Letter 27 Maine I

Harrington Travels East 2009
Letter 27: Maine I
Monday, August 24 we took off to sightsee heading to Eastport, MA, where we watched fishermen fish for mackerel on the dock. Several fished for them to grill, others to can. One lady had driven three hours and her best luck was to watch the whale playing just north of the dock. We tried to see the “Old Sow Whirlpool” from this side and managed to see the currents in the water, but not as well as from Deer Island.

At the Howard’s recommendation we went to Raye’s Mustard Mill. It has been in operation since 1903 when Raye bought the land next to the railroad and set up five hand cut mill stones to grind the mustard seed into liquid gold. The original overhead driveshaft, via belts, powers all the equipment. Those first stones are still being used. Each year they take one of the five offline and regrooved the bottom to refresh it. Raye’s family mill is the last operating stone mustard mill in the country today. One of the latest generation gave us the tour.

The liquid gold was sold to sardine canners to preserve the sardines in the cans. We didn’t know of that kind of canning, but it seems it is very popular as well as the oil that we knew of. When the sardine businesses closed in Eastport Raye’s daughter thickened the liquid gold to a table mustard called Down East Schooner. The fourth generation now runs the business and they have created many additional mustards. They can be bought in 9 oz jars up to quarts. We tasted most of the 20 flavors. Rachel Ray has also featured their Top Dog flavor. They ship UPS if you want to order any. Go to www.rayesmustard.com to see more.

Eastport claims to be the easternmost CITY in the USA, but when we arrived in Lubec, it claims to be the easternmost TOWN in the USA, then we drove out to the Quaddy point lighthouse and they claim to be the easternmost POINT of the USA.

Hurricane Bill’s waves were crashing into the point and we enjoyed watching them from safely behind a fence.

On our travels from Eastport to Desert Island we stopped at the Wild Blueberry Land. It was just one of those tourist traps that caught us.

Desert Island is an irregularly shaped tree covered landmass containing about 160,000 acres. It is about the size of one quarter of Dallas County Texas. The park contains about 53,000 acres or about one third of the island. Bar Harbor coers just a small fraction of the area. All of the park acreage was donated by area land owners. The Rockefella's donated over 11,000 acres, but still have thousands of acres here.

On Desert Island we found a nice spot at Seawall Campground in the Arcadia National Park. There are two national campgrounds on this island. The other is one the east part of the island and more centrally located. It requires reservations and you know how we feel about those. We never know where we will be until it is too late to make them. We did drive through that one and it is just as nice, however the sites didn’t look quite as level and we had a hard time getting level at Seawall.

Wednesday, August 26, After making reservations for the carriage ride and lunch at Jordan’s Pond House we drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain which is the highest elevation on the Atlantic Coast, 1,500 feet. If we had been there at dawn we might have been the first person in the country to see the sun’s first rays. The mountain is named for Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the Frenchman who was granted possession of this island by Louis XIV. Later he founded Detroit and his name was, centuries afterward, use for the prestigious automobile. We could see our campground location in the distance at the end of the large point coming from the right of the picture.

From the mountain we could see below the famous town of Bar Harbor, so we descended to drive though. It is a typical tourist town, but without all the big high rises. We saw hundreds of B&B’s, Inns, cottages, and small motels all over this island with only a few chains. Years ago this town had many mansions of the rich and famous, but in 1947 there was a huge forest fire and most of the mansions were destroyed. The end of the era for most were not rebuilt. Now the island has mansions scattered all along the coastline of this third largest US island on the east coast. The Bar Harbor visitor center has a good website for lodging if you are interested. www.barharborinfo.com lists most of the ones on the east part of the island and we were told Emory’s on Saulsbury Cove was $700 weekly for a cottage. Next recommendation was Edgewater, so look them up if you don’t want to camp. There are probably 50 commercial campgrounds on the island along with the two national park campgrounds. Unless you get into a little town or a popular spot, you don’t know there are that many people here.
South of Bar Harbor on the one way Park Loop Road was Sand Beach, the only sand on the island, which is actually a lot of ground up sea shells. See the white in the sand? The weather was great, but the kids said the water was “COLD!”

Even further south was the famous Thunder Hole and we were too early for the tide to see it do it’s thing. Less than a week ago, 25 people were washed off the rocks near this hole while they were watching (like these people) Hurricane Bill’s waves come ashore. They were 20 feet above the sea. A seven year old girl was not recovered. Three hours later the Coast Guard retrieved her body three miles out to sea.

