We are filling in our map. The only states left are New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Our goal for the summer was to 'DO New England.' (North Dakota is going to remain the one and only unvisited state in the lower 48) So - we left Maine yesterday and we're in New Hampshire now. The park where we stayed yesterday had a 'Rail Trail' passing right by - so we took advantage and rode a few miles of the Kennebec River Rail Trail.
This travel and play is hard work! I'm exhausted. And, I don't even do any of the driving. Everywhere we go, I keep saying, "There's so much more to see, we need to stay a week, not just a night or two." But, we do have a bit of a schedule. We are booked to do our seminars at Outdoor World Timothy Lakes in Pennsylvania on August 16 and 23. So, we make the best use of the time we can.
I'm so glad we met up with Greg and Marilyn Gundy for the Lobster Festival in Rockland, but, if I had been able to read their blog post about the area beforehand we might have just stayed there and forgotten about filling in the rest of the states. If you have any interest in the Maine Coast, you really should read this Maine-travelog-in-one-blog-post. Greg and Marilyn visited Alaska last summer and, from reading their blog you can see that they travel the way they pan for gold ... keep working it till you've found all those wonderful nuggets. Now, they're in Acadia, and I'm very envious of the nuggets they're finding there.
That's the way I want to travel. I never seem to have enough time. No matter how much time I have, it's never enough for all I want to do. I guess that's just another way of saying that my life is incredibly full. That's a good thing.
Greg also writes in his blog about visiting the place that used to be 'home.' If you've ever gone back home after a prolonged absence and felt somewhat unsatisfied ... this post is a great read. I taught Greg how to make a blog ... and I'm sure glad I did!
Time for us to move on to our next adventure. We're going to climb Mt. Washington today and drive the Kancamagus highway.
Cold! Would you believe we woke up to 59 degrees? Jim had to turn on our heater before I'd get out of bed!
But that didn't stop us from going on a Ranger-led bike ride! It was sooo nice. There is a system of carriage roads on the island, originally built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. No cars allowed. What a great place to ride.
ooooh wild blueberries! And the ranger let us stop and eat some.
We also spent some time at the Bass Harbor Lighthouse. I think this is the poster view for Acadia park. Except there are supposed to be crashing waves.
But, the ocean was pretty calm:
I told you we had no Internet. Well, that's just not acceptable! So, we found a connection to go along with lunch at the Jack Russell restaurant:
And, I even used a trip to the public library as the source of my weekly article for RV.net!
And we had a suspicion that satellite Internet would be a problem when we saw all these trees on the entrance to the campground.
We thought it might find a hole thru the trees, but we're too far north also - the angle is too low to go over the trees. And, there's no Wi-Fi -hey! there's not even any electricity! And, the verizon signal is way too weak to connect. there go plans A, B *and* C. So, it's on to plan D - the local public library's hotspot. We came here just to check email and enter this post, but we probably won't come back.
That means ...
We're on vacation!
bye!
will be back on the road day after tomorrow.
it is sooo beautiful here!
Jim has been a lobster-hunter for many years. It's been all Florida spiny (clawless) lobster since I've known him, but his early days were spent catching lobster in New Jersey. So, the Maine Lobster Festival was a must see on our itinerary. Here's the centerpiece of the festival .. the cooker!
Oh .. no, *this* is the centerpiece - where you eat them!
These are soft shell lobster - you can tear them apart with your fingers - you don't need the nutcrackers and other utensils. Here's a live lobster on the right ... the bright orange is what happens when they're boiled. Does the one on the right look a little nervous to you?
Saturday was pretty gray and foggy.
But, Sunday afternoon turned sunny and beautiful for the Lobster Crate races. What are lobster crate races, you ask? Well - they float the crates and string them together in a line across the water. 50 crates all strung together.
If you are light and fast enough, you can run across them. Like walking on water. But, if you hesitate, even slightly, down you go. What a fun time! They've been doing this for many years. Most contestants only made it across 1-10 crates before they went down in the 60 degree water.
It was very exciting when one made the run all the way across the 50 crates ... they got to catch their breath on the dock, then head back the other way trying to run across the same 50.
A really good score was 100 crates or more. Can you believe the record was 3,007 crates! And, that 'World Record' had held for 25 years. But, it was broken today. You gotta watch the video to get the full flavor.
We've added 2 new states to our map! Massachussets and Maine. Massachusetts was just an ovenight at a rest area.
Our destination was Rockland Maine because our friends, Greg and Marilyn, told us months ago that they would be here for the Lobster Festival - so we put it on our itinerary. We decided not to wait for the festival to start eating lobster! Marilyn has a big pot just perfect for the occassion.
And, Greg showed us the proper way to drink wine from a box!
This is going to be a fun few days! Today was the parade in Rockland to kick off the Lobster festival. A true hometown event.
This travel and play is hard work! I'm exhausted. And, I don't even do any of the driving. Everywhere we go, I keep saying, "There's so much more to see, we need to stay a week, not just a night or two." But, we do have a bit of a schedule. We are booked to do our seminars at Outdoor World Timothy Lakes in Pennsylvania on August 16 and 23. So, we make the best use of the time we can.
I'm so glad we met up with Greg and Marilyn Gundy for the Lobster Festival in Rockland, but, if I had been able to read their blog post about the area beforehand we might have just stayed there and forgotten about filling in the rest of the states. If you have any interest in the Maine Coast, you really should read this Maine-travelog-in-one-blog-post. Greg and Marilyn visited Alaska last summer and, from reading their blog you can see that they travel the way they pan for gold ... keep working it till you've found all those wonderful nuggets. Now, they're in Acadia, and I'm very envious of the nuggets they're finding there.
That's the way I want to travel. I never seem to have enough time. No matter how much time I have, it's never enough for all I want to do. I guess that's just another way of saying that my life is incredibly full. That's a good thing.
Greg also writes in his blog about visiting the place that used to be 'home.' If you've ever gone back home after a prolonged absence and felt somewhat unsatisfied ... this post is a great read. I taught Greg how to make a blog ... and I'm sure glad I did!
Time for us to move on to our next adventure. We're going to climb Mt. Washington today and drive the Kancamagus highway.
