This is the triplog for our trip from Palm Harbor, Florida to Lubec, Maine and back during the late summer 2003. It is pretty simplistic; just notes on where we went, what we saw and quite a few on our day to day life on the road. Pictures from the trip are in our online photo albums photos.yahoo.com/donjudie in the folder for Maine2003. Hope you enjoy both.

08:21 19 August 2003

Santee Lake State Park; SC.
Left home 17 Aug; we were still hooking up at 14:00. Started the tow at 44311 miles on the truck. Drove to Ocala stayed in a commercial park. It was ok but pretty much a parking lot too. Very hot and humid. Left 09:15 and drove to this park. Nice place. Got here about 16:15. Unhooked and set up camp. Well, kind of! Didn't put the stabilizers down; didn't turn on the water heater; didn't refill the coke; didn't… well, you get the idea. Still haven't adjusted to the trailer.

This is the cat's first trip with us so we are trying to see how he will fit in. We started with him in the cargo area of the truck(he was way too hot in the back of the truck), moved him to the trailer (he was way scared) and finally brought him into the cab of the truck with us and the dog, Sammie. He has settled down though; only cries when we are in town. On the open road he goes to sleep. Likes looking out the trailer window at the birds though! Hasn't made any attempt at escape yet.

20:39 19 August 2003
Hit the road at 10:00. Well, we had to have a shower! Drove until about 16:00; arriving in Emporia, VA at a Yogi Bear campground. Not usually our favorite but the kids are all in school and it's midweek so we thought we'd try it. Turns out ok except kind of expensive. At least Judie got to do email & laundry.

Travel today was entirely on I-95. Quite a bit of construction; quite a bit more is required. We had lots of rough road. Scotch, the cat, has become fairly quiet as long as the road is smooth. When it gets rough or loud, he complains. This morning we had lots of rough road and were about ready to kill the cat; this afternoon we had smooth road and not as many slowdowns and he slept all afternoon. Cool! Sammie would let him get where she wanted to be then be unhappy but finally she decided to just step on the cat occasionally. It works! They should get along just fine in another couple of days.

We did better tonight - did the stabilizers; did the water heater; did the Coke refill; etc. We are in an area of questionable tv reception so should get some reading done. Works for us.

16:08 22 August 2003
Have been driving, driving & driving. Stopped in York, PA on 20 August. Drove around the town a bit. It has loads of old brownstones that clearly have seen better days. The growth is all outside the town where Highway 30 loops around. We found a Longhorn Steak House & had some nice hamburgers. Judie actually got a rare one! Stayed at Indian Rock Campground. Nice enough place but kind of weird. All the sites are situated around a large oval 'village green'. The road around the green makes for nice walking and we made use of it. Judie was kind of torqued because she saw the manager pissing in the bushes as his wife just stood there and gleeped. It brought back memories of the Netherlands.

Next night we stayed at Riverdale Farm Campsites outside Clinton, CN. This place is too close to Boston to be habitable! All the sites were at right angles to the access roads. Many were 'escapes' for city folk who never moved their rigs. We got this awful site on a point between two roads so people were always cutting through the site to get somewhere. Worse, it was too small for our trailer so we couldn't get situated square against the pad. I ended up parking with 2 wheels on the pad. Cost was $30 but Good Sam got it down to $27. Still, no bargain. Plus we could only have the spot for one night since the weekend is starting. I guess I'd stay there again but only if I really needed the space. We had steaks on the grill and salad. Very nice but we sat and drank too much wine afterwards. Had a heck of a good time but this morning was a little painful. Our grill is dying. It was $25 at Home Depot three years ago so I guess it's time has come. The regulator is no longer working & that makes cooking tough.