Had we been there at a better wave time we could have seen this action.

From the south side of the eastern part of the island we drove back north to the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound where Fred picked out a 2 lb lobster. The man put it into the huge outside pot of boiling sea salt water with sea weed. Finally Fred was served his lobster and he started cracking. After about thirty minutes he was satisfied there was no more meat left. It was delicious!

On the way back to the trailer we couldn’t resist the picture of Southwest Harbor about five miles from our Seawall campsite. National parks are so nice and we really had a good day—we saw so much.
Thursday, August 27 we arrived at the stables by 9:30 am for our ride on the Rockefella Carriage roads. We loaded into a wagon with about ten others and drove along these roads that John D. Rockefella, Jr. constructed from 1917 to 1933 when the mansions were the only homes and they enjoyed riding in carriages. At that time, the automobile was threatening the solitude of the island so he had these constructed with limitation to carriages only. Along the side of the road on inclines there were granite rocks to protect the carriages from erring off the road. They are called Rockefella's teeth. Along the way we saw the many sign posts to guide our way. Today these roads are also popular with biker’s and hikers.
After we had visited two of the bridges, stopped at the cobblestone bridge, and as our carriage driver was turning the horses and carriage around, the tongue broke and we were stranded. Like Olivia says when we take a wrong turn, we have an adventure and sure enough, just as we were being rescued, 94 year old David Rockefella drove by in his carriage. He is the only surviving child of John, Jr. and a brother to Nelson. Certainly not something we expected to see.

Resuming our ride we were driven to Jordan’s Pond to see the Bubble mountains. Later on down the trail we saw a rock eagle in the bluff alongside the road.

On the way back to the stables we crossed the highway through the Carriage gates and saw the Gate Keeper’s house. Rockefella installed gates where the trail cross public roads at grade. The gates were to keep automobiles from the carriage trails. A bell was located at the gate. When a carriage needed through, he ran the bell and the gate keeper came out and opened the gate. The keepers house is now used as a summer residence for rangers.

Fred found it ironic that the Rockefella's fortune is from Standard Oil, a forerunner of Exxon-Mobil, yet the family had such an affinity for carriages over automobiles.

We should have left our car at the stables and walked, but instead chose to drive to Jordan’s Pond but had to park on the road about
a half a mile away. Their two parking lots were filled with customers and bikers wanting to ride the carriage roads.

Lunch at the Jordan’s Pond House is one of those “must do” things and we enjoyed their popovers. If there is a next time Olivia will order desert only. As we were leaving she saw some that were popovers filled with Blueberry ice cream and drizzled with blueberry syrup. Oh, my! The popovers are almost like Jay’s Marine Grill’s in Dallas, back in the 1950’s. Jay’s put green onion tops in their batter. Anyway they were very good. We chose to eat inside along with many others. They said on their busiest days in August they served 2500, of course there parking is only for about 100 cars.

From Jordan’s Pond we drove up Sargent Drive along Somes Sound, the only fjord in the USA.

In Northeast Harbor we stumbled onto a unique yard filled with animals of all sorts.

We stopped at the Seawall for shots of the water at high tide before calling it a day!

Friday August 28 we started the day with a visit to SW Harbor’s farmer’s market, but came away empty handed. Too ritzy for us. Their prices were actually higher than the grocery stores and didn’t look any better.

A visit to the library to retrieve messages then off to explore. We attempted to see the west shore of Somes Sound, then the beach at Echo lake. A gravel road to the south called us to see where it went, so off we go. After wandering through the woods, like the carriage roads, we came to Long Pond Road and an
unfenced blue berry field. We picked for about thirty minutes and it yielded a quart of the berries. To complete our drive around the island we followed 102, Cove Road, and Indian Point Road. To end our day we visited with two neighbors, one from Maine but lives half the year in Texas, the other just retired (living in the Bangor area) and wanting to travel like us. Both are wonderful people, lots of fun.

Saturday, August 29 the weather changed to rain, so we took care of business, laundry, this blog and hibernated.

We love to hear if you have been to any of these spots or wish to see. For comments on our ramblings contact us at:
Olivia@bobheck.com or Fred Harrington@yahoo.com