There is just “something” about lakefront view, isn’t there?

Our view of East Grand Lake was no exception!
Even as the day clouded over, the view continued to captivate me-

It’s been tough arriving for breakfast and having to look out the window at this -

Ah, the early morning mist!
With a view like this, the clouds are always painting a new picture -

and then just moments later, the canvas changes….

Ahhhhhh…..
Whether the sky was blue

or threatening

and whether we were watching kids getting ready for an adventure

or just hanging around peeling potatoes -

the view of this beautiful lake was always inspiring.

How very blessed are we!

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!

Tap…tap….tap….testing…one…two…three….

You still there?

Sorry for the long delay between posts! We’ve returned from our wonderful jaunt into the beautiful Atlantic Maritimes (well, a couple of them anyway), but between getting settled in at our August SOWER project – Living Waters Camp in Weston, Maine – and working my way through the 652 pictures I took over the last week (really, that’s pretty calm for me – just over 100 a day!) I just haven’t had the time to put into words the wonderful time we had. From start to finish, it was a grand adventure, so please bear with me over the next several days as I process it into a couple of posts.
So here is just a taste to whet your appetite! I hope you’ll stop back soon!

See you soon!

OK, so maybe you didn’t really miss me, but I missed you! Well, a little anyway. Several times during the week I thought about posting a little blurb about the wonderful week I was having with my sisters. Maybe share about our long mornings in front of the fire enjoying our coffee and then how we just moved to the front lawn and sat in the sunshine and tried to identify birds. And then suddenly it was 1 PM! Ah, the excitement of Girls’ Week. I did a terrible job of “documenting” our week – no official Sisters Picture, no picture of our time with Aunt Berta and cousins Dorothy and Catherine, no pictures of the family gathering we had on Saturday. Really, a terrible job. But, since I couldn’t let the entire week go entirely undocumented, here are a couple of random shots that I did manage to take. There were the birds….

(an Eastern Phoebe, I believe)

(and that’s a Yellow-bellied sapsucker, doncha know)
And then the flora -

The beautiful Blue Flags that are starting to ring the pond

and along the edge there are the sundews – an honest to goodness carnivorous plant living right in our little corner of the world. Who knew? (They are pretty small, actually, but pretty darn interesting!) Some of them are even enjoying a meal!
And then there were the sunsets…..


Oh, yeah, the sunsets.
And then there was the precious sister time. As expected, we did lots of laughing. Some down-right-tears-running-down-our cheeks-laughing. We did some serious talking too – sharing how the Lord has been working in our lives this past year. The ups and the downs. The praises and the petitions. We took care of some cabin business (always some of that to do), and were very thankful for Gary who came and mowed the grass when he dropped me off and then mowed again (best he could in the rain) when he came to pick me up. We stayed up late (well, for us anyway), slept in as much as possible with those birds waking up with the sunrise, and took our fair share of naps. We played games in the evenings, sang through our favorite hymns a couple of nights, and ended each night with thankful hearts. We are so blessed to have this treasure we call The Cabin, but more importantly we are blessed to have this treasure called Family.

Oh, and did I mention we ate a fair bit of chocolate, too?
After all, it was Girls’ Week!

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?!?!