The route to the border crossing takes you right through the downtown area of St Stephen and through the narrow residential streets...  several times we felt that we may have gotten off on the wrong road, and could not imagine lines of trucks passing along the route.... but eventually we turned a corner and there was a short bridge with Canadian customs on this end, and US on the other....  there were only about a half dozen cars lined up waiting....    in the middle of the bridge was marked the international boundary line....   as we inched ahead, we intentionally stopped on the line, trying to decide if we really were ready to come home or not...    then we moved ahead and in only a few minutes it was our turn.... as we pulled into the customs lane (there were 4 agents working) I could see an agent reading our license number and entering it into the computer...  the agents walked around the Jeep and trailer and asked me to unlock the back door to the Jeep... the agent talking did not smile or socialize, and looked dead serious.... they looked in the back, looked in the glove department, and the center counsel.... asked if we bought anything significant, and that was it... they did not ask our names, nationalities or anything....  I suspect that the computer brought up the data on us.... but surprised that they did not ask for any ID... anyway... we were happy to get through and on the way....   we headed down US route 1 along the Maine coast... 

Driving for awhile, it was clear we had not quite adjusted mentally to being back in the US... it felt funny not seeing things in metric anymore.... gasoline prices dropped significantly when we crossed.. from 70 cents a liter to 54 cents a liter... about $1.54 a gallon... we finally stopped and topped off, just to take a break.... we drove for an hour or so, realizing we had no plan...  we had been worried about getting across the border and had no plan now that we were here..   we decided to drive and look for opportunities to get out to some of the small harbor areas along the coast....   we came upon route 189 and signs to Campobello Island stating that there was an International Boundary crossing.....  so without a plan, we turned down the road and found ourselves at Lubec, Maine, the most easterly city in the United States (so the sign said)..   after some wrong turns we arrived at a bridge and crossed over to Campobello Island....   Campobello Island contains Roosevelt International Park, his vacation cottage and favorite spot outside of Hyde Park...  the park is in New Brunswick, but jointly operated and owned by Canada and the USA... the only such international park...   we crossed the bridge and stopped at Canadian customs....  questions were routine until they found out I had a shotgun in the tailer..  I told them I already had a Canadian registration, and they asked me to pull over to the side.... I went in with the agent and they looked at my papers... this is a new process and he did not know what to do..  he read books and after a phone call (20 minutes later) pulled out a log book, made notes from my registration, wrote a new registration number on my papers from his log book, and let me go on my way...   we did discover that there was a Provincial Park on the Island with camping so decided to check that out since it was late in the afternoon....  so that is how we came to leave Canada, and then turn around and go back into Canada to camp at Herring Cove Provincial Park... 

The island is about 10 mile long, and has 2 villages besides the provincial park, and Roosevelt Campobello International Park... the Provincial Park has electrical hookups and is tucked away in the woods near the beach.... so quiet you could hear a pin drop tonight...   end of season and not many people staying here...     we checked in and dropped off the Aliner, then took off to investigate the island...  the Roosevelt park was closing so we decided to wait and see it in the morning, and instead went toward the end of the island where there was the oldest still functioning lighthouse on the Bay of Fundy...   near the end of the island, we saw an eagle perched on a rock within easy viewing from the road so we stopped... shortly it was joined by another and they just sat together on that rock while we attempted to photograph the two of them....     Finally we arrived at the lighthouse......  the lighthouse was actually on a rock by itself, with two similar small islands like stepping stones to get to it....   with low tide, all 3 of the rocky islands were attached with gorge separting them full of rocks covered with sea vegitation...  to get a good view of the lighthouse it was necessary to climb down into the gorge between the islands now above water, and work your way out until you could view the lighthouse on the final "rocky" surface....   there were old iron ladders anchored in the rock to help you get down into the gorge and up onto the next rock...    a challenging climb/hike, but I had to make sure I got the complete picture...  Suzanne shot up a roll of film watching me climbing up and down the iron ladders and crawling over the rocks in the gorge...  there were warning signs that the tide rises at the rate of 5 feet an hour, and up to 30 feet so you could get stranded on one of the little islands if you are not careful...

Tomorrow we plan to visit the Roosevelt retreat, then head off the island and continue down the coast of Maine...  at Bangor we plan to head west into New Hampshire and then toward Burlington Vemont...  but plans change...  the leaves have started to change, with some good colors starting in southern part of New Brunswick... we hope to see more the next few days...