After leaving Stephen King’s home in Bangor, Maine we drove to the Sunset Point RV Park in Lubec, Maine. We don’t usually like private RV parks, preferring COE’s, State or National Parks. The choices of those are few in this area but more importantly we wanted to say we stayed in the self-proclaimed “Eastern-most RV park in the United States” so here we are. Even abided by their not normal “Cash Only” policy (so you KNOW not all their income is reported!) Our original plan was to be here from Wednesday the 13th to Saturday the 16th, but things changed due to Hurricane Lee.
We arrived around 3 pm that Wednesday afternoon. It rained the entire drive from Bangor to Lubec, but stopped about 30 minutes before we arrived at the campground. We felt fortunate that we did not have to set up in the rain. We had a pull-through site which sits in the middle of the park but close to the shoreline. The middle was grass and fairly level, but also very muddy in large parts of the site. I almost bogged down trying to position Nomad, so wasn’t thrilled with those conditions. And we are right on top of each other, as you can see in the photos. Our unhappiness with the park and its owners would get worse.
After getting set up we walked around the park a bit and then down to the bay. We could see fog rolling in from the east. By 5 pm it had enveloped the campground so thickly that you could barely see 6 feet around you. Then at 5:15 pm it started pouring rain as we were getting Hurricane Lee warnings on our phones and weather radio for its approaching landfall Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon.
We’re supposed to be moving south and westward to an RV park in Bass Harbor in Acadia National Park on Saturday for another 3-day stay. If we do we’ll definitely be feeling the strong effects of Hurricane Lee on Saturday and Sunday in that location. I can’t believe that we make sure we’re not in Florida or near the southeastern coast of the U.S. during the peak of hurricane season, and yet here we are being stalked by a damn hurricane in Maine!
Thursday morning we got up to see the sunrise from the “Eastern-most RV park in the United States” but it was SO foggy you couldn’t see the sun. Later that morning we got a call from the management at the Bass Harbor RV park in Acadia National Park letting us know if we wanted to cancel our reservation there due to the approaching Hurricane Lee that we could do so with a full refund. How nice that they would reach out to us instead of waiting for us to call them. We thanked them for letting us know and told them we would figure out what we were doing later in the day. Very nice folks and very different from the owners of our current campground.
Campobello Island and the Roosevelt Campobello International Park
In the early afternoon we drove over the Roosevelt Memorial Bridge and across the border into New Brunswick, Canada to tour Campobello Island and the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. This was the Summer home of the Roosevelt family long before Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of the United States. We toured the family “cottage” which, when it was originally built at the turn of the 20th century, had 24 rooms. Later, after the birth of FDR’s 5 children and the attendance of numerous administration staff members of FDR, they expanded to 34 rooms. All for a Summer “cottage”, lol! This place looked more like an early 20th century mansion.
There are several photos in the accompanying album.
Then we drove around the Island to the different nature sections and views. It was SO foggy that you could barely see off the eastern coast, but it started to clear up later in the trip and we saw seals stunning themselves on the rocks off of Raccoon Beach. Enjoyed seeing the Mullholland Point Lighthouse and the view of Lubec across the bay.
On the way back to our site we stopped at Monica’s Chocolates across from our RV park and purchased some great chocolates. If you’re ever in this area, we highly recommend Monica’s Chocolates for some delicious confectionary delights.
Avoiding Hurricane Lee
We got some nice shots of the sunset back at the campground. Then, after looking again at the path of Hurricane Lee, we decided that we would cancel the Saturday night portion of our stay at Bass Harbor and spend it further inland back near Bangor. Cindy was able to find a last available spot at Holden Family RV Campground for Saturday night, so we’ll leave Lubec Saturday morning as originally planned but drive 2 1/2 hours inland to Bangor to spend the night instead of going south to Bass Harbor.
Friday morning dawned clear and with no fog so we were able to see the sunrise. Well, us and the mosquitoes! How are those evil things about in 50 degree weather at 6 am????
Change of plans! We left Sunset Point on Friday instead to move inland so we don’t drive Nomad through 40 mph winds on Saturday. My master booker Cindy was able to get us in a night early at Holden Family RV Campground. The office staff there said they are almost filled with last-minute folks also trying to move out of the path of Hurricane Lee.
Asked the office at Sunset Point if we could get a refund for our last night since, for safety’s sake, we were moving inland. The owners said “No” without hesitation. Their reasoning was “Some people are staying” but by that same reasoning most people are leaving, so it’s more of a strong sense of greed and a lack of customer service on their part. We will trust Karma to visit them in the future, because we won’t.
Check out is normally noon but since we had to pay for the night we won’t use anyway we decided to take our time leaving and finally got out of there around 2:30 pm and headed back inland toward Bangor and, if Hurricane Lee doesn’t suddenly change course, relatively safe conditions. Wind and rain is one thing but 40-60 mph winds and torrential rain sitting on the shore of a bay is a totally different risk that we just weren’t willing to take.
So, did we make it through safely? Look for our next post to find out, lol.
Thanks for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.
