  We passed the motorcycle factory on the way.

We took a day trip to the Brandywine Valley hoping to visit the Wyeth Museum, but it was closed on Mondays.  Instead we went to the Hagley Museum which is the home and gun powder factory of the Du Pont’s.  The Du Pont’s started the gun powder works in 1803 and it operated until 1916.  It was powered by the water from the Brandywine River.  Using canals to route water over water wheels, they ran grist mills that ground up charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur to make black power.  Each mill could grind up to 500lbs at a time.  Dupont had 20 mills along the river to become the largest manufacturer of black powder in the world.  It was mostly used in construction and mining.  Only about 20% was used by the military.  The highlights of the tour were to watch the 16 ton wheels being driven by the water wheel,  and the explosion of 1 gram of black powder.  In addition there was a demonstration  of water powered machine tools used to make parts for broken down machinery.

Gettysburg Oct 23

Pennsylvania Monument

We left Newburgh and drove and drove and drove until we arrived at Gettysburg.  Along the way we went through the Poconos and the Catskills and saw miles and miles of trees turning into glorious reds, yellows, and golds.  We went through Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Harrisburg.  Did you know that Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania?   I didn’t. 

 We arrived at Gettysburg to stay at the Artillery Ridge RV park and stables.  You can bring your horse here or rent one of the nags they have here and  ride in the battlefield.  This is a  and huge RV park and this weekend it is packed.  We have pretty much stayed in sparsely populated parks and camps since labor day, it was a real surprise to see all this activity here.  Not only the horseback riding they are doing a big Halloween thing for little kids and folks have decorated their RVs with Halloween stuff.

Union cannon

The battle field is quite large, 6-7 miles long, 4 miles wide or more.  Over 165,000 troops participated over 3 days.  It was pretty much a draw, until Pickett’s Charge where the Army of the Potomac eventually prevailed.  Fifty one thousand either perished or were wounded  and it was a turning point in the war which continued on for another two years.   Of course this is where Lincoln delivered his “Gettysburg Address” five months after the battle.

Eternal Flame

Today it is a National Military Park with hundreds of monuments erected by the states who provided the military units dedicated to the soldiers who served.  There are cannons in place where the artillery was used in the battles, and plaques explaining the events that happened at those places during the three day battle.

At the visitor center there is a movie (narrated by Morgan Freeman,  of course) explaining the events leading  up to the war, and of the battle, and Lincolns address.   There is also a 360 degree painting  40ft tall and 380 ft long painted  in the round in 1884  depicting the battle.  You stand in the middle of the room and the picture is all around you.    With all depiction of death and privation it is a sobering experience.  The visit to the battlefield is by a self guided car tour.  Follow the signs and stop along the way at the sights that interest you.  I don’t think it would be possible to stop at each spot in one day, I certainly didn’t have the attention span to do it.  But it gives one a good perspective of where the battles were fought and size and scope of the encounters.  I think this would be an excellent place for our West Point cadets to visit.

General Meade's view of the field of battle

Headed South October 20-21, Newburgh New YorkHeaded South October 20-21, Newburgh New York

Turning tree on FDR's estate

Today we drove 250 miles and entered into 5 states: Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.  We felt kind of guilty not stopping to explore these places, but we were in Boston not too long ago, and we’ve been on the Maine coast for the last three weeks, so we didn’t feel inclined to do more beach and ocean in Mass and Conn.  I must admit I felt especially guilty driving past Walden Pond.   NYC is definitely out because of the trailer.  We will visit the Big Apple on another trip.  We are on the Hudson River and plan on stopping at Hyde Park to see FDRs home and possibly go up to West Point.

The fall colors are now in full swing.  Looking at the fall colors is akin to watching a fourth of July fireworks show; red, yellow and golden leaves seem to gleam in the sun like a starburst rocket.   It won’t last long as the leaves are beginning to fall, we have a layer of them every morning all over the ground.  It is truly a glorious sight.

We have been on six lane divided highways almost all the day.  Some of them toll roads.  We saw a huge flatbed truck carrying a full size swimming poll which had to be 20ft wide.  The truck was driving down two lanes (fast lane and middle) with two trucks in each lane behind with “Wide Load” signs.  I have never seen such a sight on a major highway—Only in New York?

