Here we are, on the road: We’re in Saco, Maine

October 5, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Well, it's Saturday night, and we will be moving again tomorrow, so I guess I need to write another blog. Hello from the rig, parked in Silver Springs Campground, in Saco, Maine, which is right by Old Orchard, Maine. Old Orchard Beach, ME, was/is a destination, in that it has roller coasters, etc. here. It has been a nice week for us. Hope you had the same.

It seems to me, we have toured all over these states back here. You can leave one part of the state, and be at the other end of the state before you know it. These states are so small compared to WA, OR and CA, and especially Alaska.

The trees have been absolutely beautiful, and Chuck said that with them being so plentiful, maybe I'm getting accustomed to them being so pretty. I would hope not; because they are really beautiful. We picked the perfect time to be here. We hit peak time in Vermont and New Hampshire, especially the hilly/mountain areas.

I was sure happy the snows that hit the Great Plains, especially South Dakota haven't arrived here. With all the turning leaves, it would have been a mess for everyone.

So this week we toured, moved on down the road, set up the rig and toured some more. We have seen a bunch of Vermont and New Hampshire and parts of Maine.

These NE states all have wonderful trees which looked just like the pictures I have seen in the National Geographic Magazine from this area. I took a lot of pictures, but I know the pictures won't do it justice. To see whole hillsides turning one shade or another is just too much to handle for me, it is so wondrous.

I think I like New Hampshire a bit more, they have the red trees that I really like. For a tree color that was green, and then to see it turn red is really impressive to me. So awesome...

Thursday we moved on into Maine, I think we have one more stop here and then start our trip back to the West Coast.

It sure has been a long trip for us. We left out of Sunnyvale, CA on the day after Mother's Day. We went to Chuck's family reunion in Minneapolis, MN, and saw lots of new things all along the way. We have hit some new states and enjoyed all of them.

Maine has some wonderful things here too. I have been looking forward to getting fresh lobster here. I know if I eat too much lobster it can be bad for my gout, but it is so easy to get and so tasty and is so plentiful here. I have to tell Thelma, my sister, the lobster was wonderful and I enjoyed every bit of it.

I'm looking forward to seeing some more of the Atlantic Coast. We should be up in Bar Harbor, ME. tomorrow. I've really missed the smell of the water and the ocean breezes. l love walking on the shoreline, feeling the sand and the icy cold water on my feet. Makes you feel alive.

So that's it for me....Take care...

Hugs to all...

Lorraine

10/5/13 Chuck’s report

Wow, two days ago was the end of our 6th year on the road living in our motorhome. It’s hard to believe how fast time has flown. I think we have almost 70,000 miles on the coach and 95,000 on our tow car. Except for a day or two and one week when we were on a cruise, we’ve spent every night in our rig since Oct. 3, 2007. And except for the two times we stayed at Joe’s lot when I took a job back home, the longest we’ve stayed in one park has been 5 weeks, most times we stay two weeks or less then move on.

We’ve been lots of places, marked off a whole bunch of “bucket list” items and found lots of places/items we didn’t even know about. What a great time we are having touring this great country of ours and still have good enough health to get about. We’ve certainty met a large number of good folks too, in fact, we haven’t really come across too many RVers who aren’t friendly, must be a prerequisite for the lifestyle. And some of them have become close friends, just think, we may never met you if we weren’t out here, on the road.

And pictures, Lorraine tried to take pictures as we travel down the road at 60 mph. She stores the pictures on the SD disk, I download them onto my computer then store them on an external drive. So we have 1000s of pictures now, on both the SD disks and on the external hard drive so we can look at them in later years. Those, along with these blogs, should harvest memories for years, at least we hope that to be the case.

We wrote our blog last Sunday but didn’t get it posted until Monday because we didn’t have internet service at our campground in Vermont. Monday was a moving day for us and after we got set up I loaded our blog into two portions, one covering our stay in New York, the second section while we were in Salisbury, Vermont. And now we are writing our blog on Saturday night because tomorrow is a moving day for us and we don’t want to mess with writing our blog tomorrow. So much with self imposed schedule of getting it out on Sunday.

On Monday we got set up in our campground at Contoocook, New Hampshire, once again a Passport America membership park. There were a two tight turns, I almost had to make a three point turn on one of them due to trees but we just squeaked by, whew. After we got set up, we took off to visit a local Native American Museum but got there just before they were closing so that didn’t work out. We then drove to up the mountain to go to a National Park but once again we didn’t have any luck there either; due to the government shutdown it was closed. Not a very productive trip for sure but we did find there was a Cracker Barrel in the area and that’s where we headed for our dinner.

Tuesday we drove through part the White Mountains on another successful leaf peeping tour. It was suggested to us that we might want to include a COG railroad ride up Mount Washington but we ran out of time so that will have wait for another trip. I know you can drive up from the back side but our trip didn’t take us that route either.

