Ice Gal's: Starch County

My border crossing took me to the little town of Van Buren. I Found a spot to stop, where there were no visible trump shrines. I needed to stretch , and switch back to Miles Per Hour. it just astounds me that we are the only country on the planet that isn’t metric. It’s so much easier. Everything is in 10’s, well except liters, those are in dollars, and the speed limit, no one follows it anyway so what if its 90 instead of 60.

Oh well no worries, a couple of button pushes and the van with a name is back home in miles per hour.

Van Buren is in Aroostook county, the northern most county in Maine. I had no idea, but as I was, motoring south I notice that they grow a lot of potato’s here. There were truck loads after truck loads of potato’s heading from the fields to the storage barns.

I stopped at one of these barns, but the fellows were pretty busy, and didn’t want their photos taken, so I got out of there before the next truck arrived and I might have had to sort potatoes.

Interesting video of the potato harvest here in Aroostook

For my first night here, I found Aroostook State Park and paid for one of 5 sites with water, and power. It is a Nice park and is the first State Park ever created in Maine way back in 1938. It has some steep climbs up two different mountains, I elected for the more benign “Nature Walk” near the lake.

Risky Swimming Here

The park is also 1 of 5 Maine State Parks that in 2024 will be in the path of totality for the solar eclipse. Along route 1 near the University of Maine there are models of the solar system.

Jupiter

Saturn is also interesting.

Saturn

I only passed these two, but rumor has it the sun is in The Northern Maine Museum Of Science Presque Isle. Bet their heating bill is zero in the winter.

While doing my homework looking for places to visit, I discovered that FDR’s Campobello was not too far away and just over the Roosevelt bridge back into New Brunswick. Having read about the Roosevelts staying there I thought I would go have a look see.

I ended up in Lubec Maine, and before going to the island I went to check out the state park at Quoddy Head. I was disappointed that there is no camping in the park, but when walking over to take some photos of the Lighthouse I discovered that I was at the eastern most point in the us. Lots of firsts on this run.

Quoddy Head Light Eastern Most Point In The us

There was a commercial RV park in Lubec and when I called to make a reservation, they said they only took cash. Humm, I had some cash but not enough, and it was only $38.00.

When you are in the far north you need to be prepared, and same for being in the far east. Lubec has a bank with a ATM.

I picked up my cash and headed over to Sunset Point RV Park. Now I would think being so far east that you would see the sunrise, way before the sunset, but they must be using all their brain power to not report sales to the dreaded gooverment.

I decided to go to Campobello early, before the buildings opened to get some shots of the Cottage before 900 people were standing on the steps.

Campobello Cottage

It was nice to be there with out a lot of people just the staff, who were interesting to talk to. I should have asked them how the Roosevelts traveled here as I can imagine the roads being pretty rough.

It was very peaceful without a lot of people there. You could almost hear little Fala barking at the door, or the Roosevelt’s sitting on the porch.

Crossing back into amerika the lone young woman guarding our border, looked over “MY PAPERS” and said, she had no idea where Alaska was. I said it was clean on the other side of the North American Continent. She didn’t appear to have a grasp of a Continent, so I asked if she has ever heard of Seattle Washington. Yes, she had. I said you go there then head north. Cross into Canada at Hope, then drive for 4 or 5 days, remembering to turn west somewhere in Yukon and then you wind up at the border at Beaver Creek.

She said she had been given a choice of assignments of either Beaver Creek or here in Lubec. I told her she made the better choice being here, as Beaver Creek is very isolated.

She just took a peek in the van, making sure there were no more socialists hiding back there, and once again said nothing about my chicken eggs.