Sunday
Last night, after returning from our little camping and paddling trip, for some reason, we stayed up until almost 2:00 a.m. I don't think that's ever happened in our eleven years on the road.
I still really wanted to do a hike up to Mt. Washington, New Hampshire's highest peak and the highest peak in the northeast. Last night the weather report showed that the mountain would be clear today, but when I checked it at 6:00 a.m. this morning, it said it would remain in the clouds. That, coupled with the lack of sleep, made my decision. I went back to bed.
It turned out the day was really nice, and I regretted not making the hike. Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be much worse. Oh well. Another time.
In addition to returning a few emails and doing some catch-up work, we gave each other haircuts (yes, I'm even doing some trim work for Linda now) and took it easy.
In the afternoon, Rush & Lola came by. They are full-timing now after having attended our Boondocking Rally and our Spring Educational Rally earlier this year. They arrived with Rush's mother, Betty. Linda made some raspberry lemonade and we chatted for a bit. Along with several others, we will likely see them in Maine later this Fall.
As the evening came, it clouded up and started to rain. A cold front moved in and it got significantly cooler. We got out our electric heater and went to bed.
Monday
After highs in the mid 70s to lower 80s the last few days, today's high was supposed to be around 60. It was in the 50s most of the day as the rain came. I spent the day writing the Journal entries from my Franconia Ridge Loop hike and our weekend paddling excursion while Linda took the opportunity to do laundry and catch up on some reading.
We've also been dealing with mice. For the last couple of weeks, we've seen signs of mice in one of our kitchen drawers. Fortunately, they haven't chewed their way into our pantry, but it appears they are coming up from the basement under the sink. We set some traps, and today we caught our third mouse. Hopefully, that's all of them. When we get to Acadia, I suppose we should empty out the basement and do a full-blown mouse prevention. It's been a few years since we sprayed the bottom of the rig with Mouse Free and plugged all our little access points with steel wool. The Mouse Free seemed to work, but it wasn't a fun process doing it ourselves, and I'm not sure we'll go that route again.
Anyway, that will do it for our time here in New Hampshire. We have to be at our volunteer job on Wednesday, and we'll make one stop in Maine before we get there. I found the Palmyra Golf Course & Campground on the Passport America website and called to make sure they have openings. It's about 150 miles away and will allow us to make an overnight stop so we can arrive fairly early at the Schoodic Peninsula on Wednesday.
Tuesday
Today was a gorgeous, clear day with temps in the 70s. We got our usual late start and finally pulled out of the Twin Mountain Motor Court & RV Park around 11:30.
We turned left out of the campground on U.S. 3 and headed north a few miles to NH 115 which is a very nice connector road to U.S. 2. We took U.S. 2 through Gorham, NH and into Maine through several small towns all the way to the Palmyra/Newport area. Seeing the bright blue sky and Mt. Washington in full view made me wish we would have stuck around another day, but we needed to move on.
U.S. 2 is a great road in New Hampshire, and it was pretty good most of the way through Maine. It had been newly paved in a few areas. The speed limit in Maine on U.S. 2 was mostly 50 - 55 mph, but as we approached intersections and went through small towns it would drop to 40, 35, 30, and even 25 in places. Again, the road was good, and we enjoy going through the countryside, but it made the 150-mile drive seem really long today.
The Palmyra Golf Course & Campground is less than a half mile off U.S. 2, and we arrived right at 3:00. We drove through the golf course to get to the campground in the back. They have both water/electric sites with 30 amps, and full hook-up sites with 50 amps. With tax, the full hook-ups are a little over $36/night, but with our Passport America discount, we paid $18 and change. The Passport America discount is good for two nights, weeknights only.
The campground has a pool and some meeting space, and it we might consider it for a future Fall Rally some day. The only problem with that is they don't have cabins and there really isn't a good hotel nearby for those without RVs.
We were assigned site A5, a back-in site in the more open area. We got backed in and set up quickly.
Just like the last place, the sites are a bit close together, but they are large and have picnic tables and firepits. The water and electric hook-ups are way in the back, so I had to use two hoses for water. The sewer hook-ups are back, but not all the way in the back, so it just depends on each RV as to whether one or two sewer hoses will do. With just a one-night stay, we didn't hook up to sewer.
With the low angle for satellite in Maine and the trees behind us, we didn't think our rooftop satellite would lock on, but somehow it did.
It's a decent little RV park.
Though I didn't look closely, it seemed the water/electric sites may have a little more privacy and shade. There are two dump stations and they have Wi-Fi, although I'm not sure how well the Wi-Fi worked. We have Verizon 4G service, and we always use our own connection.
I decided to check out the golf course. By 4:00, I was teeing off. Campers get various discounts and they have golf specials during the week. Today was $1-a-hole day (cart not included), but after 4:00 it was $15 for all-you-can-play with a cart included. I opted to walk and carry my clubs for the exercise - it's a good walking course.
The course has an interesting layout. Some holes require precision shots and others are wide open. The tees and greens were in pretty good shape, but the bunkers were terrible and the fairways were "patchy" at best. The "rack rate" of $38 for eighteen holes and cart is probably a bit high for this course, but with the various discounts and specials, it's a pretty good value.
I played horribly, but it was a nice walk. After getting stuck behind a couple of groups, I cut my round short so we could go get some dinner and make a stop at the Walmart a few miles down the road.
Linda had phoned in a prescription, and we needed to pick up a few more items before heading to Acadia tomorrow. On the Schoodic Peninsula where we'll be working, we'll be about 30 miles from the nearest Walmart, and we're just not sure yet about the local grocery in nearby Winter Harbor.
We went into Newport looking for a local restaurant, by-passing the McDonalds, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. There wasn't a lot to choose from, so we ended up at Cervesas Southwest Grill, not exactly the Maine cuisine we were looking for, but the Southwest Stir Fry with chicken and the honey teriyaki chipotle sauce was pretty good. They'll also let you get the cheaper and smaller lunch portion for dinner if you ask.
We got to the Walmart right at 8:00, and made it to the pharmacy at 8:04. Oops. It closed at 8:00. We decided to head on home and we'll just make a stop in the morning as we have to go by there anyway.
Back home, I watched the Little League World Series, printed directions for tomorrow's drive, and we called it an early night.
Tomorrow, we have about a 90-mile drive, and then we'll be parked on the campus of the Schoodic Institute until the end of October assisting with the gathering of bird migration data. See you from there. :)
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