Pats schmoozing with Franklin and Eleanor

We went to Hyde Park and visited Franklin Roosevelt’s home and his Presidential Library.  The property was acquired in the 1860s by his father James and Franklin grew up there, lived there as an adult,  and he and Eleanor are buried on the property.  I have only been to one other Presidential Library, JFKs in Boston, but  the FDR library is much more impressive by virtue of the length he was in office and the world events that he shaped and presided over, the great depression, and World War II.  His legacy of  programs like Social Security, FDIC insurance, and the United Nations were truly significant achievements that have lasted over the years.

Civil  War Memorial

This is where the chain went across the Hudson

The Civil War Memorial at West Point

In the afternoon, we drove down to West Point to visit the US Military Academy.  We were able to take a guided tour of the grounds and it is indeed a very impressive place.  It was founded in 1802 and  began with only 5 cadets the first year.   We only got to visit the Chapel and the parade grounds in which there is a very impressive monument dedicated to the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  The campus overlooks the Hudson River at one of its narrowest points.  During the revolution, the colonists  pulled a heavy chain across the river at this point to control ship traffic on the Hudson.  We did not see very many cadets milling the grounds (there are 4000) they must have been out on a long march. 

  

Ogunquit Oct 16-21 Taking a Break

Ogunquit

Kennebunkport  Beach

These few days we are treating ourselves to a break from the trailer.  We have rented a house with our friend Bobbie, who flew out to visit us for a few days.  Ogunquit is in southern Maine, only an hour or so from Boston.  It is a big time beach resort community.  Cute town, but not in the historic fashion, as the town we have visited further north.   This community and the others around it are geared for lots and lots of tourists for the summer season.  This weekend this place was packed, but the swimming season is closed, so most visitors are not staying during the work week. 

The beach here is wide and flat and I’m sure packed in the summer, but now that  it is too cold to swim, it is filled with walkers like us enjoying the brisk air and clear skies.   We have been enjoying the local seafood, and relaxing in a spacious house that doesn’t have wheels attached to it. 

This area of southern Maine looks to be very prosperous.  It is a beautiful area with beaches and harbors and mansions and cottages.  The villages we visited, Kennebunkport, Perkins Cove, Ogunquit  and York  were settled in the late 1600s, but most of the buildings look to be 20^th century.  The villages are all cuted up and cater to the tourist trade.   Think of Carmel stretching from Santa Cruz to Big Sur only with Cape Cod style.  This area is a seasonal resort area, lots of places are beginning to close.  All of the RV parks seem to be closed so it is a good thing we rented a house. 

Pats, Bobbie & Dede at the beach

We have made it a practice to have  lobster everyday as we will be leaving the area in the next couple of days and want to be sure we’ve had our fill.  Lobster at the lobster store is about $7 a pound, and then they will boil it for you.  

October 12- 19 Maine Coast

Pats gets the boot

Dede checks out Patty O'Room

The coast of Maine is quite spectacular.  The jagged coastline is filled with hundreds of islands, bays, coves, inlets, beaches and rivers.  There are marshes and tidelands along the coast as well.  Settled in amongst this geography are picture postcard villages of  neatly kept white collages with black shutters, white Baptist churches with steeples that tower above the trees.  We are in the midst of the fall colors now and the trees cast a golden red glow which just enhances the charm of these villages.  The towns that have a “downtown” are along “Main St” and look to be small store fronts, stately looking brick banks, and a granite block post office.  The villages on the coast, have marinas adjacent to the town center.  Historically, shipping was the main focus of commerce and transportation.  Now that there are highways, the harbors are mostly for recreation and tourism.  There is the occasional paper mill, granite quarry and other industry, but there doesn’t seem to be enough of them to support the population in the area.

We visited Freeport Maine, the home of L.L. Bean.  It is more than just a store it is a campus, with multiple stores, restaurants, parks, an outdoor performance area, and multiple parking lots on the periphery.  It features the world’s largest boot statue in one of the courtyards.  The store(s) are great with lots of sales people to direct you within the store and to answer questions.  These are big stores with lots and lots of merchandise.  We bought more winter clothes to ward off the winter cold which has caught up with us especially in the early mornings.

We are spending some time in Portland Me.  to get some chores done, car servicing, fixing our oven pilot light etc.  For those of you who know about Patty O’Room, we set it up for the first time.  Patty O’Room is of set vinyl walls we can install around our awning to create a covered patio about 9ft by 16ft.  It is equipped with a door, mosquito netting and flaps that can be rolled down to provide privacy.  It took us about 40 minutes to put up, and just about doubles our living space.

October 6-11 Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park

Lobster Pound with boiling cauldrens

Bar Harbor

Leaves turning on Jordan Pond

Bridge over the Jordan river?

