The Recharging…Planning anew!

The weather here in Northern New Hampshire has moderated a little today and I was able to finally wash the tons of white salt encrusted on my pickup truck. I also gave the two mountain bikes a bath. The camper remains in the shop. There isn't as much salt on it, but I would love to also give it a good rinse.

Blackhawks landing!

All is well on the home front. My pulled leg muscle is getting better, my mother-in-law seems to have stabilized. Just maybe, in a couple of weeks, we may possibly head out and salvage some of this winter getaway. We now are rethinking our destination. Plan “B” was flying to Los Angeles and renting a car and touring the Southwest for a  month or so. The thing that bothers me about this plan is that the weather in the Southwest has been cooler than normal. If there is one thing that I want this winter, it is to get warm! Here comes plan “C” Key West, Florida. The temperature there is always in the mid-seventies... my kind of weather! There are a couple military RV Campgrounds that I have been eyeing ever since we visited Key West a few years back. NASKW Campground [Naval Air Station Key West] and Marathon Recreation Cottages & campgrounds; RV Park [Coast Guard Station Marathon]. Both of these excellent parks may be full, but I am betting that their overflow will handle us for a few days until we can get a full hookup site.

That is what we are thinking and planning!

The Aborted Road Trip

Erie to Buffalo ~ "The Lake Effect"

Is this what Polar means"

We left Erie, PA around 8 am for a return trip back home. The weather outside was terrible. The lake effect snow and wind were rightly named. It was nearly a whiteout with 30 to 40 mile an hour cross wind. The snow was blinding. The highway was plowed, but many sections had hard packed snow on the roadway. There was a  seven car pileup near our location. We did see a tractor trailer jackknife on the Interstate. I followed a TT (tractor trailer) with his fourway blinkers on, I was talking to him on the CB (citizen band radio) when another TT came barreling down the interstate at 60 mph or so. I couldn't see the TT ahead. I said over the CB "What a bonehead passing us at that rate of speed" The TT driver said he actually had to look out of his passenger side window to see if he was still on the road. This bad road experience only lasted about an hour and a half. (Erie to Buffalo) Once we headed East and actually just a few miles down the road there wasn't even a trace of snow. I had been warned about this route (the lake effect), but I was figuring that I could beat the weather and be pass all of that. The rest of the trip home was sunny, cold and windy. We arrived home at 9:15 pm. I had driven 630 miles. I had called home earlier to have our daughter Christy turn on the furnace switch in the shop. This would enable me to start the dump truck and drive the camper into a warm spot to unload items that would freeze.
This trip to Arizona didn't turnout as expected, but that's part of the adventure. A few days have passed and my mother-in-law is doing better. The game plan now is to wait a few weeks to see if everyone is stabilized with all of us and go to plan "B"
Plan "B" might go something like this; Fly to Los Angeles, visit a friend and start a road tour from there towards the Southwest. We have done this before and enjoyed it. I am sure that I can find a route with people, places and things that I haven't explored before. We really haven't explored much of Utah. Zion and Bryce Canyon were marvelous and maybe a starting point for this unique state.

That is what we did and saw

The Road Trip Has Begun

Last Day before leaving

It was cold this morning… about three below zero and. we finished loading all of the last minute items in the camper. It felt like an ice box inside, but I knew that would change as soon as we got rolling along. It was 7:02 when we left the house. We drove pass Pleasant Street Convenience Store and waived to Stump and some of the guys in the store. I usually stop in for a coffee, but time was a wasting and I wanted to travel at least 365 miles to get out of the next storm heading for New Hampshire.

Doesn't that look  like a cozy snow cave!

The sky was blue and the temperature never climbed much above 6 degrees above zero. Some of our soft drinks (stored outside the camper shell) froze, but did not split. We temporally stored them inside in the shower. The new slider window finally worked better after we plugged some air leaks in the donut area. (That is the part that seals between the truck cab and camper. This was a homemade item that I didn’t have time to road test before the actual trip.)

In late afternoon, the sky became milky white and soon the snow started falling. We pulled into a Wal-Mart  in Utica, NY about an hour short of our intended goal. The snow increased to nearly a white out. We were here for the night.

