A Hike through the Park, a Grand Wash and some Great Food

It wasn’t quite 7.00am yet but first daylight filtered through the curtains. It made me aware of that we probably would have a sunny day, as otherwise it would be much darker with an overcast sky. Now, nothing gets me out of bed like a clear sunny day. Under circumstances like that, I just can’t find any peace under the covers anymore.                                         From Campobello’s Fall Harvest sale With my early-morning-coffee by my side I did some computing and checking of emails. At 10.00am I decided to make use of all this sunshine, grabbed the NIKON and Molly and took the van out to the park. No tourist had called - so I knew I had the day off. We went into the park’s natural area and parked at a place called FOX FARM. It is an open grassy area where there once was a fox farm. First I followed the main road towards Cranberry Point, but then I took the small hiking trail which goes parallel with the beach. I had a great view of Lubec with the International Bridge spanning across the Narrows.                 Molly waiting for me on the trail             A last greeting from summer There were wet spots and small bridges over narrow creeks, lots of leaves on the ground and old withering mushrooms standing out of green mossy forest soil. The air had taken up all the smells of fall and forest and mixed with the salty ingredients from the sea. Molly was keeping herself a 30ft ahead of me and whenever I stopped to take a picture she stopped as well looking back as to say ”are you coming?” Yes, I was coming after her and since we were out of reach from the northerly wind I got pretty warm in my sweater and my jacket. Soon enough I had tied my jacket around my waist and was carrying the sweater across my shoulders. I had never been on this trail before, so it turned out to be a great discovery tour. Despite the fact that park personnel had kept this trail open and even fitted it with walking planks I doubt that many hikers had come along here during this summer. Everything looked very pristine out here. After being on the trail for about 1km I found a wooden bench where I sat down enjoying one of the most beautiful sceneries one can find around these parts. What a natural treasure we have here! A range mark stating the international boundary of Canada But I had to move on and then the trail came out to the road again, following it for a while, then led straight back into the woods again.  A sign said 1.3km to Fox Farm. So I trudged on between tall spruce and beech trees. Underway I caught glimpses of “Upper Duck Pond” which is really too shallow to stay flooded under low tide. It turns into a huge mud flat and the upper end is a salt marsh, a paradise for birds in the summer as many predators can’t get out there.       Lubec and Campobello with connecting International bridge When I finally saw a lot of light flooding between the trees ahead I understood that I had come to the end of the trail at Fox Farm and sure enough soon I could see our white van standing beside the road.                    The Lubec Light – commonly called “SPARKPLUG” Needless to say I could really feel my legs and it was just great to be able to sit down behind the wheel again. The total length of the hike was approx 3.5km, not too much, but due to the varied terrain an almost 2 hour Sunday morning adventure. So did you think I sat in my recliner all the rest of the day?  Nope, not gonna happen. After lunch and enjoying a real good cup of coffee outside, I looked at our motor home. Something I wanted to do for a long time was washing the grime off the roof, cause every time it rained the dirty juice would run down the sides and leave ugly whitish traces of grime along the walls.         Upper Duck Pond So I unrolled the garden hose, mounted the wash brush and had myself on top of the roof. There was really a lot of dust which needed to be washed off. After I had cleared most of the roof with the brush, I got a pail of soapy water and started up front again to get the nasty lichen spots off. It is a result of our high humidity coastal climate that lichens will start grow on the roof. Looking back after end work I was pretty satisfied with the result. The roof is now shining white like it was new.       View from Cranberry Point to the Gulf of Maine with Grand Manan in the background But all this was now getting to be enough for me for one Sunday and I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying coffee and Bea’s tasty fruit muffins. But the day was still holding a surprise for me. You know we have this enormous flood of tomatoes coming of 4 tomato plants. They are all harvested by now and the green ones are ripening inside, but many are ready for eating and after Bea had already made a delicious tomato soup the other day she had now something in the oven which raised my food expectations sky-high. But I will not tell you what it was, just that it was super-duper delicious. You go to her blog you might find the details there. Thanks for following along the trail.