We're just outside Bar Harbor and will be moving into Acadia Nat’l Park tomorrow.  Tonight we went to a Lobster pound for dinner.  A lobster pound is little more than a roadside stand that sells lobster dinners either eat in or take out.  The one we went to was packed, we were lucky to find a parking space in front of the place which is along the highway.  Kind of like the artichoke stands near Castroville.  Outside the stand are cauldrons of boiling water with clouds of steam wafting into the air.  Inside you order your lobster, small, medium or large.  The guy opens up a big chest filled with live lobsters, you pick the one you want.  He weighs the lobsters you choose and he puts them in a net bag and he gives you the number of the bag.   He writes the number and the weight on a blackboard.  The bag goes outside into the cauldron.  You get in line and order, coleslaw, corn on the cob, green salad, and a drink and tell them the number that the lobster guy gave us.  You pay for the meal and wait for the lobster to come out of the boiler.  It all comes to you on a rubber platter, or in our case, as take out,  in a plastic bag.  We even ordered lobster picks and  a shell cracker.  We took it all home and had a feast.

Acadia Island has been a haven for people for thousands of years.  For the most part it was where the local Indians spent their summers until the Europeans showed up some 400 years ago.  The French and the English fought over the place for a 150 years, and then the rich Americans claimed the place beginning in the 1830s or so.  Around the 1900s the rich felt guilty about having such a beautiful place all to themselves and started a movement to donate land to create a national park. George Dorr and John D. Rockefeller worked together to have land donated or bought to be gifted to the government to become a national park.  The island is still a patchwork of private land and park land, but it seems to work as the island is mostly pristine with pockets of private land and industry. 

Bar Harbor is the quintessential Maine seaside  tourist village.  It is a tourist attraction today with thousands of visitors each year.  It has the charm of 150 year old village storefronts, an arts community, a fishing village, and national park all combined.  Great bars, restaurants, galleries, t-shirt shops, museums and sports activities are all here.

We went on a sailing excursion on a 150 foot four masted schooner out into Frenchmen’s Bay.  With a brisk wind that parted one of the as sails we sailed out amongst the whitecaps and looked for wild life. There was a forest service ranger aboard and he did his best to make a big deal of sighting sea gulls and a harbor seal.  We did see a loon or two, which I guess is a big deal, but the Canadians have the loon on their $1 coins so I think they are probably rather common.  It was a good sail, and I was fascinated by the rigging of the gaff rigged sails and watching the crew handle the rig.  What a great summer job for a young person to have!

We have travelled around Acadia now, went to the top of Cadillac mountain, visited some real island villages that make their way either fishing or boat building, driven by some of the estate “cottages” left over from the 1920s or so, and drove the Loop Road which is in the National Park.  I guess because this is a three day weekend, this place is packed.  The Queen Elizabeth II was in port so that added another 2000 guests on the island.  We hiked around Jordan Pond a lovely 3 mile walk amongst the yellow and crimson turning trees.  One is supposed to take tea and popovers at the Jordan House at the end of the walk, but there were so many damned tourists that we couldn’t get a table.  We opted for Bloody Mary’s and Lobster rolls at a tavern in Bar Harbor.   

It is getting cold here.  We’ve donned our winter cloths; coats, hats, and gloves and thinking it is time to head south.

Oct 4 Down East – Acadia

Back in the US of A!  Cleared customs at Calais  Maine, kind of comforting to be back in the states, but I don’t know why.  Canada is a perfectly safe and sane country save for a few  oddities mostly in Quebec.  But the signs are just in English and the road markings familiar. (I never really understood what a flashing green signal light meant)

FDR's little cottage in Campobello. Can you find Patsy?

Eastern most lighthouse in the US

The view from our front door this morning

Today we are in Lubec, Maine, the most eastwardly US community in the lower 48.  Lubec is not particularly eastward compared to Nova Scotia just up the road, but everyone needs their own lame claim to fame.  We came here to visit the island of Campobello which is just north of here via a very short bridge, and a customs crossing back into Canada.  This is the site of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park.  This park is jointly administered by the US and Canadian governments and was the summer home of FDR.  Franklin came here with his parents as a very young child, they built a summer “cottage” here in the 1890s, and FDR built his 32 room cottage in 1910 or so.   While quite spacious it had no electricity or gas, It was heated and lit by wood and kerosene.  It was very lovely and the place to be in August and September when New York was just too hot!  All the upper crust from the east coast were here.  Campobello was where  FDR enjoyed being with his family, Eleanor gave birth to Franklin Jr.  here,  and unfortunately FDR came down with polio while he was here.