So far on this trip, I was looking around for what was of interest to view and see. The one major thing was the Erie Canal that parallels I-90 to Lake Erie. There are many locks for shipping barges to navigate the waterways. I don’t exactly know how long the canal is, but it is very long.

It's not a bridge to nowhere, but part of the Erie Canal 

Now for an update; the first morning just before leaving home I was tightening my shoe lace when I felt a sharp pain in my back. I pushed off with my left leg to relieve the pain. I was sore, but we proceeded to leave Berlin. My leg got progressively worse. The first night we stayed in the camper. The furnace ran about 14 minutes every hour. The next morning, we left very early and drove as far as Erie, PA. It was now 2pm and my leg was really bothering me. I had been taking 1000mg of Acetaminophen with no results. It was time to find a hotel! The Econo Lodge was it. I was in bed at 3pm and stayed there until 5:30 the next morning.

My leg was still tender but better. Helen got a call from her sister. Her mother took a turn for the worse and may be hospitalized on this day. It was a sign for us to head back home.

That is what we did and saw

Up Coming Winter Getaway!

Well as you can see we are still alive after the winter solstice yesterday the 21^st of December. The holidays will soon be behind us and the time has come to continue planning our journey to Arizona. The truck camper sits under a lean-to in back of my shop. I have been plowing the snow away to provide access to it. When the time comes it should be easy to load and ready for a quick departure sometime in late January.  I’ve been thinking of upgrading a few things on the truck to make the camper easier to acclimate to a quicker temperature. My truck does not have a slider window in the rear. I want to change that and replace it. It will enable the truck cab heater and air-conditioner to either pre-heat or cool the camper. The furnace in the camper works fine, but preheating will warm things right up while we are driving. 

Break.........................

   This morning December 24th the sun is shining, the Holiday music is playing on the laptop. I am waiting for the Christmas festivities to start later this afternoon at our daughters house. I am pushing myself  to start writing the blog again. The planning of our road trip goes something like this; first I spend a couple of months studying everything that I need to know about the road trip, our destination in Arizona and all of the surroundings areas. When I have all of this familiar in my head I'll probably disregard everything and not follow a schedule or plan. This way I don't feel obligated to do anything or be somewhere at a certain time. The whole idea of studying is to have options stored or at least have a resources available in my head. An example of this is the weather. My navigation software directs us nearly in a diagonal  path across the US from New Hampshire to Arizona. If the January/February weather is to severe a swing to the South might be more practical.


Break.........................

Ogunquit ~ The Fryeburg Fair ~ Buddy Holly Story

This week was busy as usual running around doing "odds and ends". Bringing the grand kids to soccer practice and games, I finally had a few minutes on Wednesday to load the camper onto the truck. I did have a problem with the camper jack remote. Moister created a bad connection between the batteries and terminals. I cleaned the remote and the camper was sitting high on the big Ford F-250. Everything was ready for a Friday morning take off. Our day would be at the Fryeburg Fair. For those of you who don't know about this Fair, it is the largest in the State of Maine. I'm told that an average of 300,000 people attend during the course of the week long events. The Fair is only about a hour drive from Berlin, New Hampshire. I should say that is the average driving time when there is no Fair going on. It can take five hours if one takes the south entrance route. We've been going there many years running, but we know better and take a short cut on the Northern approach to the Fairgrounds. This route is up and over Evans Notch, a very picturesque narrow mountain road. There is little traffic to deal with. On the Fryeburg side of the Notch the landscape changes from rocky ledges and cliffs to back wood farms. It is always a joy to travel this road to the Fair.
The North entrance to the Fair is the RV entrance and grounds have thousands of RVs parked for the week. We were not planning to stay there tonight and just got a $5 day parking pass. A convenient shuttle carried us to the main ticket booth. From here, we  had a routine to cover the areas of interest. We walk the exhibits along the race track, check out new items in the RV dealers and camping stuff. There are so many places to eat, but we always windup at this fresh seafood place and have a yummy lunch. Next comes all the craft barns followed by sitting and watching a few musical artist do there thing. The afternoon was spent walking into the show animal barns and viewing those little and big critters. There was a huge draft horse that weighed in at 2,600 lbs.! His horse shoe was as big as a basket ball is wide. The horse was from a farm in Quebec, Province, Canada.


