Chili Dogs to President's Home to Music Concerts....A Typical Day!

Day 30, Wednesday 7-9-14

Curt and I started out the morning again by going to another music history/composition by our favorite music professor, Roberto Pace (pronounced "Pa-chay"). This morning when we arrived, everyone was crowded around the piano to,see what he was illustrating. He's a fascinating man, and absolutely brilliant!

Then I headed on to my mandolin lesson where I performed rather dismally. My teacher was not impressed with my progress, or lack thereof. But hey, there's a whole new town to see, lobster to eat, and a husband to enjoy spending time with. We work pretty intensely for many hours a day with music. In the evenings I'm not really up for the 2 hours of practice that they recommend each day. I do other, non-music related things. So I'll just play very quietly in our student concert on Friday night.

After my lesson, instead of practicing, I took some photos of the 2 beautiful churches where we have our lessons and classes. I was especially taken with the old fashioned curved pews in the two sanctuaries, as well as the beautiful stained glass windows. So for those of you who love old historic sanctuaries like I do, here are some pictures to enjoy.

Here's  the Christian Temple Church:

The Congregational Church is the one that got hit by the fallen tree in the hurricane a few days ago.

There are work crews all over town cleaning up fallen trees and debris. I have a better shot of the tree today, once the branches with leaves were removed:

The upper stained glass window is the one that was broken. You can see the blue plastic covering it.

And here's the lovely sanctuary:

The broken window:

On my walk back to the Inn, I met a local man, Bernie, who was raking up the grass clippings from a yard he had just mowed. We really hit it off, and talked for about half an hour. He pointed out a small cottage just down the street and encouraged us to buy it. So walked by it and looked it over. It would be perfect for a summer place to get out of the Texas heat. However, it's a little early in our traveling adventure to be buying a house, so I guess we'll let somebody else get the great deal.

Curt and I headed out for our afternoon of exploring (no music classes on Wednesday afternoon). He couldn't wait to take me to his new favorite lunch spot...Down East Hot Dog Stand! Jim and Eileen fixed us up with the world's best chili dogs. I told Curt that I'd just take one bite to taste it and he could have the rest of mine. But the minute Jim's homemade chili hit my palate, all bets were off. I downed that dog like a stevedore!

Next stop was the East Quoddy Lighthouse...the easternmost point of the U.S. Beautifully maintained, the lighthouse has a lovely little museum and art gallery below.

Then a nice hike along the shore, with many of the same sights Curt showed you the last couple of days. And then we got in line to cross the border into Canada, onto Campobello Island, part  of the province of New Brunswick. We took this photo of the lighthouse there, with Lubec in the distance across the water:

A closer view,of Lubec from Canada. The tall white structure to the right of the water tower is the steeple of the Congregational Church (being restored, so it's missing the spire), and to the right of that is the Christian Temple steeple. These churches are right across the street from each other at the highest point in Lubec, and our music classes and concerts are held in them. You can see that Lubec is built on quite a good sized hill. I'm getting my exercise walking around town!

We stopped by the Marine Mammal Interpretive Center (locally known as the Whale Shack) and met two delightful students, Elizabeth and Toni, who knew an amazing amount about the endangered Right Whales, found only in this area. They could answer every question Curt asked, and he can ask a lot of questions!

On to drive around Campobello Island. Here's more evidence of Saturday's hurricane:

We visited the beautiful cottage that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's family came to every summer for years, until he was struck with polio right in the bedroom of the cottage. What a wonderful place!

The schoolroom, where his five children were tutored for two hours every day, even in the summer:

The spacious kitchen

The Butler's pantry. 

34 rooms, including 18 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms It's quite a place!

Curt and I found the campground where we'll stay next week, when my music camp is over. it's on Campobello Island, just down the road from the Roosevelt Cottage. A little more modest accommodations than the cottage, though!

Terrific dinner of Brazilian stew (fish, shrimp, scallops, and lots of veggies, all in a bisque-type of stock.) Amazing!  And then a piano, flute and cello concert tonight. What a day it's been!