Our next 'desired' location was near Mystic, CT but we called and found they had no room. We have decided to reverse our circuit of New England. Rather than going up the Maine coast then returning via New Hampshire and Vermont; we'll go up into Vermont, cross New Hampshire and head for the northern reaches of Maine. Then we'll come down the coast after Labor day. There's more than one way to get around this popularity thing; at least we hope so! So we ended up at Travelers Woods of New England in Bernardston, MA. We are headed for Vermont; this is about 5 miles south of the border. It's another funny place. It seems like it might be a condo kind of thing where people own the sites but rent them out when they aren't needed. Water and electric are available but no sewer or cable. They don't even have a modem hookup. We'll have to check out the local library tomorrow. The weather seems to have followed us. It was a humid 94 degrees today driving up here and about 15:00 there was a heavy shower that stopped in an instant. Now the awning is drying out a bit.

Judie tried calling home to day and the line is busy. We aren't sure what is going on but figure the answering machine got hosed up somehow.

08:09 25 August 2003
Spent the last three nights at the Traveler's Woods of New England campsite at Bernardston, MA. It is about 5 miles south of the Vermont border. Nice place though it is right near the Interstate. Happily there isn't much traffic at night so it's quiet enough. There is a nice little river that is one border of the site. Brings lots of people with kids on the weekend but at least this weekend the kids were very well behaved. One downside is that there is no email access here. We could go into the library in Brattlesboro but didn't. Got here Friday afternoon and set up. Didn't do much the rest of the day. It was hot, nearly 90, so we unrolled the awning. The poor thing hasn't been used 20 times and it is almost always wet when we unroll it. Still, it is hanging in there really well; looks a little moldy in places but we can clean that.

Saturday we took a nice drive through some of southern Vermont. Got to see lots of pretty places. There are ski resorts all over but no industry. You see big old factory buildings that have been turned into art studios or restaurants. It's sad that we can't make anything in this country any more. Pretty soon we'll only build heavy cheap stuff like bricks and high security stuff like high tech weaponry. We forgot to pack a lunch so were pretty hungry by the time we made it home. We did stop one place for lunch but it looked pretty sad and the person behind the counter was more interested in closing than in serving us so we left.

Sunday we did chores. Judie cleaned the inside of the trailer and did laundry including the comforter we use to protect the back seat from the animals. It was kind of funny how the half that Sammie uses was all haired over while the place where Scotch sits on his towel was almost clean. I went shopping then cleaned all the windows. They REALLY needed it! Got food at some place called Stop & Shop and my 10th customer reward card. Don't really like collecting all those things but to save $5 on one trip to the store motivates me. Bought some plastic that I want to use to line the prospective cat box locker. We don't want Scotch to miss the box and soak the wood with cat urine. Not a nice idea at all.

Now we feel like we are all set for the road again. We aren't going far, just up into Vermont a couple of hours, but it should be quite different. We may or may not have electricity and certainly won't have email. The selling points are two: it is in the Vermont woods; and it is close to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. Guess where we are going?

17:32 27 August 2003

Today we made it to Vermont. Stopped outside Marshfield at the Groton Forest Road Campground. It was really out in the middle of nowhere but 2 nights of water & electric cost $20.80 using our Passport America card. We were thinking that the stars would be really great but it was cloudy both nights we were there. Bah! The lady running the place did say that at 02:00 it was nice and clear! We used the phone in the office to check our email. Nothing much there but we like to be sure. Cell phone service around here is really spotty; we have spent days with 'No Service' showing on the display.

We did go to Ben & Jerry's and also to the Cabot Coop where Cabot cheese originates. Went on both tours; they were ok at least not very expensive and kind of interesting. Judie liked them more than I but then I've seen cheese and ice cream making before. I don't remember where but it was decidedly familiar.