Greek Orthodox Church ~ AKA our Campground

Time to leave and head south east into Maine's back roads. Remember above, I said it could take five hours to reach the fairgrounds. Well, I was right and there heading in the opposite direction the traffic was grid locked. It took us maybe 20 minutes to get out of there and take a left onto route 113 and 5. This would bring us eventually to Saco, Maine, our destination for the night. If you ever have driven through the back roads of Maine, you know how confusing it can be. Even with a very reliable GPS, one can easily get confused and find yourself on another route heading to one of those little towns with a five way intersection. There are plenty of road signs, but they don't necessarily direct you on your original route 113 and 5 destination. We finally made it to Saco. The Buddy Holly Story at the Ogunquit Playhouse would be tomorrow's target destination. You may ask what are we doing in Saco several miles up the coast from Ogunquit? There is always an answer. Jumping back to our home town in Berlin, there is a Russian Orthodox Church in our neighborhood. Here in Saco, Maine  a Greek Orthodox Church exist in a secluded section of town. We had been here before to a festival featuring traditional foods. Father Sergious Gherken of Berlin called and we had a place to stay. It was secure, quiet and next to a wooded area. We would have stayed at a campground, but it is foliage season. Everything was booked and also at a prime rate.

I am getting good holding the camera in my right hand!

Where we going?

The next morning, the sun was breaking over the horizon. A good reason to grab a picture of the church. We had all day to get to the Ogunquit Playhouse, a perfect excuse to explore the Maine coast! We have been to Maine many, many times, but it always seemed that we were on a mission to get to some other place. A good local map is essential to get to those places that are beautiful, but not on the main tourist list. Biddeford Pool is what I'm talking about. Route 208 took us pass many estates that are owned by the Catholic Church. I can only imagine that this prime property was given by very rich industrialists. In any event, it was a joy to drive around and view these properties. Heading south on route 9, we stopped at a few beaches to stretch our legs and look for sea shells. A couple of old timers had their rubber boots, clam rakes, buckets and were headed for the mud flats across the road. I watched them to see if they would get all muddy, but surprisingly they did not. We got back into the truck camper and headed for Goose Rocks Beach. The locals were out jogging, riding bikes and setting up yard sales. You have to remember that the main tourist season is over and the locals are getting ready to close down their rental properties for the season. We walked and drove around these little side streets looking at everyone and everything that caught our eye. Speaking of catching one's eye, I got a some interesting photos of  locals doing their chores.

Coastal Tide coming in 

Kennebunkport was still bustling with tourist. We joined the crowd and toured the shops, grabbed a cup of coffee, peered out of the back window of the coffee shop and watched the tide coming in. The town of Wells was next. It seemed that the further south we went, the more tourists appeared on the street and the harder it got to find a parking spot. We kept going until the Ogunquit town line sign was to our right. We had plenty of time to read the sign as the traffic was at a stand still. I said to Helen, "we'd better find the Playhouse first and then explore and eat". Ah! the Playhouse on our left with a Visitor Center next door. A stop here was a must and we asked all the too familiar questions "what to do and see in this town until the play starts?" The lady gave us a lot of options and short cut directions to must visit spots. OK, we were off to the docks with all of the restaurants. The problem here was no available parking. We back tracked up the road and every parking lot was full even with a $12 parking fee! They did have a trolley shuttle, but just too crowded for our liking. As luck would have it, a Catholic Church parking lot had a parking spot. Their wasn't any "No Parking" sign in site. We were now hungry and I didn't want to wait in a restaurant. We walked to the back of the truck, opened the camper door and sat at our reserved table. You just can't beat a truck camper! Having finished lunch you probably figured that I would want a nap. "Yup!" two steps up to the queen size bed and I was in heaven.

Fall foliage and Maine!

