Today was a tour of St. Andrews, just across the Penobscott Bay from Robbinston, Maine.

Even though the citizens were ordered to build and man a blockhouse (with ammo, guns, bunks for a few soldiers, and 3 cannons pointed at Maine) there never was a shot fired during the War of 1812 or later. Too many Canadians had relatives in Maine and vice versa. In fact the towns drafted a non- aggression pact (unbeknownst to their national governments).

Here are a couple of pics of the blockhouse, now a national historic landmark.

We also toured the Greenock (Scottish for Green Oak) Presbyterian Church, built by a privateer to show the hoity toity Anglicans that Presbyterians could afford a beautiful house of worship. By the way, a privateer is a pirate who pays a percentage of his booty to the king, so he is state-sponsored? tolerated?

The pulpit is made of tropical woods brought up from South America by his own boats. No hardware was used except for the door knob and door hinges. The rest was dovetails, mortis, and tennon.

The organ is in sad shape because they can’t afford to heat the building in the winter. It hasn’t been played in years.

The pews were rented, with larger families needing larger pews. The doors were to keep drafts out. People were allowed to bring their dogs into church to warm their feet.

The cemetary has the remains of many Loyalists from the U.S. They came in two waves: 1783 (when the Revolutionary War ended) and 1842 (when the Aroostook war ended) In both cases people ended up on the wrong side and had to move.

Next was the old courthouse, only used for special events now. Had 4 large columns on the front for the Classical Greek style.

A bored sheriff carved his name into one of the desk drawers. All desks are original.

This unusual seating arrangement had prosecutors and defense lawyers facing one another.

Witnesses had to stand in this box. The thought was if he/ she was uncomfortable, he/she would tell the truth to get out more quickly. Later the authorities relented and built another witness “stand” with a seat.

Queen Victoria’s portrait presided over the proceedings during her reign.

The jail was grim, dark, and depressing. Last used in 1972. No pics. Would be a great wine cellar or lagering cave for beer.

On June 15 we relocated from Bar Harbor, Maine to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea in New Brunswick.

Enroute, we stopped at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park, now a nature preserve administered by Canada and the U.S.

Back in the late 1800s/ early 1900s it was the secluded playground of the monied people who didn’t appreciate the upper middle class riff raff flooding into Bar Harbor.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s parents had a “cottage” there (no longer standing) and Franklin spent every summer there as a boy and young man. He met Eleanor on the island.

Their neighbor sold her cottage to Sara Roosevelt (FDR’s mom) as long as she gifted it to Franklin and his new wife Eleanor.

The 34 room Roosevelt “cottage” became abuzz with 5 children, 2 dogs, 4-6 staff, friends from the island, and a Mr. Howe, who was FDR’s best friend and political advisor.

At this cottage FDR lay stricken with undiagnosed polio for 6 weeks until they carted him off the island and carried him on a stretcher onto the train bound for New York. He was 38. He didn’t return for 11 years because it was not handicap accessible.

Another cottage nearby was the Hubbard Cottage. Hubbard made his money in Boston real estate and his wife was a world-renowned concert pianist. He designed the cottage and insisted on fine detailing throughout.

We rode our bikes from where we parked the truck and trailer over the Roosevelt Bridge to the cottages and visitor center and then to a light house facing the town of Lubec, Maine. Lubec claims to be the town furthest east in the United States.

We were so interested in the stories that we took very few pictures.

I want to get this posted so I don’t get behind.

Today we loaded up the bikes and drove to Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, the third largest island off the east coast of the continental U. S. (According to Oh, Ranger! The complete guide to the National Parks.)

Here’s how we transport the bikes on Vernon Too (our Volvo).

We rode on 14 miles of Acadia’s 45 miles of carriage roads, built by John Rockefeller Jr., a huge booster of the natural environment of Mount Desert Island. He donated 10,000 acres of his land to a non-profit organization, designed and built all the carriage roads and erected 17 unique stone bridges.

It was a cold 59° while we biked, and the mosquitoes were voracious. So I didn’t take many pictures. Luckily Roy took this one.

We stopped at the Atlantic Brewing company, located in a farm house. I ordered a Coal Porter and the $14 Pulled Pork plate. As we have done before, when in a region, we try the regional cuisine…even if it is meat.

The porter was a deep mahogany color and had notes of coffee and prunes. Delicious!

I’ll be able to make 4 meals from the pork since we hardly eat any at all.

Here’s their coaster locating them on the map.

We plan to return to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park in August and will definitely return to Atlantic Brewing.