We also went to Arvaud's Grill & Pub and had a nice lunch. They had their own ale which was really very nice; very English. I had broccoli salad which turned out to be raw broccoli with a thin, sweet dressing. Very nice. Had a cheeseburger too, of course. Judie had the cheeseburger with avocado; ok but not totally successful. Vermont has quite a reputation as a 'green' state and there were lots of people around who would have been called hippies back in the 60's. We stopped at a Co-op and bought some salad stuff and Nile Spice soup. There are lots of coffee bars and art shops of one sort or another. I could learn to like it I think. One great thing is that Vermont permits concealed carry of handguns without any restriction. Cool! Another thing I really liked about the state is that the legislature meets from January through April. That's it. And Montpelier, VT is a really pretty little town with the state house up against a green mountain. Very nice. In retrospect I wish we would have stopped in Montpelier for a day or two.

Today we came across US 2 right across New Hampshire to the Twin Pond Motel and Campground in Farmington, Maine. It is really a nasty little place; Passport America makes it $11 but they wanted to charge twice that. I think I would have left if we had to pay $22. The motel is 50% mid-80's cheap and 50% mid-50's cabins. The laundry is 2 machines in the basement of the motel. The dump is a 2 foot square piece of concrete with a drain in the middle - no water, no signage, no nothing. The 'campground' has tiny spaces, poor roads and tight corners. It will be very interesting getting out of here tomorrow. Our options are going up a little road that ordinarily I wouldn't take the truck alone or backing about 60 feet to a place where I might be able to turn around. Did I mention we do this for fun? The people across from us have a class A and are planning to leave early tomorrow. They are having trouble with it and want to go back to Vermont to get it checked out by a dealer. They asked me to move the truck so they could get out without bothering us in the a.m. That's how tight this place is. It IS pretty. We are about 30 feet from the shore of a little pond that is attached to a second pond by a small waterway. Each one is maybe 100 yards across and there is a little bridge between them. Very cute. Judie took a few pictures already and I'm going to try my luck either later or in the a.m.

Farmington does boast a WalMart Supercenter. I finally got distilled water for the battery. Couldn't find a decent tester though. I'll stop at a NAPA shop one of these days. The Dunking Donuts was really calling to me this afternoon (it's just across the road from WalMart) but I refrained. Gotta say 'no' sometimes. There was also a really nice food store so I didn't have to buy meat at WalMart.

20:58 28 August 2003

We made it to Coastal Maine! Ok! The first hurdle was getting out of the Farmington campsite. It was tight but we made it quite easily. Rubbed the sides of the trailer with some bushes in a couple of places but otherwise it was fine.

Went from Farmington east to the coast then north to Lubec. Lubec is the town closest to Campobello Island. It is a quiet little place but very nice. We are staying in the Sunset Point RV Trailer Park. It is on this little spit of land out in the water. We have a nice view and love watching the water. Sounds ideal, huh. There are only two serpents - they only take cash and they charge $26.25 a day! You do get water, electric and cable for that so we are luxuriating in tv for the first time in several days. They don't belong to any of the clubs; they don't need any. There just isn't much competition. I asked why they don't take credit cards; the machine is $800 and the company takes 4% - again they don't have to stand for it.

Went out to dinner at "Uncle Kippy's". It was ok. Judie had baked haddock and I had baked haddock au gratin. Mine was much better as Judie's was too dry. Anyway we had a total tab of $25 for dinner for two then drove around town a bit. It's pretty but I'm sure glad we didn't have the trailer!

Tomorrow we are off to Campobello. We go over a bridge and fool around in Canada then hope that we can come back. The info from the camp implies that it is getting tougher to get back into the US than it used to be. Guess we'll see.

07:59 29 August 2003

Got up early (before 06:00!), walked the dog, took a few photos, showered, organized some of the photos and made coffee already. We've noticed how early the sun rises up here. In Florida it would rise about 07:00 but here 06:00 is more like it. Later in the year, of course, it will be a different story! Still, we are waking earlier. Last night I fell asleep while reading my book and woke when Judie took Sammie out for her evening stroll. When Judie came in she got me and we went outside to view Mars. It was really nice. Very red! It is the closest it is been to earth in 60,000 years so it won't be this bright again for quite a while. Very exciting.

