September 30, 2008 Limehurst Lake Campground, Barre, Vermont

We drove almost all day on 2 lane roads that were up, down, and zigzagging back and forth through the Sugarloaf Mountains in Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont.

We had thought we would get here in time to tour a little, but the drive took longer than we had expected, so we set up the campsite with our carpet and awning, securing it, of course.

It’s so nice here, we’re in a quiet little campground with full hookups and the back of the camper looks out over a little lake.

I fixed a light supper and we ate here since neither of us wanted to get out again. We watched the news and weather report on the TV while we were eating. It’s supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, so Larry went back out after we had eaten and put the awning down and put the rug away.

We’ll tour a couple of places tomorrow and stay here again tomorrow night before we leave. When we leave here, we’ll be heading across New York state to Niagara Falls.

September 29, 2008 – Pumpkin Patch Campground, Hermon, ME

After all the rain of the past 3 days, today dawned beautiful! The sun was shining almost all day. This evening it started to cloud up a bit, but apparently, Hurricane Kyle has moved out to sea quicker that they had predicted. We went to bed last night with Kyle still threatening the coast. Earlier in the evening I mentioned to Larry that he hadn’t secured our awning, he said he would do it later. After we got to bed, I mentioned it again, he had forgotten to do it, but the wind wasn’t blowing very much at all and the weather man had predicted that we wouldn’t see much of the storm. About 2:00 he woke up worrying about the awning. We still didn’t have much wind, but he wasn’t able to really rest, so he got up and went out and put the awning down. I’m sure the neighbors loved hearing the slam of the awning hitting the camper at that time of night.

Since it was such a beautiful day, we drove to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park today.

It was a glorious day, the weather was beautiful and the area was beautiful as well. The tide was in when we first got there, so all the bays were full and the waves were crashing in and spraying.

We drove around some of the bays first, and then drove up Cadillac Mountain getting out at several points.

Driving back it almost seemed as if the trees had turned to their fall colors more than they had been this morning. Again, the word is Beautiful!


One of the unique things we’ve seen in this area is some of the older farm houses are joined to the barn.

Many of them have been added on to several times and finally joined to the barn. I’m sure they have some pretty severe winters up here, so this way, they don’t have to go out into the weather.

Another of the unique things for this area, but this applies to all of New England, not just Maine, is that there are Dunkin’ Donuts on nearly every other corner. We’ve never seen so many DD’s. A fairly small town, maybe the size of Troy, would have probably 3 or 4 Dunkin’ donuts! We got back to Hermon about 5:00, stopped at a drive-in that had been recommended by the people at the campground, and got a haddock basket and clams. We ate there at the picnic tables then came back to the camper to settle in for the night. The awning is down.

September 28, 2008 – Pumpkin Patch Campground, Hermon, Maine

We drove about 5 hours north and east to this really nice campground near Bangor, Maine. There aren’t so many trees here, but the sites are nice and level, plus we have full hookups, including cable TV and internet for under $30 a day. We’re really roughing it!

It rained off and on (mostly on) the whole way here and is still raining. We had planned to go to Bar Harbor, Maine, which is on the coast and part of Acadia National Park. We changed our plans though, because of the tropical storms and Hurricane Kyle. The way it looks, it should quit raining here tomorrow and the storms are moving northeast of here. We’ll drive to Acadia either Monday or Tuesday, depending on the weather.

We’ve been switching back and forth between eating out and staying in and cooking. When we were sightseeing in the Boston area, we mostly ate out, trying the clam chowder, clams and fish. This evening we went into Hermon and tried lobster. We both felt it was highly overrated. It’s too much work for what you get. I think we’ll both be sticking with the other sea foods.

Larry’s head hasn’t bothered him. It looks like a nice clean cut, not at all inflamed. The doctor had told him yesterday that he could shower and wash his hair yesterday evening if he wanted, but he waited till this evening to shampoo. I applied the ointment afterward and it looks real good. I keep thinking it should get sore, but maybe there is enough blood flow in the head that it will heal quickly. It’s quite a gash though, about 3 inches long.

That’s all for this evening, no pictures again. We saw lots of color in the trees on our way here, but it was really raining and foggy, so we didn’t take any pictures. It’s almost 8:00 here and the Amazing Race will be on soon, so we’re settled in to watch that tonight.

September 27, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

Larry here: I thought I would start out this entry and take credit for a relaxing down day. We had decided to leave a day early for Acadia Nat’l Park in Maine (our next stop). But, while getting ready to go, I stood up a little too soon and met the 5th wheel hitch up close. Now I have 14 staples closing a 3 inch cut in the top of my scalp (but I feel fine, not even a head ache). And, although needing stitches or staples, I kept pressure on it from the start and it had stopped bleeding and just needed help to stay closed, per the doctor. By the time we got back from the hospital, it would have been a rush to make it to Acadia by tonight and require our not stopping if we saw something that intrigued us. I really am trying real hard to not rush anymore, so taking Karen’s advice we will stay here the last night we had already reserved. It is raining again, but hopefully it will pass and we will leave tomorrow morning (rain or shine). I will leave it with this and let Karen add her thoughts.