We discovered a 10-mile long rails-to-trail bikeway between the Otis Air National Guard base and Woods Hole and rode it 4 times. Incidentally, “hole” means a bay.

The Shining Sea Trail took us through cranberry bogs, marshes, small towns, and along the ocean. I didn’t stop to take any pictures! Without the red berries, bogs just look like marsh land.

Anyway, Woods Hole is full of coffee shops, restaurants, and oceanographic geeks. It’s headquarters for the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and NOAA- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rachel Carson worked for all three institutions while writing her books, including Silent Spring. I was surprised to read she was 57 when she passed away.

There was also a bronze sculpture of a whale fluke.

Also in the park was a concrete monument with a sundial on each of the four faces (north, south, east, and west). And flora and fauna of the sea on the facets down lower. Very pretty. I should have taken the picture with the power lines behind me!

A couple of days later we rode the trail to the Woods Hole – Martha’s Vineyard Ferry. We didn’t return to this park, though.

While staying in Macedon, NY for a week we took a day trip to Rochester.

I have wanted to see Susan B. Anthony’s home for decades, and I am glad we finally were able to do so on May 4.

She and her younger sister lived in this home with their parents. After the parents passed away, the two sisters and a constant supply of overnight guests filled the house. As suffragists, they built quite a network of supporters and foot soldiers to fight the fight for voting rights.

Like many historic homes, many of the furnishings disappeared, but the docent pointed out pieces that were original.

These two chairs, the desk, and the travel trunk were hers. Note the Budapest sticker on the left edge. She took many trips to Europe to network with “suffragettes” over there.

She was a genius at branding, said the docent. She always wore a red shawl over her black silk dress and carried an alligator purse. Even in a sea of humanity, people could recognize her from afar.

One of the other tourists said there’s a children’s rhyme about The Lady With the Alligator Purse.

A Google search shows half a dozen books with that title. The visitor said the punch line should be “Vote! Said the Lady with the Alligator Purse” The books take liberties with that sentiment.

Susan B. and her sister were close friends of Frederick Douglass, whose family lived outside of Rochester for awhile. His home was firebombed by white terrorists while Frederick was in D.C. advocating for black rights. Luckily his wife and children survived the attack.

Back in the 1830s, 40s and 50s there was a huge debate among abolitionists, Quakers, Unitarians, Temperance advocates, and suffragists as to which need should take priority.

Douglass attended the first Women’s Congress in Seneca Falls in 1848 and was a solid advocate with the women until the late 1860s when he advocated for black men’s voting rights… Which passed as the 15th amendment. He felt black people’s very lives were at stake, and white women voting was a “nice to have” right.

They reconciled just before he passed away in 1895.

Susan died in 1906 and women’s right to vote came in 1920.

Roy and I spent one day in mid-May in Groton CT, specifically the Submarine Museum. The centerpiece of the facility is the Nautilus, the first nuclear powered sub, built in 1951.

Most ladders had been converted to stairs, which was very appreciated. But we still had to lift our feet over 18 inch thresholds. Roy actually did the move where you grab the bar over the opening and shoot through feet first! Just like in the movies. I did not.

The first stop was the officers’ mess hall, complete with gold plated flatware. Not sure that they used this every day!

The next two pictures are of a senior officer’s and the Captain’s berth with a pix of a wife / pretty random female? commanding a tiny desk. Note all the combination locks on the cupboards. Both had sensitive / top secret papers in there, and possibly petty cash, I imagined.

The faux wood paneling room was the Captain’s room.

The executive officer got the green paint.

Next was the conning room that you’ve seen in so many sub movies. I don’t know who picked the mannequins, but they all had terrible hair. Truly looked like a piece of shaggy rug.

The petty officers’ sleeping berths were next. They were stacked 4 deep on each side. These are guys who served 6 years or longer.

The lowest ranking enlisted personnel were packed in even tighter, if you can believe it.

Next is the enlisted mess, their dining and living room. They watch movies, play games, attend religious services, and eat.

Notice in the second picture the guys playing a game while wearing breathing apparatuses. The hoses plugged into a manifold in the ceiling.

I think I’d stop playing games if we were in a situation needing oxygen!!

The end of the mess has the milk dispenser, the soft serve ice cream machine, and a small music center.

Finally, the kitchen and the area where dishes were washed and stored. There is not much room to maneuver.

Again, they have terrible hairpieces.

I felt lucky to not be subjected to the smells that Tomas reported as his experience on his sub, the Scoop Jackson: sweat, Pinesol, and amine.

