We left Maine and traveled to Connecticut where Peter has been reconnecting with old friends and we have been visiting his sister and brother as well. He has been showing me all the places he hung out as a kid and just remembering "the good old days" when we did not know what it was to worry about anything. It has been fun! We will be moving on soon, but will care a lot of new memories with us!
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June 18, 19, & 20, Days 27, 28, & 29, We have been enjoying a lovely shaded hilltop spot here at Bar Harbor Campground for the last few days. There are wild blueberry bushes everywhere and they finally got ripe enough to pick some today! Delicious! We have had a little rain, but the sun is back out and the temperature is lovely! Got so cool last night we had to shut the windows! Same is predicted for tonight. Sadly we must start to venture toward home tomorrow, but slowly. We still have about a month to get there.
We went to Bangor to the commissary at the National Guard base yesterday, then Peter rode his bike to the top of Cadillac Mountain while I worked to update our blog and pictures. Today we went back and walked around Bar Harbor a bit. This has been a nice three days.
June 15, 16, & 17, Days 24, 25 & 26, We finally made it to Maine. Have not decided if we will try to see New Brunswick or not. Temps in the 60s and 70s, mostly sunny, though we had rain Weds PM and Thurs AM. This campground is being reworked and they are doing a good job of it, though hopefully they will fill in the low spots that hold water and draw mosquitos. They weren’t too bad yet, but…….
We had campfires two nights, though the second night the rain put it out for us (but we were ready to go in anyway). We enjoyed it. We were able to visit Acadia National Park where we saw Thunder Hole, Sand Beach, and drove up Cadillac Mountain (which was still a challenge for me though much lower than Mt Washington because the trees still vanish on the top!, but we did it!). We then drove to Bar Harbor and had lunch at the Chart Room. We ate on the deck and they let us bring the dogs. I had lobster!
June 12, 13, 14, Days 21, 22, & 23, We really enjoyed the White Mountains of New Hampshire as well as the Great North Forrest, our campground was nice. They only do Passport America M-W like so many up here in New England (short season–Memorial Day to Columbus Day for most), so only our last day was half price, but $27 for FHU was not bad. Walmart, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonalds were all close by.
We drove around a lot looking for moose, but never found any. We did find a lot of tracks, and could probably have gone back to those spots late in the afternoon and seen some, but we didn’t. We also tried to drive the Auto Road up Mt. Washington, but when the road started dipping to the left over and over at places where the mountain went down so steeply, I kept getting more and more nervous and knew I would never be able to handle the top where there were NO trees to block any of the view!!!!! SORRY I just can’t handle heights and movement! If I could have hiked it, maybe, but I can’t do that anymore. So we did not get half way up before we turned around and came back down. Even that part had to be driven in 1st gear UP and DOWN. That is how steep the road is. They will be celebrating the 150th birthday of this road next year! And those crazy people used to race cars on it! NUTS! They still have special days for motorcycles only and two for bicyle races (up only—brakes won’t last to come down–must be transported down).
We took pictures of some of the ski slopes as well. I could not do that either. Guess I am just a big chicken, but I don’t care.
June 11, Day 20, on the way to our next stop, we passed Waterbury, VT so we stopped just to check it out since Peter is from Waterbury, CT! They had some interesing old buildings and a train station where we tried out some of their Green Mountain coffee. And that is where the factory for Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is located (they do have one other one, but I forget where), so of course, we had to take the tour! When they give a sample, it is a full scoop and it was very good! We bought some souvenirs at their gift shop and then continued our journey. The Green mountains are beautiful!
The campground where we stayed was nice, very remote. They said bear and moose were in the woods in the back, but we were not going to go up there in the middle of the night to find out. The bugs also come out in the woods when it is cool! The weather was cool and overcast, so we drove down the road in the car to check out one of the state parks. They have no electricity and only shared water faucets and bathrooms and still wanted anywhere from $18-27 a night! The roads were in horrible condition (they were working on them), so we decided to pass on that. The road was so bad we drove on until we reached the interstate and made a big loop to get back to our campground rather than drive back up that road!