I only realized today that the camera is marking each photo with the date and time of the exposure. It sure helps you if, for example, you forgot what lake is in a certain picture. It isn't shown on the picture because I have that feature shut off but the digital file is marked so you do have the information. Cool!

Went to Campobello Island. It is in Canada, of course, so we had to go through Customs. Had to take the gun, ammo and pepper spray out of the truck. Glad we remembered! An old guy at the park had recommended a restaurant. It was ok but not much of a thrill! Bought some haddock for dinner after I talked Judie into trying the 'haddock au gratin' that I had the other night. There isn't much on the Island so maybe it's the best there is. After lunch we checked out the lighthouse on the north end of the island. Very nice little light out on another little island. They take advantage of the tides and use ladders that go down to the ocean floor to access the light. It's kind of neat. There were a bunch of people sitting around whale watching and we got a tiny glimpse before we left.

I wanted to come here basically to see Roosevelt's summer home. It was interesting; a woman walked us around the grounds talking about the family and there were people in each room who told us more. It was really pretty plain; back in the early 1900's the wealthy wanted to escape the heat of the cities. They didn't want really fancy things around them during their escape. Of course the men still wore suits and the women dresses down to their ankles. And they brought 4 servants and tons of stuff along with them on their vacation. Naturally they hired local people to supplement their staff. They got together with a few other families and built a golf course. They had their own tennis courts just outside the door. Things changed after WWI. People didn't take two and a half month summer vacations as a matter of course. Still, they used the house as much as they could. When FDR was Secretary of the Navy he had this little sloop brought up from the South on a US Navy destroyer so they could sail. It was certainly a summer house though; there isn't an insulation at all in the house! There was no electricity on the island until 1948 and Mrs. Roosevelt didn't have it installed in the house even then. They sold the house to Amand Hammer (of Occidental Petroleum fame) but he just cleaned it up a bit before turning it over to the joint US-Canada Commission that still controls it.

08:27 30 August 2003

Had a tough time sleeping last night; it was really windy & rainy and the trailer bounced around quite a bit. The park filled up yesterday too with a lot of weekenders. It's funny but you can certainly tell the difference between them and the retired/long term travelers. For one thing there are a lot more pop-ups!

We decided to stay here in Lubec through Sunday. We decided that this is a great site, a nice park and there are some things to be seen in the neighborhood. Why bother to go get entangled in the crowds down in Bar Harbor? We'll have to be careful with our water usage but otherwise it's great.

This morning is a gray one. Took a few foggy morning photos after walking Sammie. Judie woke at 03:00 and wasn't able to go back to sleep. Fortunately we have TCM on the cable so she's been watching Doris Day movies all morning. Finally we did get going. I went into town and checked out the email. Nothing there, of course. Emailed Bob & Elga just to say 'hi'. Forgot to mention that we've been so isolated but I guess they'll live through it. They haven't emailed us either. Got wine and bacon at the store and more money at the local ATM. Then I came home to find Judie part way through doing the wash. It got really nice and sunny while I was at the library so I put on shorts when I got home. I cut up the plastic that I bought to line the dinette seat for Scotch's box. It needs to lose some of the plastic smell so we had it outside for a while. Then I figured out I'd forgotten to buy red wine so went back & got some. What a deal.

We should have a quiet night tonight. We are both tired from the lack of sleep.

08:35 31 August 2003

Last night was really an excellent night. First I was walking Sammie during a really fancy sunset. I took lots of photos. Then we went to bed early and got a great night's sleep. It was a perfect combination!

This morning I took a few more shots from the rocky beach. Crawling around on those rocks sure warmed me up! Got the adrenaline going too! I'm not all that used to rock crawling and it was kind of nasty; especially since Sammie was on her leash along with me.

After breakfast we went exploring. Went over to Eastport. It is a slightly larger place than Lubec. They have several very nice old buildings in the downtown area; too many for the number of businesses these days. We had lunch at a place overlooking the ferry to Canada.

