Sept 10. Maine. Well, the slide mechanism cannot be fixed. Motor removed to get numbers for expensive replacement. This slide must remain in, so we are unable to access our refrigerator, clothes and pantry. So we purchased a 10-volt cooler, took basics from fridge and some silver and a pot and skillet. Pulled out some cans of soup from the pantry and some clothes from the closet. Told Mike, we are getting practice for the “basic” camper we are renting in Chile next month.
The slide was pushed in, and heavy ratchet straps wrapped over the top of the camper to hold it in. If the other slide had stopped, we couldn’t have used the bathroom, and if the back slide had quit, we wouldn’t have been able to get in! So, out of three, this was the best one to go bad. I can do limited cooking, so we’re fine.
So, with that problems solved as best we could, we drove to Acadia Natl. Park. After being in SO neat Nova Scotia, Maine is. . . . well, the U.S. A lovely home here, a junky place there, everything in between. And it was truly evident the moment we crossed the border!
Acadia National Park had only a couple of places where we could drive with our tall camper. We found a couple of spots of the rugged coastline to drive to and take a walk. Bar Harbor is a tourist town of the first degree: lovely inns with front porches with rocking chairs, flowers everywhere, and little shops of all types — and all the new architecture was in keeping with the old. We found the LLBean Outlet store on the way. We stopped and purchased 2 pairs of pants for Mike and 6 pairs of wool socks for me — all at a great price!
So, in summary, we were not really able to take the scenic drive around Acadia because of low bridges throughout the drive, but in a car, while it certainly would be crowded, it would be lovely.
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| The granite cliffs and the sea provide the beauty in Acadia Natl. Park |
Sept 10 Evening. What a delightful morning we’ve had! We started across Maine on Hwy 2, a little south of Bar Harbor. Back roads. How we love them (but then my sister teases that we are easily amused, — I think she’s right!)
We notice the crops — what is THAT!? Or a lovely house, or a decrepit barn, or . . . . This morning it was the old huge houses from the last century, well the 18th century, actually. Three, sometimes four stories, huge homes, with attached one-story connections attached to an equally huge barn. The house is always white, but the barn is sometimes painted red; sometimes white. Homestead after homestead, we saw different configurations of these three elements, some in a straight line; others in an L.
Cold, long winters made it prudent to venture outdoors as little as possible to do chores. The one-story connections were used as a mud room, pantry, storing wood, a small shop for repairing machinery (or harness in the old days) or other necessary storage. But as a collection, they were so different and enjoyable to see.
And apple trees! All apple trees; long-abandoned or cared-for, in a wood lot, a ditch or mowed yard, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Maine — they are all positively LOADED with apples this year. An amazing sight, over and over. I wonder if they are this prolific every year. . . .
The old towns we went through. . . . some were just a village with large, very old interesting, crumbling buildings facing the road. At Skowhegan we were flummoxed by the road through town: Lanes separate to go around a building in the middle, turn left and meet again to cross a river, curve hard left to cross another river and turn right to get back on track, on the road leaving town. All in a very short distance. I’m sure in the old days with a horse and buggy no one thought this unusual at all!
Skowhegan was an old town with a dam and a huge mill, possibly a paper mill as they were quite common in the 18th century. Another town, Rumford, also on Hwy 2 in western Maine, was once a paper-mill town with hundreds of employees. One street had 6 or 8 very plain, large, square, red brick rooming houses, all side by side, lining the street. And the road through this town seemed to circle around in three directions before finally getting through town! The rivers through these towns cause a lot of confusion with streets.
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| Perfect example of house, with addition, connected to shed, connected to barn. |
New Hampshire. This afternoon we hired a shuttle to take us to the top of Mt. Washington, the highest point in New Hampshire at 6,288 feet. Doesn’t sound impressive to you Westerners? Don’t be fooled! As you go up the paved, but very narrow twisty road to the top, you pass through regular forest, then treelike short, twisted pines, and then on to tundra. The peaks here look remarkably like the high elevations above treeline in Colorado over which we’ve been ATVing.
The weather is notoriously wicked with weather coming down from Canada, and across from the Rockies and colliding in moist clouds coming in from the ocean. This day at the bottom of the mountain, the temperature was 63 degees, and at the top, 38 and dropping with a fierce cold wind. Mt. Washington’s head was in the clouds that swirled around us, giving quick views of a short distance below, before closing in on us entirely before we started down.
The museum at the top told of the experiments with the wind and winter cold. Many products have been tested here in the wintertime, from clothing to equipment. The museum also told of the lives lost of those testing their skills against the mountain, especially in the wintertime.
The rest of the drive out of New Hampshire was nice, going through the quintessential old-time summer and ski resort inns. We took a nice short walk on the Appalachian Trail up to a waterfall. Mike walked further to another lovely waterfall, before the weather closed in.
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| Weather station on top of Mt. Washington |
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| Old dining hall in "hotel" on top Mt WA |
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| Appalachian Trail |
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| Waterfall on trail. |
At Barre, VT we had a tour of Rock of Ages factory and quarry. They have been quarrying beautiful rock for cemetary monuments and capitol buildings for over a century. Their rock carving artists are among some of the best in the world. And the local cemetary had some incredibly intricate monumets in it, in which we drove around.
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| The Rock of Ages quarry |
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| Note detailed flowers |
We stopped by Montpelier, and went inside the capitol building, and we stopped by Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream for a quick video and tour of their factory. Of course, got a sample of their delicious ice cream: caramel with chocolate chunk today!
We headed down the famed Route 100 on the eastern side of the Green Mountains. While it was basically a tree-lined corridor now, we could imagine it in fall color. It would be glorious.
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| More glorious houses |
On to Albany, NY and a nice visit with my cousin, then onto the boring interstates across wide NY, a corner of PA, Ohio, and Indiana. Just west of Indianapolis, the interstate was SO rough and in bad condition, that we jogged a bit north to the 4-lane Old Highway 40. What a pleasure! Road condition very good, no semis, and Midwest scenery of small towns and farms along the way. It ended at Terre Haute, but was worth every mile. Illinois was no problem, and crossing both the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers within minutes of each other made me realize how much larger the Mississippi really is!
Our son Mike lives in mid-MO, and we spent a couple of days there. A bearing and seal went out on our dually pickup, so Mike and Mike fixed that — a real hassle with problems that shot the whole day. Before heading west, we went for a quick canoe trip on the Current River with son Mike, then left the next morning.
This has been a wonderful trip seeing so many new places, cultures, and people. This trip has been one of the most stress-free trips we’ve taken!
P.S. We stopped at Costco on the way home to pick up a few supplies for our next trip to Patagonia in Chile, South America. Leaving October 22 for five weeks. Stay tuned.
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