Raise your hand if you knew that Franklin D. Roosevelt had a summer home on a Canadian Island.  Did I miss that when I changed schools when I was in 3rd grade?  Well, it turns out that just off the coast of the Easternmost city of the US (that would be Lubec, ME – you knew that, right?) is the beautiful Campobello Island and that….”(f)or many years, Franklin D. Roosevelt summered on Campobello Island. As an adult, he shared with his family the same active pursuits he enjoyed on the island as child. Although he visited less frequently after contracting polio, Campobello remained important to FDR. Today Roosevelt Campobello International Park serves as a memorial to FDR and a symbol of cooperation between the U.S. and Canada.“  (thank you, National Park Service).

Since this lovely island was only a couple of hours south of here (and there were three couples to share the fuel expense) we set out to do some ‘sploring on Saturday morning.

We knew we were in for a great day when the view just crossing the bridge was wonderful!


We stopped at the first overlook -

for a view of the harbor….


Wait a minute – what are those big round things in the water?

Turns out those are part of New Brunswick salmon fish farming industry. Inquiring minds want to know. (You did want to know too, didn’t you?)
After a lovely picnic lunch, we continued on to FDR’s summer cottage -



We thoroughly enjoyed the self-guided tour through the modestly furnished “cottage”,



strolled around to the back

and ended our visit with a walk to the beach.


FDR was on an extended vacation at this cottage in 1921 when he contracted polio. In the years to follow he would only return three times, although Eleanor and his children continued to vacation there. Along with the National Park website, here is another site which has much more information about FDR and his connection to Campobello Island.

But FDR’s summer cottage is not the only point of interest on Campobello Island.  We continued up the island

to Head Harbour and the East Quoddy Lighthouse.


We noticed several boats in the harbor, and thinking they might be whale watching boats we hung around for a while to see what we could see. Sure enough, we spotted a school of harbor porpoises and then to our delight a whale surfaced in front of us! We saw him twice as he made his way across the harbor, and never with the camera ready of course, but we were thrilled nonetheless! This fellow popped up long enough for me to take his picture – in fact, he seemed to be waiting for me to take his picture.

The lighthouse is unreachable for most of the day. Since this is located on the Bay of Fundy (remember those huge tidal shifts from the Hopewell Rocks?), it also experiences those extreme high and low tides.

Can you make out the iron stairs on the left side of the island? There’s a matching set of steps where we were standing, and (at your own risk) you can cross the channel at low tide each day. Needless to say, we were just watching the water rushing through the channel – there would be no walking on the ocean floor for us that day!
But all around it was so beautiful


that we were quite content to stay on dry ground and just soak it all in.
It was a great day, but we did have a 2 1/2 hour drive home, so after a stop for some fortification (ice cream), we headed off the island. But I couldn’t resist a photo of the  Mulholland Lighthouse on the southern tip of the island (photo taken while waiting to clear customs), and then one of Lubec, ME waterfront.


We also spotted this interesting dwelling as we were waiting our turn at the border -

Gotta love American ingenuity!

Thanks for coming along on our little history/scenic jaunt back into New Brunswick. I’ll leave you with one last photo that really could have been taken just about anywhere, but was indeed taken in the gardens of FDR’s summer cottage on Campobello Island.

Ah, the perfection of creation!

Hope you had a good weekend, everyone! We sure did!

 

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
We were awestruck. Not because of it’s amazing design (though it is quite amazing) or because of it’s outstanding architecture (it’s quite beautiful). No, we were awestruck because until we actually stood in the great hall of Ellis Island, or passed by the Statue of Liberty, up close and personal, we couldn’t even begin to comprehend the amazing part these two small islands played in forming this great country of ours.
Our day began in what is actually the third part of this historical trio – the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal.

Today it is the ferry landing (and security screening) for the ferries that take you to Ellis Island and Lady Liberty, but once it was bustling with immigrants, eager to start their new lives in America.

But before they arrived by ferry at the train terminal, they had to be processed through Ellis Island.


Between 1901 and 1910 over 6 million immigrants were processed at Ellis. Six Million. Altogether, from it’s opening in 1892 (though the current brick building was built in 1900) until it closed in 1954, over 12 million people took their first steps to becoming Americans at Ellis Island. On April 17, 1907 a record 11,747 immigrants came through these halls. By the 1920′s the inspection process had moved elsewhere and only a small number of immigrants passed through Ellis Island. It closed completely in 1954.