That was worth seeing. The powered portion was separate from the car carrier portion. They were attached by a large hinge sort of thing attached to the bow of the powered portion like an overgrown bowsprite. They backed away from the pier then swung the car carrier portion across bow of the powered portion so that the car carrier was on the other side of the powered portion. It was pretty weird!

After lunch we headed back. We wanted to see the 'reversing falls'. We've read about it but there was virtually no signage. Judie asked at a gas station & we were told where to turn off Highway 1. Then we found a sign a mile or so down the road. The sign was like a 1x2 about 3 feet long. Then a few miles farther on we found another 1x2 sign. Finally we got to a T intersection with no signage at all. We guessed and did finally find the falls. They were pretty neat; the current was really moving even though the tide was almost completely in. Judie saw seals playing or more likely fishing in the water.

We got home and had some wine out behind the rig watching the water then bbq'ed some steaks. A very nice evening and quite a few sunset pictures even though the sunset was nothing like last nights.

09:35 1 September 2003

Labor Day. We are off to see Bar Harbor, etc. today. Getting a slow start but it isn't that far.

Arrived about 14:30 - office closed because the county fair is on. We just took a spot then drove into Bar Harbor. Awful place! There were too, too many people and not a spot to breathe. Anyway we found a restaurant/bar on the outskirts and had dinner. It was called the Jack Russell Tavern. Judie got her Maine lobster ($13.50 on the early bird special) and I had a huge portion of fish & chips. Came home & early to bed.

09:00 2 September 2003

Got up & walked the dog. Found a stray dog wandering around in the park. I couldn't get close to it though. We are off to Acadia National Park today. We plan to take Sammie.

Had a good day. The park is very nice. Too many people but otherwise it was just fine. There is a 20 some mile loop trail that we took. Got out and hiked three little trails. It was a beautiful day and I think we made the most of it. There was another restaurant in the park that thought salad was worth $11 (so we skipped it). Got home about 16:00. Traffic in this area is awful. This a.m. a guy came directly at us in our lane because he wanted to get into Denny's. (It is the only Denny's that I've ever seen advertising they have lobster!) Then this afternoon, in the park, some fool decided he could pass bicycles by using our lane even though we were coming right at him. These people are just crazy. The roads are too crowded and it makes the people crazy.

We took quite a few pictures in Acadia. The view from Cadillac Mt. Was so overwhelming that I took an mpeg of it. Used a setting that I've never used before and it turned out to be about the same size as the lcd screen on the camera. That's the down side; the upside is that it only took 550kb rather than 7meg like the first mpeg I took.

Bought some salmon steaks that were deboned and wrapped in some plastic net. Looked kind of funny but they tasted really fine.

08:00 3 September 2003

Got up and walked Sammie. Talked to the guy across the way. They live here & are planning on spending the winter in a rig about the size of ours. Glad it's not me. He told me about the cop who sets up the speed trap at the top of the hill. We already found it yesterday but it was nice of him to mention it. It is a good spot - you are doing 55 on the highway; they drop it to 35 then to 25 within another 200 or 300 yards. The cop was just inside the 25 mph zone. He has this plain white car with a really thin little light bar! I'm just glad that we didn't see it light up.

Off to Freeport to visit LL Bean and hopefully the Delorme factory. Don't think I'll be getting a new GPS, of course, but we might get some mapping software.

Well, that was a good guess! We stopped at the Cedar Haven Campground in Freeport. It seems to be a pretty nice place though we haven't checked out the amenities. The space was kind of tough to get into and out won't be too much fun either. Still it is quiet and fairly private.

We went to Delorme first and came out with Street Atlas 2004 for the pc and the additional part for a pda. They have a huge globe in the front of the place. It's even in the Guiness Book of Records. Their map store has lots of maps but only a few of their own products! We bought 2; they also had a phone database and a GPS that you attach to your pc. No handheld GPS or anything else…. I was pretty surprised.