But it was the same temperature: cold down there. And that’s typical for a sub, Tomas said.

We highly recommend that you tour this free museum if you are ever in the Groton area. (There are many models, including the Turtle, developed in the Civil war to screw explosives to the underside of enemy ships.)

In Tuoro Park (Newport, RI) stands a 28 foot stone tower with 8 pillars, 1 fireplace, and several small openings. It generates a lot of controversy and theories.

The post holes indicate a floor existed about 10-12 feet off the ground. With the fence, it’s difficult to see if there are more post holes another 10-12 feet up.

Governor Benedict Arnold (great-great-great grandfather to the famous traitor) owned this tower in the late 1600s and called it “my stone built wind mill” in his 1677 will. And that is what postcards and souvenirs call it.

However, we met an eccentric fellow named Jim Egen who runs the “Newport Tower Museum”, a tiny storefront steps away from the tower.

He has spent many years on his theory as to who built it and why. And he has s $40 book that has all his documentation for his arguments…we didn’t purchase it. And he spoke for an hour and a half straight!

Egen says John Dee (an English/Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I) designed the tower to be a camera obscura.

Why? Because it was to be a sacred place and have horological significance for the Queen’s first colony in the new world. Horological means the study and measurement of time, and by extension, dates, and seasons. And Newport was going to be Queen Elizabeth’s first colony.

So, according to Egen, Sir Humphrey Gilbert (who was granted all of North America by the queen) had the tower built with 3 floors, a rounded roof and few openings. It just needed to be a dark structure with “pinholes” to track light across the floor and walls. Eagen says the tower was built during a secret preliminary expedition in 1582.

The arches were crude because there was an outside wall covering them. A ledge is located on the “shoulder” of the legs to support the outside wall.

So, Gilbert drowned in 1583.

The next man to be given the mandate to colonize the Americas was Sir Walter Raleigh, Gilbert’s half-brother. He decided he wanted some place warmer than the Narragansett Bay, so had his settlers land in the Outer Banks. And his Lost Colony disappeared from Roanoke Island. Strike two for the queen.

So, Benedict Arnold caught the Queen’s favor and was granted the lands around the Narragansett Bay. The tower was already on his parcel, but not ” in use”.

Egen claims the British blew the roof off because it was used as an armory at one point. And the two floors and posts rotted away.

Egan showed us photos of the light of the moon and sun passing through one small opening and landing on various parts of the fireplace on auspicious dates like solstices and equinoxes.

Here is what he thinks the 48 foot structure looked like.

During his long winded lecture he spoke of Bucky balls, tetrahedrons, the perfect number 252, and other things mathematical.

Citizens and guides hawk theories that Chinese, the Knights Templar, Portuguese, or Vikings built it. Egan is not buying it. But he hopes you’ll buy his book!

We spent a gusty but sunny afternoon at the Ambassador Loeb visitor center and Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the United States.

Built in 1763, it was designed to look like the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam. Since we toured that synagogue in Amsterdam last summer, we could appreciate all the similarities.

While it is about 1/3 to 1/4 the size of the Amsterdam synagogue, it had the same Torah reading table surrounded by a high railing, raised off the floor for all the men on the first floor to see and hear.

The second floor/ balcony is occupied by the women, just as it was in the 1700’s. The women had heat from a single fireplace built only on that floor. The men had no heat until the renovation in early the 2000s.

Our guide showed us a 500 year old Torah made from deer skin. It was kept by a New York City synagogue during the 60 years that the synagogue was not in use. (1776-1836)

The synagogue was used as a British hospital during the Revolutionary war and many Jewish merchants fled the area because they couldn’t get goods through the blockades to sell.

Some congregants fled because they were not Loyalists and felt threatened. Others who were Loyalists moved to Canada with the Brits after the war. The population of Newport was half its pre-war numbers after the war. And the city itself was devastated by fires and cannon shots from the ships in the harbor. But the synagogue was spared because it was useful to the British.

The interior had 27 layers of paint on the walls and wooden surfaces when they did the recent renovation. The congregants likes this sage green color the best, so that’s what the renovators used. Very striking.

The brass fixtures and candlestick holders all date from the late 1700’s, our guide said.

Here’s a pix of the president’s (of the synagogue) seat. Two US president’s have actually sat there: Eisenhower and Kennedy.

Finally Ambassador Loeb (assigned to Denmark during Ronald Reagan’s term) paid for this park to be created to honor Jewish veterans. Very pretty.