We had our first official Lobster dinner in Lubec.  The menu advertised “Lobstah” with fries, cole slaw,  and root vegetables.  It was delicious.   Just a local place right on the water, where patrons greeted everyone coming a going, where the waitress graduated from high school with 13 other graduates, but was going to the local community college and hoped to move to Alaska.  

October 2-3 Saint John and Saint Martin

The Irving Paper Mill at Reversing Falls

Saint Martin Harbor at low tide

Saint John is one of the oldest cities in Canada, Champlain surveyed the area in the 1650s.  Through multiple skirmishes the Brits who had settled Nova Scotia  across the bay wrested St John and the rest of New Brunswick from the French.  Saint John became important when the loyalists who were being kicked out of New England, after our revolution, needed a place to stay.  Saint John and New Brunswick took in all those Englishmen who didn’t want to live in the United States.  In the 1860s, a flood of Irish came to escape the Irish famine and changed the culture somewhat from Baptist- Anglican to Catholic

.  

Today Saint John looks and feels like a company town.  It looks a bit run down, most of the houses could use a coat of paint, the yards are not as pristine, and the town has that industrial look.  The Irving  Family owns just about everything, and they should.  They own and operate the oil refinery, the Irving gas stations,  the LPG shipping port and distribution facility, the paper mill, and the rail road.  I’m not sure if there is any industry here that they don’t control, and it is still privately held.  The tour guide was very positive about their contributions to the community, but having traveled through the rest of the well scrubbed and manicured communities in NB, Saint John looks a little rough around the edges.

Saint Martin is a little fishing village northwest of Saint John and boasts of covered bridges and white churches, and white houses with black storm windows.  Every house sits on at least an acre of land with a perfectly mowed lawn all the way to the road side.  We arrived at low tide and all the lobster boats were sitting in the mud, the harbor was completely devoid of water, save for the little flow of fresh water from the stream flowing into the bay.  The tourists were out walking on the rocky beaches marveling at the low tide.  We dined at the beachside restaurant having the world famous seafood chowder.

Spooky house in Saint John

September 29- Oct 1 Prince Edwards Island and the Bay of Fundy

Pats,Dede and Fisherman with Giant Lobster

Cape Hopewell at low tide

After driving a couple of days through New Brunswick we have arrived at the city of Moncton. (Our Tide is Rising) It is located at one of the headwaters of the Bay of Fundy and is a central location to see Fundy and Price Edwards Island (PEI) The weather has been quite strange, we understand there has been a major storm across the east coast, and we’re at the top of it. We’ve experienced some heavy winds, intermittent rain, but exceedingly warm temps, up to almost 80 degrees and high humidity. The skies have been mostly cloudy, but with unexpected periods of sunshine, and then brief rain.


We drove over to Prince Edwards Island, just to see what there is to see. They built a bridge in 1998 over 13 km long from NB. The toll is $42 bucks so I guess they are still paying for it. It is a beautiful island with rural farms and lots of mowed grass. It must be an English-Scottish thing as we saw the same landscape in New Zealand. Small villages with tidy houses and a white church in the center of the ville. Most churches had a graveyard at the entrance, must give the parishioners something to ponder on Sunday. We went to visit Charlottetown, the capital of the province, thinking that it would be a charming city, but not so much. It is home to every fast food franchise in the world, and its historic district has largely been swallowed up by the modern world. It was the site of the confederation conference held in 1864 which united Canada into a country from British colonies.

On our trip to PEI we stopped in the village of Shediac, the home of the largest Lobster in the world. It was built by the Rotary Club to celebrate, well lobsters. We bought a lobster in the lobster store next door and had it for dinner that night.

Lobster for dinner!

Now that's a Porcupine

We moved on from Moncton to the Bay of Fundy National park. On the way we visited Cape Hopewell where you can walk on the beach at low tide amongst these amazing rocks. The tides here can reach 46 ft, at low tide you can walk on the beach until the tide comes in and then you better scurry up the stairs to safety or be 30 ft below the water line at high tide. At this point in the bay there are a lot of mud flats. From Moncton down to Cape Hopewell the area is called the Chocolate River. The banks and the water is pretty much terracotta red. Wondering around on the beach we got into the mud up to our ankles. Our last activity for the day was to visit the lighthouse at Cape Enraged. They have turned the lighthouse keepers house into a restaurant, but the views are scenic and we saw the biggest porcupine I ever saw. I am sure he lives there to entertain the tourists.