Jay and his wife provided another lovely breakfast for us before we checked out and headed down the road.

We did some border hopping this morning.  St. Andrews is only about 25 km from St. Stephen which is across a short bridge from Calais, Maine.  We crossed the border into the US, drove about an hour down Maine Route 1 and across another bridge onto Campobello Island, which, although it is accessible via bridge from Maine is actually part of New Brunswick; which means we went through Canadian customs.

(There are three large islands; Deer Island, Campobello Island and Grand Manan Island that stretch down the NE coast of Maine.  All of them are part of New Brunsiick.  There is a ferry in the summer from Back Bay, NB to Deer Island and from there to Campobello – it takes about 45 minutes – Grand Manan Island is reached by 1.5 hour ferry from the NB town of Black Harbour.)

We went to Campobello to see the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Cottage.  FDR’s father bought 4 acres on the island in 1883 and built a cottage.  FDR spent all his summers there as he grew up, and after he married his distant cousin Eleanor they built their own summer ‘cottage’ which had 6 family bedrooms (they had five children), 6 guest rooms and 6 servants rooms, plus 12 bathrooms and all the standard public rooms.  They spent every summer there until 1939 when FDR’s political commitments no longer allowed such extended vacations.  I should have such a cottage for my summer vacation.

Campobello is the world’s only International Park.  The property is in New Brunswick but the Visitor’s Center and the buildings and grounds are staffed and maintained by the USA.  We watched  a 15 minute video before touring the house.  There  were helpful staff stationed outside several of the rooms who would tell you about the family.

The neighbours – Hubbard Cottage

It was closed but I snapped a couple of pics through the window.I was quite surprised at the number and variety of flowers they still had blooming on the grounds.

After about an hour we drove back across the bridge and went through US customs AGAIN.  Then we drove south to Bar Harbor.

We think these might be cranberry fields. Bar Harbor is also located on an island; Mount Desert Island.  Mount Desert is home to one of America’s smaller national parks, Acadia, but it is one of the most frequently visited.  We expected it to be semi-quiet by mid-September.  Wrong.  The streets were wall to wall parked cars and moving cars end to end.  People walking everywhere.  I am very happy our motel for the next two nights is situated a mile or so out of town.  Tomorrow is a down day and I have no plans to go anywhere or see anything.  Plans change, as we know well, so I make no promises.  There may be a blog tomorrow, there may not.