October 23, 2003 - Front Royal, VA (Acadia National Park)
Came here a few days earlier than planned. Bill and Carol who have sort of been heading the same direction as us, were here when Bill developed a problem with shortness of breath. After spending some time in the hospital, it was determined that sure enough, he had some trouble in the lungs. Pneumonia. And while he was there, he also developed some chest pain, and that was a bit too much for the hospital here in Front Royal (still don't know what's up with that name, but you can bet I'll find out!) so they gave him an ambulance ride to the major medical center nearby in Winchester VA. About that time, Carol had just about come to the end of her rope, what with their family and support system all some 2700 miles away in WA. We got a call, and it was a no-brainer for us to cut our time in Hershey a few days short. We'd planned on being in this park after Hershey anyway. Tomorrow, Friday, if all goes as planned, Bill will go into the hospital as an outpatient, have the little burr grinder sent up into the heart where the Dr. will grind away the plaque that is 95% blocking one of the main arteries. Cool deal, from a mechanical standpoint. Scary as the dickens from a personal standpoint. He's had several open heart bypasses, and it was thought that there wasn't anything that could be done for this artery. We're glad there's something that can be done, and we're praying for a successful procedure, and that the lungs clear up as well. Is it great to be living a lifestyle that allows us to be able to make changes in plans to be with friends when they need us, or what?
And the story with the name of this place is sort of as follows: In Colonial times, there was a local militia made up on raw recruits who were a bit slow in catching on to the drill sergeant's left-right orders, i.e., they didn't know their left from their right, driving the drill sergeant nuts. As it was, a giant oak, the Royal tree of England, stood in the public square, and the sergeant hit upon the idea of using that Royal oak as a directional mark for those recruits. He started using the order "Front the Royal Oak!" to which the local wags found much sport in telling others of the sergeant's new order. They all took to calling the place by that name, and pretty soon it stuck.
AHA! We're still at Acadia National Park, in Maine. Had to take a picture quick of this poor old building, as I didn't think it would last until lunch time. "Snug harbor" were the words that came to mind here. We're taking the road around the island today, and are on the southwest part of it. Bill and Carol had left for points south, so Barb and I were touring alone.
Lots of pleasure boats here, unlike most the marinas we saw. The others had mostly working boats. Nice marina.
Cormorants were busy getting their lunch, and that one on the float with outstretched wings was getting warm and dry again. And there's one of the lowriders giving us the eye as it swam away slowly.
The cormorant kept eyeing us, but didn't act as if we were any threat. And by golly, the old building is still standing. Sort of. Some days I feel like it looks, but mostly not.
We're at the "Bass Harbor Head Light" Coast Guard station. About as far south as we can get on Mt. Desert Island, which is the island that the park is located on. And there's a couple of lobster boats hauling traps.
While I was standing there minding my own business, admiring the ocean, lobster boats, trap floats and what have you, Barb pipes up excitedly with, "Would you look at the size of those hips?" Well, like any normal male, my ears perked up and I started to look around to see what deserved all that commotion from my normally polite and demure bride. She wasn't looking at any of the people at all, but was rather staring intently over the edge of the cliff at a wild rose bush. And I had to agree. For the size of that rose, the rose hips sure were large alright. Good source of vitamin C they are, too. I liked the clever marking to the trail down to the lighthouse. Or "Headlight" as they called it here. Those of you who are mariners will know that green cans are odd numbered and to be kept to starboard as you leave land, and that red buoys are even numbered and kept to port leaving. Or, if you prefer, the term "Red Right Returning" is popular.
"U.S. Department Of Homeland Security" heads the sign indicating that this is a United States Coast Guard facility. Amazing how fast the government can move on some things and how slowly on others. Can't say as the name change makes me feel any safer. Then we came across what is touted as being the largest natural sea wall around. Took me a while to figure out just what a natural sea wall was. Then I noticed that the road along the top was higher than the water on one side and the land on the other. In other words, the beach didn't just slope up to the land. There was a wall that wasn't man-made separating the land from the ocean. Is it OK if I'm not particularly impressed?
I was impressed with these little snails living in a tide pool all by themselves with all those snail eaters sitting out there on the rock. There were several pools like this one, with those snails in them, but little else. Curious.
Now what's that girl up to, and where are we going to store whatever it is she's going to pick up, and does she know we're in a National Park and can't take anything with us, and, and, and. She poked around in those rocks for a good bit, but I never did learn what was so interesting. And down a side road that dead-ended we had beautiful homes on one side and these piers on the other. These wooden lobster traps, or pots, were for sale. They don't use them anymore. All the ones we saw in use were wire. There are piles of these all over the place, and most of them for sale to the tourists. Easy to pass up a good buy on a wooden lobster pot if you live in a motorhome you're still trying to get comfortably moved into. I've got this plastic garbage bag full of good polishing rags that used to be hotel towels. Now, we got rid of the hotel in 1987, and you'd think I'd have used up all the polishing rags by now, right? Well, either I had a whole lot of them, or I don't do much polishing, because I've still got probably 25 or 30 perfectly good ones. And I've got to throw them out because there just isn't any room to store them! Sigh.
After turning around and heading out, we enjoyed seeing not only the different colors, but also the variety of shapes of these old lobster trap buoys. Not sure just what the building is, but liked the turret anyway. And yet another "snug harbor"; this one had mostly lobster boats in it.
The writing on the side of the truck loading up the totes full of lobsters from a boat tied to the pier says, "Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound". Now, just what is a lobster "pound" anyway? Anything like a dog pound? We saw signs alongside the road advertising restaurants and lobster pounds, and I wondered then what it was. There're always questions aren't there. And then a small lobster boat with its large crew cleaning it up. The fellow had left her to clean up while he walked down the pier to who knows where.
That's the boat unloading its cargo of lobsters into the truck. We saw three boats unloading, and each had one man and one woman doing the work. Wondered if it was a family business.