Down East

October 6, 2007
Saturday
We drove away from Bar Harbor hugging the coast all the way to New Brunswick. It was our wish to visit Campobello Island and, yes, it is in Canada. We did not anticipate that when we restocked our traveling wine cellar in Bar Harbor.
A Canadian Customs officer gave us a stern lecture about transporting alcohol across the border and let us go "this time."
At the Roosevelt Campobello International Park Edmund S. Muskie Visitor Center, we discovered that the island was named after the benefactor who gave it to Captain Owen, whose name was Lord William Camp(o)bell(o). Get it?
James and Sara Roosevelt brought their one-year old son, Franklin, to Campobello for the first time in 1883. James and Sara purchased four acres of land and built a three-story cottage in 1884. From that year until 1921, Franklin spent every summer on the island, sailing, hiking and picnicking.
In 1909, Sara Roosevelt purchased a neighbor’s 21-room cottage (you need lots of rooms when you have five children and six servants) and gave it to Franklin and Eleanor as a wedding gift. True to her character, she retained title to their home until she died in 1941.
It was on Campobello that Franklin contracted polio in 1921 and, after that, he visited the island only three more times during his life–in 1933, 1936 and 1939.
We drove from the park to the north end of the island. The tide was out so I was able to cross an exposed causeway and walk to the East Quoddy Lighthouse. Gail stayed at the picnic area and watched a Minke whale that the visitor center hostesses told us had been trapped for three days inside a fish pen.
Fishermen had enclosed an area with netting in order to hatch and raise bait fish. We noticed that the pen had a large opening to the sea that the whale was ignoring in favor of diving, sounding, cavorting and, perhaps, eating.
Returning across the International Friendship Bridge, we met a lady at U.S. Customs who had us open all the doors of the van so she could poke around inside. She became highly agitated at my pill dispenser and ordered us pull over for a more thorough search by a colleague. She threw a brochure into the car as I started the engine that she said would explain to me what I had done wrong.
It turned out that I needed to produce original prescription bottles. After I did that, everyone calmed down.
I’m glad that nobody found the pepper spray that I forgot we had in the console.
Sunday
We found out that LL Bean in Freeport never closes, staying open 24/365. At ten o’clock on a Sunday morning we could not find a parking space . We eventually parked a couple of blocks away and walked to the Flagship Store, past the Fishing and Hunting Store and the Hiking and Biking and Kayaking Store.
We found a few things to buy, stood in line to pay, and got out of there.
We drove through Kennebunkport at noon. The streets were thronged with people enjoying the great weather.
At the Lighthouse Depot in Wells, we found three buildings full of lighthouse stuff that we did not buy.
We watched baseball playoffs after supper. People around here are crazy about the Red Sox. I wish them well.