About Halfway to Montana

We made it the first day to Brattleboro, VT, saw a lot of the flood devastation, in fact one of the places we planned to go while there, Woodstock Farmer's Market was damaged badly and indefinitely closed.  We had a nice peaceful campsite at the KOA.

Even though our plan for the farmer's market was cancelled we still wanted to go to Singleton's in Proctorsville for one of their special sandwiches.  

Found a vegetable stand within walking distance from the KOA, went and got some veggies including a cantaloupe, our track record with these is pretty dismal so we had no hopes.  When we got back we tried it out, and found it might be the best cantaloupe we had ever had so back over for 2 more:-)

On the road the next day for The Villages at Turning Stone in Verona, NY, and along the way for lunch we had our very last lobster roll:-(

When we arrived it was pouring rain, but little wind so we put out our awning and chilled that evening with a cocktail and a cigar, and Jan made a delicious pork and udon noodle dish for dinner.

Then on to Buffalo to see our son Jason and Joanne and Jax.  Jason told us about a new sushi place he found, so we went and enjoyed a great lunch.

We had a nice visit while there with excellent meals, one night was rib night, Jason hit it out of the park.

The weather was spectacular so we spent a lot of time around their pool, even had a cigar with Jason.

But we had to get back on the road, and this time on our way to Michigan, we didn't luck out with the weather, it poured a lot of our trip.

But it cleared for our arrival in Marshall, MI, we even experienced an awesome impromptu airshow!

Culminated with a nice fish dinner.

The next day we were headed for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and over the Mackinac Bridge.  It was a pretty day with little traffic until the bridge.  The traffic on the bridge is terrible exacerbated by the fact each vehicle has to stop and pay the toll to a human being, unless you have a specific transponder for the bridge, but even so the bridge only has two lanes each way, so you can't use your transponder until you get close enough to the toll booth to get over in your special lane.  Oh well, it is an amazing bridge and since we only inched along for 40 minutes or so, we got exceptional views.

This was pretty cool, Jan got screenshots of us off the webcam on the bridge

But we made it and got to our destination, a very nice city campground right on the water in Manistique, MI, Manistique Lakeshore Campground.

Followed by a wonderful chicken and vegetable stir fry!

We found they have a walkway along the shore and out to a lighthouse right around the corner in town, so we went over for a very nice couple mile walk the next morning.

Then of course we had to go out to lunch:-)   Found an old speakeasy place, Tap 21, with a bar from 1893, original in the same building!

So tomorrow morning we make our mad dash to Montana, 3 long legs, we should be in Ennis on Saturday.

Good Bye Maine!

We had one more day left in Ellsworth when I left you, so we made the most of it.  We both were feeling like salads, and we really liked Timber in Bangor so up we went.  Quite good.

Beef

Ahi Tuna

It was a nice day, something we have been in short supply of this year so we drove down to Belfast and took a walk along their harbor path, which goes right through a working boatyard.  Lots of really interesting boats to see, and a great walk.

Starting across the pedestrian bridge towards town

This is a steel steamship, you can see its stack, built in 1902, one of only 3 left in the world

This is a new 136' sailboat based in the Marshall Islands waiting to get its mast stepped

Heading back after turning around in the park

Then the next morning after Jan made some delicious sticky wings for dinner, we were off to our last week in Scarborough.  As I mentioned we had this week totally booked up:-)

Our lunch along the road to Scarborough!

This time at Bayley's we had a nice site right on one of their ponds.

The next day, we went to a favorite Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, followed up by a visit to an asian market.  No pictures to give you a break, besides we ate a lot of the same things I've shown you in the past.  

We needed to rotate the truck's tires, completed the next morning, followed by one last sortie down to the Clam Shack in Kennebunkport, which turned out to be a mistake in many ways.  First of all the traffic and crowds of people were insane, secondly their famous lobster rolls and onion rings which we have had many times before were really lacking, barely enough lobster to cover the roll, and $10 for 6 onion rings!  Are they resting on their laurels?  And thirdly when we went around the corner to our seaside bench, the fog was so thick we could hardly see each other.  So we decided after that disappointment we would run down to NH to the liquor store, then to another asian market in Portsmouth, and come back by way of a farm stand hoping they would have early baby potatoes, but no, too early in the season.

Jan needed to get her hair done, which she did after which we went and had another Vietnamese lunch followed by a stop at the fish market to get more fish for dinner and mostly freezing.  So now we have vacuum packed frozen fish portions for two; 15-Cod, 4-Haddock, 4 Halibut, 3-Scallop, and 4-mixed portions for chowder!  We are set for at least a little while:-)

We took care of a few items for our road trip, we'll be in Montana in 2 weeks, one stop of 3 nights at our son Jason's and Joanne's, all the rest are either 1 or 2 night max, going to be trucking along.  

That left our last day, Friday.  We had quite a bit planned, first to meet Bob and Harlean, and Scott and Sue at the Red Barn in Augusta for lunch and a visit, great, great visit and delicious food to boot, we also picked up a quart of the best seafood stew in the world:-)  And I promised the next time we'd get together there would be pictures which we forgot last time, and sure enough by the time we finally thought of it this time, Scott and Sue had already left, so no offense guys.

Moi, Harlean, Jan, and Bob
See you next year!

Then we stopped at a fish market on the way back to bolster our scallop count, and then the pièce de résistance, we wanted to have a lobster dinner on our last night in Maine and we also wanted enough lobster meat for two more lunches of lobster rolls for our drive.  We found a little family run lobster place right near the campground with very good prices, and friendly service, so we stopped in for 3 large lobsters for our dinner, and 4 chix for our rolls, and then just as we starting cooking it started to pour rain.  But we rolled out our awning, moved the cooker and all was well.

Hard to tell, but it's pouring

The final happy result

We're off!