Karen’s turn: We had talked last night and decided to move on to Maine even though we were paid up through tomorrow. It was supposed to rain all Saturday after a rainy Friday, so we thought we might as well be traveling since it wasn’t going to be a good day to get out and do anything. The rain had slacked off last night to just a drizzle about the time we went to bed and was about the same this morning, so Larry went out to do his part of the preparation of hooking up. I was working on getting the inside things ready to go when he comes to the door and says he need paper towels, and fast! I grabbed some paper towels, thinking he must have gotten something on his skin or clothes. There he stood with his hand on his head. He slapped the paper towels on the top of his head and said he needed to get stitches. I grabbed my jacket and purse and started for the truck. He wanted to drive! I insisted I would do the driving this time – I’ve never driven his truck and he wasn’t crazy about relinquishing it over to me. I stopped at the office to ask where the nearest ER or medical clinic was. They gave me a map and showed me one of each. The hospital was nearer, but we decided ER’s are usually rather slow, so we would go for the clinic which was the opposite direction. That was a mistake. We never did find the clinic. I finally stopped and asked some people coming out of a restaurant and they directed me to a hospital about two miles from there. After nearly an hour of sitting in the waiting room, they took him in and put in the 14 staples. He insisted on driving back and wanted to still leave for Maine. I thought we should just stay put and take it easy for the rest of the day. For a change, I won out. We’ve been lounging around the camper all day. We’ve been taking turns reading, watching TV and playing on the computer. He says it doesn’t hurt, not even a headache. I guess that is just proof how hard headed he is!

September 26, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We’ve had RAIN today! We woke up about 6:00 am hearing drops hit the roof of the trailer. It sounded worse than it was. I went out to walk Penny and it was just drizzling, but all the forecasts have been predicting heavy rains for today and tomorrow, clearing on Sunday. Larry left early, about 7:00 to get an oil change on the truck. I decided to use that time to vacuum a little. When Larry got back, we had some breakfast and then we got the laundry together. I went to the laundry center here at the campground and when I got done with that Larry had plans ready to do a little more local sightseeing.

We went to Lowell, MA, which is just 10 miles or so from here. That is the site of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum which is a former textile mill that has been set up as a museum and is managed by the National Park Service.


Apparently they have more than the textile mill on a tour that includes a canal boat and trolley rides. Because of the rain, all we did was tour the textile mill where they had working looms on display. They had videos of interviews of former workers and displays depicting the American Industrial Revolution. Most of the people in the interviews stressed how bad the working conditions had been, with the noise, the dust and the demand for more and more production, but they all said they felt lucky to have had a job. Before leaving Lowell, we went into a small quilt museum also.

Now we are “home”. We’re in for the night, warm and dry, while we listen to the rain hammer on the roof.

September 25, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We did some more sightseeing on our own today, driving a little north of Boston. We intended to go thru Salem first, then to Gloucester and Rockport which nestle together and sit on the coast. Somehow we ended up going to Gloucester first. Both Gloucester and Rockport are touristy fishing towns with lots of little artsy shops and overpriced clothing.

We enjoy just driving around and looking at the homes and the coastal views. We stopped at one of the restaurants and shared a lobster pie. It was described on the menu as the “Lazy man’s lobster”. It was lobster meat already picked out, cooked with butter and buttered cracker crumbs over it. It came with fries and slaw. It was really good. I think we’ll wait to get to Maine to get a real lobster dinner.

We stopped at the “Halibut Point State Park” and walked through some of their trails. It was on the coast and surrounded an abandoned granite quarry.

There were hundreds of giant granite boulders still there. I would have liked to have picked out a new countertop while there, but Larry didn’t think they would appreciate us trying to load their little rocks.

This afternoon we finally made it to Salem. We stopped at the Witches Museum, but we weren’t interested enough in witches to pay the $8 each to tour it. We walked around the adjoining block to the tourist center and went in there to see what kind of literature they had on the area. As we were leaving the building, we walked past a man sitting on a bench. I looked at him and when we were past, I said to Larry “that man looked just like David Roady”. He said “I thought so too.” Could it be??? Surely not! We turned back and he had left the bench. There was a lady standing there and Larry asked me if that wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t sure as I had met her only a couple of times. We stood there waiting to see where the man had gone. He came back to the lady in question, and Larry asked him if he was Dave Roady. When he asked, Dave recognized us also. They are in the area waiting to board a cruise ship to Nova Scotia and Canada. They were with a group touring the Boston area prior to the cruise. Small world!! For those of you not from Troy, Dave is a former teacher at the Junior High, formerly our tax preparer and city treasurer for Troy. Dave and Marguerite are also parents of Lenny’s best friend, Patrick. I guess it was fate for us to miss the road to Salem till later in the day.

September 24, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We took our own tour today, driving to Mystic, Connecticut and Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. Mystic is an old sea port town (founded 1654)

that now caters to tourists with shop after shop lining the narrow streets. By narrow, I mean streets that look as if they would have to be one way, but they aren’t. Parking is allowed on one side of the street, there is room for one other vehicle to travel down the street, and signs instructing you to pull over if meeting another vehicle. The houses in the residential area are sometimes built right up to the edge of the street. Maybe I should say the street goes right up to the edge of the house, because considering the age of the houses, they were probably there first.

Providence, RI, the capitol of Rhode Island is a typical New England city, and we just passed through it. Newport, however, was a really beautiful and another very old city (founded in 1639). It had huge gorgeous houses and enormous yachts in the port. Wow! Newport is very much a tourist destination also, but not as crowded as Mystic, but I think that is because it is probably a little more expensive. We did pick out a vacation home

and boat (the one in the background)

in Newport though. Think I better start buying lottery tickets!

We ate out in a drive-in restaurant that had been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I can add another “D” - Disappointment! The food was all good, but nothing fantastic. I think we enjoyed the chowder and fish better in Boston yesterday at the food court in the shopping area. They had a combo meal of clam chowder and cakes. I ordered it assuming it was clam cakes. It wasn’t, it was like hush puppies, except it was more like fried bread dough. Also, the chowder was very thin. Larry had a fish wrap. That was pretty good. It was fried fish with slaw, rolled in a tortilla and was about 2” in diameter.

We got back about 6:00 and we have each taken a turn walking Penny around the campground. It’s good to walk a little after a long ride.