I had forgotten about the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation of five cliffs that, when viewed from a certain position. looked like the profile of a face. This face was on NH licenses plates, a US stamp and is on the back side of the New Hampshire state quarter. Unfortunately the formation fell in 2003 so we will never get to see it but we did see where it used to be, ha.

We also drove through Franconia State Park, a very picturesque place that we will have to spend more time on our next visit. Then for our final stop of the day, we visited The Basin where the flowing water of the Pemigewasset River over the centuries has eroded and smoothed the rocks so the water flows through flume like courses. And at the bottom of one of the larger waterfalls it has formed a large basin, over 30’ wide and 15’ deep, very nice. This is just a short walk from the parking lot and if you are ever in the area, well worth a short stop in my opinion. This was a long day of sightseeing for us but we could have toured even more.

Wednesday we headed out to tour the Lake Region of New Hampshire. We drove around Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in the area. Although we didn’t climb in elevation above 1000’ we still saw lots of fall colors, maybe not prime time viewing but close. We only stopped at a couple of overlooks, mostly just drove around and Lorraine took a ton of pictures again.

On the way back to our campground, I stopped at an Outlet Mall where Lorraine found two pair of shoes she can wear with her foot still not completely healed or feeling 100%. After her surgery in late June, she wore slippers for the first week or so then we found a pair of sandals she has worn until now but it’s getting time for shoes so it was a good thing we found them.

Thursday was moving day once again, we left New Hampshire and came here to Maine. We met another couple from Washington who were staying at the same campground in NH and traveling the same places as we are for this week. We will probably meet up with them again tomorrow, they’ve been visiting with other friends in the area.

We are staying at Wild Acres RV Park in Saco, Maine, a few miles from Old Orchard Beach and a bit further from President George Bush’s summer home in Kennebunkport. After we got set up we headed out to tour these towns and the local area. We did make a stop at the Atlantic Ocean so Lorraine could put her foot in the water once again, it’s been since 2010 that we’ve been on the East coast. And just for the record, we never did find George Bush’s place and even if we did, I would bet we couldn’t get too close anyway.

But we were able to find a guy who sells fresh lobster he caught that day. We stopped by to see him but he didn’t have his cooker going so he couldn’t/wouldn’t cook any for us but we did place an order for some the next day. We did find a fish market that sold fresh lobster and would cook them so that’s what Lorraine had for dinner, fresh cooked Maine lobster. I don’t eat the stuff but it was a big calling card for us to come to this area, fresh lobster for her.

Friday we headed out for a longer tour of Old Orchard Beach and Kennebunkport, again we didn’t find the Bush summer place. But we were able to get a good feel for the general area, very nice tourist place that wasn’t too busy this late in the season. There is even an amusement park at the beach in Old Orchard Beach but it was closed for the season too.

We found a place along our route that advertised they had won the award for the best lobster roll in the NE for the last two years. We weren’t too sure what a lobster roll is but we pulled over and Lorraine got in line to purchase one. It ended up being large chucks of lobster with butter and mayonnaise on a toasted bun and she decided she really liked it.

We returned to the coach for a short while then headed back to the lobster guy and picked up the lobster he had for us. Lorraine picked out a large, hard shelled one for her dinner that night. She was unable to eat it all, lobster the night before, lunch was lobster roll and clam chowder and now this, too much for her. But she did give it a good try. By the way, the fish market cooks the lobster by hanging them in the steam over boiling water and the lobster guy cooks them in water like most folks. Lorraine said she liked the steam cooked one better, it had more flavor.

Today, Saturday we headed out for yet another driving tour, this time inland to see more fall colors. Once again we managed to find lots of trees that had turned but we didn’t get too high so it wasn’t what I’d call prime time. But we did find a casino along our route. It’s been a while since we’ve been to a casino so we stopped by to give this one a try, neither of us had any luck but Lorraine said she really enjoyed her time there. I quit playing and just watched the table games for about the last hour, didn’t play any but watched just the same.

We then returned back to the coach where Lorraine had the left over lobster and clam chowder for her dinner. I cooked some hamburger on the George Forman grill for mine.

And then we started our blog while watching a movie on TV. I’ll go through the pictures in the morning and get this posted before we leave, I hope.

The weather this past week has had temperatures above average, it got into the 80s at least twice and high 70s for a couple other days. The forecast is for cooler temperatures with rain from the storm that hit South Dakota and the remains of the Tropical Storm Karen coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. But we’ve had some really good fall weather during our trip here in the NE so we aren’t complaining, much that is.

Our plans are to head North tomorrow, we are going to Bar Harbor. One of the big drawing to that area is Acadia National Park but it is currently closed due to the shutdown. We plan on staying in the area for two or three days before we boogie out before the weather really turns up here. Lots of the campgrounds up here close for the season mid October, that tells me a lot, if they close, there must be a reason. I know our home of record, South Dakota, got almost 40” of snow yesterday/today and we’re really glad we didn’t go there. Sure hope Jim and Annie are ok too.

Ok, it’s getting too late, I’ll add pictures and finish this in the morning.

Driving through the White Mountains in New Hampshire.