Then we wandered off to LL Bean. Freeport ought to be renamed Beanville. They have 4 stores; a main one, a hunting one, a seconds place and a couple more. There are probably a dozen other outlets stores but all are quite small. LL Bean is huge! We looked around a bit but left without spending a dime.

The campground manager told us about two places where we could eat. The first was down by Delorme in the middle of a road construction zone. The second was across from Bean's big store and was another of these places that thinks a chicken salad is worth $15. (Sound of a big raspberry!) We came home and I grilled some pork ribs and Judie did salad and veggie. Much better for us and our pocketbook. I did the dishes so Judie could play with her new software. Early to bed because all the shopping had tired us out.

08:00 4 September 2003

Today would have been my parent's 61st wedding anniversary.

Today we are headed for a campground outside Boston. We plan on staying there for a couple of nights so we can go into the city for a day. We may stay and go to Plymouth for a day but I doubt if we'll do more. Then we plan to go on to a place out on Cape Cod though that may become a day trip also. We'll see. Right now it's raining. Sammie did her thing in record time this morning mostly because I got up and dressed then waited for a lull in the rain. She was sure hopping around wondering what was causing the delay. What a good dog.

The animals are pretty funny. Both are keeping really close to us. Yesterday Scotch was sitting in front of the door and he just did not want to move. I had to practically pick him up to get out of the rig. Sammie is acting up a little too; she hasn't been off the leash since we left home and you can tell it's tough for her.

A long day driving in the rain to MA. We got here about 14:30 but the drivers were pretty weird. And, for once, we missed our turn and couldn't find the campground. Turns out that the directions in the guide were incorrect. We are at the Canoe River Campground in Mansfield, MA. We have a nice site on the side of their pond but it is really small. We didn't get in here right either and really ought to straighten it out.

Decided to sit at home and have smoked salmon rather than go out and buy food. It was another early to bed night.

08:00 5 September 2003

Got up & took Sammie for a walk around the park. It is huge and has more rasty, nasty rigs than I've ever seen anywhere. Lots of them, the ones that haven't moved in years, have either a tent, with someone living in it(!), or a screen room full of junk on their lot.

Decided to have a stay at home day. Dumped the tanks then spent 15 or 20 minutes trying to get the rig in here straight. Two rigs, a big Class A and a big 5er, came in and parked next to us. They had been here about 10 minutes when the guy from the 5er came over and told us that they had been assigned the places in the center of the circle and the manager wouldn't let them trade for ones on the shore of the pond. Pretty funny; they had to move after all that maneuvering. Had breakfast and a glass of wine. Then Judie did a little cleaning while I went shopping. Checked out the trains to Boston. We have to drive but otherwise it is as expected. Should cost $4.25 each one way. The station is being modified so getting to the parking lot is a real pain. Got liquor and food as well. Liquor is more than Florida and I think food is a bit more as well. Coke is just crazy; they wanted $4.39 for a 12 pack in the store.

Got some tuna steaks for dinner at a fish market. $7.99 a pound isn't bad! Dinner should be pretty good and the weather is great. We are eating outside tonight. Hurricane Fabian is hitting Bermuda this afternoon and Tropical Storm Henri is hitting Florida; we saw a report from Crystal River on tv and later someone from Tampa. Fabian is really a pretty nasty hurricane but Henri is mostly rain. Some of the people in the low-lying areas could have trouble since they are talking about 12 inches of rain! The weather guy here said that tomorrow is one of his "10 best days of the year" with weather in the 70's, low humidity, great visibility, etc.

When I got home I finished putting the cat's litter box under the dinette seat. We'll see if he takes to it. It has plastic on the walls surrounding the actual box so if he has a miss it's not so bad. Cutting the hole in the wall was the hardest part. Now we'll see if he uses it. He is tall enough to be brushing his back against the bottom of the seat. It would sure be neat if he decides it is ok to use it. We'll just have to see.

Judie tried fishing in the pond and caught a little perch. Must have been 8 or 9 inches. She also caught the eye of some guy paddling around fishing in a canoe. He even offered her a ride in his canoe but discretion prevailed and she stayed on shore. Now that's a new way to pick up women!

