Day 81 – Recovery

This is day 2 of no bikes and yes, we are feeling a little nostalgic for the routine and the enforced exercise of riding everyday. Both yesterday and today we have explored a little bit of Acadia and today we drove to Campobello to visit FDR’s summer cottage there. We pulled out our passports again to get there since (I didn’t know this) Campobello is in New Brunswick and it is in a joint US-Canadian international park. There were docents stationed at strategic places to educate us.

 

The island used to be a retreat for wealthy New York and Boston families in the 1900s and had several hotels including one with 400 rooms. The hotels are gone as are most of the houses but the Roosevelt cottage and two others have been preserved.

Just before the bridge back to the US we stopped at the Mulholland Point Lighthouse and since the tide was running out, seals were feasting on the smaller fish caught in the rip. A guide at the lighthouse explained the resident sea mammal life including a recent dramatic rescue of a baleine whale that was dangerously tangled in fishing lines to the point that they were cutting into his body and restricting his ability to feed. A team of naturalists labored for hours to slowly cut away the lines and freed the whale from the entanglement.

After crossing the bridge we passed through Lubec, the eastern most town in the US and drove to the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, the easternmost point in the US.

Now we are sitting on the rocks at Schoodic Point reading, writing and awaiting the sundown. Tomorrow we drive to Bob and Rebecca’s place in Sebasco, ME.

Random thoughts and observations about our 79 day journey:

* As we observed early on in our blog, we found people to be without fail eager to help and willing to open themselves up to strangers. I can only remember one driver who seemed to try to drive as close to us as possible then gunned his extra loud Diesel engine. Not sure why he chose to do that but in the end all it did was startle us.

* Americans are very patriotic. It’s a generalization but the flags, buntings and bumper stickers show that no political party or region has a monopoly on pride in our country or in supporting our troops.

* We saw many older than middle age men and women riding brand new Harleys and I’m sure the Harley-Davidson company is very glad for the market niche. Many folks were on three wheel motorcycles and some pulled small trailers.

* There is a love affair with the RV lifestyle. We saw them on the roads, in campgrounds, for sale used in front yards and lined up new in dealers’ lots. They truly are mobile homes complete with every amenity we have in our houses including some with Jacuzzis and multiple bedroom/bath suites.

* One could easily build and furnish a house with the various materials, furniture and appliances either for sale or for free in front of houses.

* The most common small business we saw was auto repair and body work. Every town had at least one of each and sometimes more. The most frequently seen chain stores we saw belonged to Family Dollar. They seemed to spring up everywhere. Until we reached some of the cities in the Midwest and east we hardly saw any Starbucks. There are, on the other hand, many Subways.

* I forgot to mention that when we came through Brunswick, Maine, we passed the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A few weeks previous to that In Ontario, we had passed the house that was the inspiration for her book.

While we feel we have accomplished a wonderful and long journey, we both feel that by taking one day at a time and even one mile at a time, this trip is not “epic” at all. There is something about establishing a daily routine and daily expectation of what is to be accomplished that reduces the 4200 mile into manageable distances. It’s the old “every journey begins with one step” phenomenon.

I’m absolutely certain we will remember other vignettes of the trip and we will continue to blog them in case anyone out there is still watching!