We spent the early part of the afternoon walking around both shops and the "Marginal Way" (a paved walkway along the shore). The play start time was 3:30pm and we arrived in the parking lot around 2:45pm. The lady parking lot attendant gave us a good spot for our departure after the play. (North bound

"The Ogunquit Playhouse has an unbelievable history of attracting actors to preform on it's stage. The atrium is full of pictures. We spent a considerable amount of time looking and reading the captions."

The Buddy Holly Story was one of the best plays I've ever witness. Not only were the actors great, but they all played musical instruments to perfection. "Bravo, Well Done"
We left the Playhouse with our spirits up.

Dinner was next on the agenda and soon we located an Italian restaurant. The line extended to the outside. It was worth the wait, I was really full and I knew that if I parked for the night I would have a hard time digesting the meal. If I drove an hour maybe we could find a place to park for the night in North Conway, NH. We were not so lucky and decided to drive home. Forty-five minutes later we were in our driveway. It was a good weekend!

That is what we saw and did

Ogunquit, ME ~ Buddy Holly Story!

The Pre-journey post...

The weather up here in Northern New Hampshire is already turning very Fall-sh! The foliage is nearly at 50%. The reds, yellows and greens are spectacular. When the sun does shine it is the ultimate in photographic splendor. I said "when" the sun does shine. Most days are now partially overcast with fog and or rain. It is the best time of the year and also the saddest. It means that the days are getting shorter (3 hrs less of daylight) so far.The temperature is going down into the mid-thirties. It is a time to reflect on this past summer activities, a time to think of the upcoming winter. A time to drain the irrigation system, a time to install grade stakes around the property to prevent the snow plow from digging up the lawn and flower beds. I have done most of these chores. Oh ya, I still have to get on the roof and clean the chimneys. While up there, I'll check the gutters for leaves and debris.

It is time to enjoy the fall! Next weekend seems to be 'weather wise" a good weekend. We purchased tickets online for the "Buddy Holly Story" at the Ogunquit Playhouse for next Saturday. We are planning a long weekend and I will load the Truck Camper and we will tour a little bit of the southern Maine area. The foliage should be at near peak around here and hopefully well started in the southern parts of New Hampshire and Maine.

Colors nearly at peak!

As I sit here writing this blog my mind is already thinking, or I should say drifting towards warmer climates. Quartzsite, Arizona seems to always creep in. More on this later on a follow up post.

Mount Desert Island ~ The Rocky Coast!

 

This morning, I expected to be socked in to a thick blanket of fog. It was dead quiet outside. I peeked around the blinds and did see a couple of tent campers moving around their tents. One guy held his hand face up and sort of looked up to see if it was raining. It wasn’t from what I could tell. I’m glad we have a truck camper. It isn’t too pleasant to pack everything when it is in a soggy state.

We got out of bed and had breakfast. Headed for the dump station to empty our holding tanks and fill-up with fresh water. Next stop was to the registration office to checkout. Before entering, I noticed a sign with today’s weather forecast. “Severe weather warning for later in the day, 90% chance of thunder storms with heavy wind”. It wasn’t raining or extremely foggy and we decided to explore the quiet side of the Island as long as the weather wasn’t a problem.

Bass Harbor Head Light

Sieur de Monts was our first stop after leaving Blackwoods Campground. Here we walked the Wild Gardens of Acadia at the Nature Center. Abbe Museum was here also, but we wanted to explore the outside as long as the weather held up and we bypassed this attraction. The Hull Visitor Center was next. We tried last night, but we missed the five o’clock closing. I wanted to get an Acadia National Park hiking stick pin. My collection of these pins is coming along very well. My hiking stick has about 16 inches of these pins on two sides. The stick was given to me by my grandson Sawyer a couple of years ago, when he was around nine years old. It isn’t an exotic species of wood. It’s plain old dog wood that came from our property. At the time, we were trying to make whistles with the dog wood. I started carving and first thing you know it was my prize walking stick.