07:00 7 September 2003

Yesterday was a really great day. We got up early and made the 09:00 train into Boston. It got us to the city by 09:45 or so. We then walked all around town following their Freedom Trail. It takes you past all kinds of sights associated with Revolutionary War days. You start in Boston Common, see the state house, the old state house, the Park Street Church, several cemeteries, King's Chapel, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, the USS Constitution and Bunker Hill monument. It is a 3.5 mile walking tour of the city. Well, by the time we got to the start, all the horsing around with the subway, etc. we must have walked 6 or 7 miles. Still it was great! Stopped and had coffee once and then had lunch at Salty's Café, an outdoor place. It wasn't particularly memorable but it was ok. Got done in time to get the 14:35 train back to Mansfield. I went out and found the stuff for chicken picatta and we had an early night. We will probably stay here a couple more days.

Charlie seems to have accepted his new litter box-in-a-cabinet. He's using it and Judie says he isn't kicking the litter around as much as he was when it was out on the floor of the rig. For us the big thing is getting all that litter contained. We were getting the vacuum out every day to clean it up.

This is going to be a fairly quiet day. We are going to do some cleaning, laundry and just plain laying around. Yesterday satisfied our desire for Boston. Tomorrow will be a long one though, we are planning on going out to see Plymouth then on to Cape Cod. We are planning on taking Sammie just because she likes being with us. We might get to let her out on a beach but only if Hurricane Fabian's wave action has moderated.

This was a nice day. Very quiet. Got things cleaned up a bit, got the laundry down and are having a little bbq'ed pork roast for dinner tonight. Our two neighbors have left so we like that! Not that they were so bad but we'd rather have more space between us and our neighbors. Cool! Of course then someone managed to get a small class A into space 9 in front of us. Still, the pork roast was really good. Then we watched a mystery, a Linsley by Susan George, and to bed.

07:30 8 September 2003

We plan to visit Cape Cod today. Lots of stuff to do so we've got to get going.

18:30 8 September 2003
Had quite a nice day. Got off at a reasonable hour and headed for Plymouth. It was a nice little place trying to make every dime they could from tourists but there were still lots of ordinary people living there so it wasn't too awful. Drove on via highway 3A then 6A until we reached Orleans. John Rice told Judie about a place to eat in Orleans so we tried it. Pretty good, actually! John had neglected to mention that this place (Cooke's) charges $9 for the fried clam strips and over $10 for fish & chips. Still, the fried clam strips were really excellent. I ordered them because we thought that the breading would probably enable me to eat them; it kind of worked because I probably made it through half an order and only felt a little queasy. Judie helped me with them and I helped her with her fish & chips but we did end up tossing some of the clams. The fish & chips were ok but we've both had better.

After Orleans you have to get on highway 6 (as opposed to 6A) so we followed it to the end of the cape. Didn't get out to see the lighthouse or anything but checked out Provincetown and came home. We came home on I-495 which was definitely the right thing to do. Traffic was moving about 75 or 80 so I just went with it. Got us home before 16:00 anyway. Judie is in the pond fishing; she's getting quite a few bites from little fish - trout, catfish, bass, etc.

07:30 11 September 2003
Well, didn't do so good on the triplog for a few days! We are now in Harrisburg, PA in a park called Harrisburg East. It is large but quiet. We are way in the back right next to the dog area. Fortunately, no one except us seems to be using the dog area so Sammie isn't going crazy. Actually, she loves it here. The worst thing about Canoe River was there was no place for Sammie to go. She was getting pretty unhappy.

On 9 September we drove down to Mystic, CN to see Mystic Seaport. It was $17 which we thought was a little high but otherwise we enjoyed walking around and seeing the old ships. We thought about going over to Groton and checking out the submarine museum but decided there just wasn't enough time. We came home and had real fun cleaning up the rig. It sure looks better though! And the catbox in the dinette seat seems to be a hit. Scotch doesn't even kick litter out any more.