12 million souls. Papas and Mamas, sons and daughters. Many came in search of relief from persecution, or a chance at a better life. Some came simply with a thirst for adventure. But all left everything familiar, brought only what they could carry, endured a cramped and smelly steerage passage for weeks on end, and then waited on hard wooden benches for their turn to be processed in the Great Hall of the immigration station. All for a chance of life in this Land of Opportunity.
And yet before they even reached Ellis Island, they were greeted in New York Harbor by Lady Liberty herself.

Our hearts were stirred as we tried to imagine the emotions of those immigrants. Fear of the unknown. Visions of adventure. Dreams of better days ahead. Hope.

It was an inspiring day. Whether they arrived on the Mayflower or were processed through Ellis Island, immigrants built this great nation. A visit to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty brought that home in a new and fresh way.
Awestruck.

PS – all the pictures are HERE. Enjoy!

There has been some crazy weather in these here hills! Thankfully, we’ve been spared the tornado action that devastated nearby parts of the state, but we did get our share of heavy rain and winds. Friday we ventured to the nearby town of Franklin and enjoyed a wonderful local production of The Sound of Music. It was such a treat! But by the time we were headed back over the mountain, the heavy rain had begun. Although the next day cleared up (before it got crazy windy again) the rivers were high and the water was rushing. We figured it was a good day to check out another waterfall or two!
We hooked up with our buddies Bill and Sandy and headed for Mingo Falls on the other side of Cherokee. WOW!

Bill and Sandy had been there last week, and they were impressed with the increased size of the falls due to the heavy rain. It was quite spectacular!
After a picnic lunch alongside a raging river, we headed into the nearby National Park. Our first stop was Mingus Mill – a turn of the century turbine mill. It wasn’t operating, but it was very interesting and lovely. All the extra water even made the mill more beautiful!



(I was having fun with my Photoshop Elements. Think this is how it might have looked?)
From there we continued on to Clingman’s Dome - the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park (6,643 ft.). You can drive pretty close, but the last 1/2 mile is all on foot. And trust me, it’s the longest half mile on the planet!

By the time we were climbing that last half mile, the clouds were moving in and the wind was whipping! Man, was it cold!

We were, in truth, a little disappointed with the clarity of the view (no seven states for us), but all and all, we’re glad we went.

If you’d like to see all the pictures from Saturday (instead of just the thumbnails in the collages), you can check them out HERE.

This is such a beautiful area – with lots to see and do! In my next post I’ll try to catch you up with our work here at Living Waters and how we’ve been spending our work days, but for now I’ll leave you with a collage of shots from the stretch of Deep Creek that runs right behind this camp. It’s been so lovely to go and just sit quietly on the banks of this “creek”.
Really, this is our backyard this month.
How blessed are we?!?!

of the National Parks possibly closing at midnight yesterday, we made sure we got to the Oconaluftee Visitors Center and Farm Museum of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There is a brand spankin’ new visitor’s center there (open just a week!) that we wanted to check out

along with the Farm Museum and riverwalk.

The day was certainly less than bright and sunny, but we enjoyed both the farm museum and the river walk.





And oh, the wildflowers just beginning to blanket the forest floor -

Here’s my best guess at identifying them -
Clockwise, from the top Left –
Great Chickweed,Fringed-phacelia,??,??,Louswort, Periwinkle?,Dutchman’s Britches, Foam Flower, Trillium.
This one didn’t make the collage because I liked the river in the background -

Yes, it was a lovely morning!
Later in the day we did a little bit of exploring in the Deep Creek section of the park, which is actually less than a mile from where we’re parked! Gary was mostly checking out the fishing situation (he just got a 10 day North Carolina fishing license), but I was intent on doing at least a short hike to one of the many waterfalls in this area.





Success!
Even without the sunshine, it was still a lovely day. We didn’t get rained on, we got in a fair amount of exercise (for us, anyway), and were blessed to see some of the beauty that is found here in NW North Carolina!

Pssst….there are some additional pictures here!

I was exploring some of the interesting things you can do with a Google account (like sharing a spread sheet or sharing a calendar)when I saw that I could upload my very own picture for my Google Home page. Hey, that might be fun, I thought. For some reason I had Yellowstone on my mind, so I browsed to the folder with my Yellowstone pictures. But due to some setting that I’ve changed somewhere along the way (I think to make my computer start-up faster), I can’t actually see the pictures in the folder (just icons), so I just picked one. Yellowstone-24. How delighted I was to see this as the background on my screen -

What a lovely reminder of one of the wonderful National Parks we visited last year.
Yellowstone-24
Thanks for the memory!