Back to the quiet side of Mount Desert Island, the Bar Harbor side is full of tourists but the South West part of the Island is dotted with little towns, and coves. One gets to see the real coast of Down east Maine. I would say once you cross Somes Sound you are on the so called quiet side. Route 102 brought us down to South West Harbor. We stopped to get a few pictures of the boats anchored in the harbor. We walk up the highway a short distance to a pickup truck with fresh fish for sale. Helen bought some haddock. This vender did a good business this morning. He had several people stop for his products.

Sailing in the fog!

I turned off on RTE 102A which followed the coast line. A place called Seawall Picnic Area caught our attention and we walked the rocky shore line looking at rock shapes for our collection. The fog was still heavy off shore and we could hear boats moving up and down but we couldn’t actually see them. I managed to shoot a couple of pictures and still wound up with two souvenir rocks.

Seawall Campground came up and I drove in just to see if it was better than Blackwoods. I would say it’s about the same (heavily wooded sites with paved roads and the same type of restrooms). It would be an option, if we ever come this way again.

So far this weekend was working as I was hoping. The long adventure trip to Alaska wasn’t an isolated adventure. We were experiencing the same feelings of discovering new places, meeting people, sharing our experiences and generally having a good time.

Navigating the Rocky Coast

When you see pictures of the Maine coast, you are nearly always brought to this next spot that we discovered. It’s called “Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse”. It is not a well-marked road. What you do see is several signs that have (No RV’s). The road is very narrow and at the end is a parking lot that is small and hard to navigate. Our truck camper did very well, I backed into a spot and we were off… down the trail to the most scenic view of the “Rocky Coast of Maine”

Do You Think She Is Practicing Surfing?

The trail ends at a long set of wooden stairs down to the rocky ledge. The ledge is a little intimidating at first (at least for this baby boomer). It was best for me to shoulder my camera and have both hands available to maneuver over, around and up onto the beautifully colored rocks. Once I was out there, I felt safe and started to take those pictures I craved for. I was panning around with the camera and there I spotted Helen making her way out to take a look for herself. I couldn’t help take a few shots of her climbing the rocks. It gave scale to the outcroppings.  “Oh” I forgot to mention that the main reason for walking out here was also to shoot the Bass Harbor Headlight. This was not to be as I hoped. The light house was completely covered with construction staging and a green safety mesh. (Not the perfect ambiance for a light house). The pictures of the rocky coast will suffice. That’s what adventure is all about…the unpredictable!

The rest of the Island had a few more scenic coves, such as Duck Cove, Goose Cove and Seal Cove Pond. We passed Hall Quarry on this quiet side of Mount Desert Island. The quarry had samples of the polished Granite in several colors. The slabs were in the five by ten foot size. Priceless!

The Green Fence?

The weather was still holding up for us and we were back on the mainland heading for home. Most of the trip home was uneventful. We stopped in South Paris, Maine to check out the new Casino. It was only a mile out of our way. To our surprise the parking lot was full to capacity. I did manage to find a spot and we dashed into the Casino. Every slot machine was taken except for six or so. We donated a few coins and left. The first thing we heard on the radio was that emergency warning sound with the following automated voice saying…severe thunder storm warning with heavy winds and possible down trees and power lines for Lancaster, Lunenburg, Colebrook and Pittsburg, NH…  Take cover! It was just starting to drizzle and it was now night time and dark. I drove with caution and made it to Bethel, Maine before it really started to rain heavily. You know when your wipers are on high and you still can’t see anything. I slowed down to 20 miles per hour. The camper was still rock steady. It was windy, but not severe…yet! The New Hampshire border came up fairly fast and now we were only 20 miles or so from home. The lighting started. At first it seemed to be at a distance and then it was all around us. Down to 10 miles per hour, the traffic was light, but when a car did drive by it was hard to, or I should say impossible to see the road. The next twenty minutes was rough!  The town of Gorham soon was before us and the worst of the storm was behind us. We both had a sigh of relief. Our home town six miles up the road was the end of this adventure full weekend. The truck camper had lived up to its reputation of giving us adventure and fun for the weekend. I can’t wait to see where “Boomers on the move” will take us next.

That is what we saw and did