On 10 September we hit the road early and drove here. It was one of our longer days at 423 miles. We had dinner, tried to watch Enterprise and went to bed pretty early. Today we are headed for Emporia, VA. We stayed there on the way up and it's going to work again. Should be a pretty easy, 250 mile day. Here's hoping!

21:00 11 September 2003

Well, here we are at Jellystone park in Emporia again. We were here on our trip north but this seemed to be a good stopping place. Besides, we know all the infrastructure stuff. Went past WalMart tonight and saw 5 or 6 class A's staying there. We're just as happy here; I guess it is alright but we'd be pretty nervous and Sammie would certainly be crazy!

Had dinner at Pueblo Viejo - it's on 58 near the interstate over by the truck stop. It was ok but not special. Judie had a margarita that was too sweet.

The new trip planning software we bought at Delorme in Maine works well enough but we aren't completely used to using it. It suggested that rather than coming through Baltimore and Washington on I-95 that we should go around the whole mess on US 15. It worked pretty well. We got stopped in a couple of traffic problems but mostly it was smooth sailing and good roads. We were pretty happy.

I went out and bought food for a couple of nights because we have planned the rest of the trip. Tomorrow (Friday) we will head for Rincon, GA, near Savannah. There is a PA park there. It will be an over 400 mile day but will make the last day only about 250 miles. Then we want to stop at Lake Rousseau in Crystal River on Saturday night. We'll take that last afternoon to clean the rig, do all the lists, etc. and leave the trailer at Ginny & John's on Sunday. We'll be a little short of a month but we'll be glad to be home. (I also had to buy some AAA batteries for the walkie talkies. It's been 3 years now; I guess that usage is acceptable. I thought about rechargables but the alkalines just don't have the power leakage when they aren't being used. Forgot to buy Simple Green. Duh! We use it in the tanks and it has always kept things clean smelling.

08:00 13 September 2003

Had a pretty good day yesterday. Discovered the PA park in Rincon is no longer PA so we kept going until we stopped in Darien, GA. We are almost exactly half way through GA - milepost 49 out of 106 counting down from North to South. The park is called Tall Pines and we both like it. The spaces are all asphalt so they are nice and level; and they are fairly wide though not long. We managed to get the trailer in and have the truck parked behind it though most people are parking their tow vehicles elsewhere. The directions are 'between the Dairy Queen and the BP station'; my kind of place! One of the other businesses here is the Risqué Café - they advertise all along the road that they are a topless café . Didn't go check it out though; just chicken I guess.

Today we have a 200 mile day to Lake Rousseau Campground. We stay there tonight, get the rig straightened out then park it at Ginny & John's tomorrow and go home. It should work ok. The big problem is figuring out what we are going to take home and what we are leaving on board. We'll be working on that, and how to get it all in the truck, tonight.

08:00 17 September 2003

We made it back ok. It's just taken a couple of days to get back on track. Lake Rousseau Campground turned out to be a pretty nice place but they were a little proud of it too. Still, we got done what we needed to do. Needless to say the animals were pretty worried as stuff got loaded into boxes and bags and taken away (out to the truck) but everyone was pretty good. Got out of the campground by 11:00 and to G & J's pretty soon since it's only 10 miles! Backed the trailer into it's new space in the trees and unhooked. The path back there is crooked but fairly wide so we got in with no problem. Then we drove on home making it shortly after noon. Feels funny not to have the trailer back there now!

Trip statistics: total mileage on the trip was 4,790; we towed the trailer for 3,801 miles. We used 431 gallons of gas at a total cost of $704.

It was a great trip. We got to spend plenty of time in Maine and in the Boston area which were both high on our to-do list. We also got to see quite a bit of Vermont and New Hampshire which were also important to us. Finally, everything worked well and we even got the cat converted to a traveler. What's not to like?

go to home