June 9 & 10, Days 18 & 19, we drove the short distance from Malone, NY to South Hero, VT which is on what is considered to be a chain of islands but all connected by the same road. Our campground had a lovely view of Lake Champlain, good wifi, and again by aiming high we were able to get Direct TV. This is a Passport America campground, but only for 2 nights Per Month, so we only stayed two nights.
The weather on the ninth was beautiful, but changed late in the day to cold and very windy. Rain moved in and the clouds stayed around until we left on the 11th. However, we were able to drive into Burlington to check out the Ferries, Sand Bar State Park, and all around town. We also drove down to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, but did not take the tour (it was only $2, but they said we might see people working/we might not), nor did we buy any bears–the least expensive was $35. We went to Shelburne Farm, rode the tractor wagon up to the farm barn where we got to see some of their animals, taste their cheese and smell some of their bakery items. It was interesting.
June 8, Day 17, we returned to the US today across the Ogdensburg Bridge after stopping at the duty free shop to spend the last of our Canadian money on souvenirs! Oh and we put $138 of gas in the MH. They sell it by the liter in Canada so the prices LOOK good, but they really are higher!
Once again, our passport cards and a few answered questions was all it took to get back into the US. This was a very UNbusy entry point (at least on the day and at the time of day that we crossed).
We drove along Lake Champlain for awhile and found a nice little RV Park where we could stop for the night. It was on a lovely Babbling Brook, had good wifi, and with a little adjustment (aiming higher) we got Direct TV as well. Nice to be back in the US where we can use our phones without paying 69 cents a minute, and where if we need to, we can tether the laptop to the blackberry for service. We enjoyed the pleasantly cool weather and had our second campfire of this trip!
June 6 & 7, Days 15 & 16, we continued down Hwy 17, but it continued to be such a mess, we decided not to continue into Quebec, but to return to the states in NY instead on ME. Too bad, disappointing. The campground where we stayed was very nice , though about 90% seasonal campers. The people we met there were very friendly and nice. We enjoyed our two days there and drove into Ottawa to see their Parliment building. We also drove through a military base in Petawawa, Ontario, Canada. It was on both sides of the road and probably accounted for most of that township’s 15,500 people. Most of the townships we had driven through we 1,000 people or less! and very spread out.
June 5, Day 14—We stopped 120 later at a Walmart in North Bay and decided to stay for the night. There were 5 or 6 other RVers there as well (5th wheels and MHs). We moved to the side away from the main road so the traffic noise was not too bad and it was cool, so we did not need to run the air at night. Of course, we did some shopping, which is why Walmart doesn’t mind RVers staying there!
On our way we stopped at a roadside park to take pictures of a beautiful waterfall and stream, but the mosquitos were horrible! Glad we had bug spray and hats! Still glad we got the pictures! They were worth it!
June 4,Day 13 of our travels brought us to the actual crossing of the MacKinaw Bridge, the center section of which is a suspension bridge! This had been kind of a worry for Peter, especially if there were any winds, but on this day, the wind was pretty calm, so we decided it was the day to go for it! We did not know there was another bridge we had to cross into Canada right at the border (although a Canadian camper we met had eluded to it in passing just as we were leaving when he said "two bridges"). Both crossings went quite well! In between we stopped at the Soo Locks and watched a couple of huge ships go through before we left the US and crossed into Canada. Although we had to sit ON the bridge for awhile to get through customs, it went well and with our passport cards and a few questions answered, we were through.
I 75 was fine, but we were not impressed with the Trans Canada highway (Hwy 17) which was extremely rough in many places and made for some really tough driving having to fight to keep the motorhome on the road all the time! We stopped at Serpent River Campground which was nice enough, but expensive $39 for water and 30amp electric only, but they said the provincial parks were even more expensive than the private campgrounds! Wifi was free, but soooooooo slow, even with a four bar connection.
