South and West

We left Trenton and Acadia and went to a new campground for us 10 miles up the road:-)  We had a lot of trouble finding places to stay when we were making our reservations, so we had to do what we had to do, and as it turned out it was a great location to accomplish the other few things we wanted to do.

Our wash job lasted almost a month, we had to drive our 10 miles in hard rain, oh well, and we had to hunker down along the side of the road because with a checkout time of 11am and a checkin time of 1pm, you have to be somewhere, and since more and more campgrounds are charging as much as $25 for early checkin or late checkout or just saying no, it makes more sense to find a spot to hunker down.  We went to Forest Ridge just a few miles west of Ellsworth, a decent park, large sites, and great location, far enough off Rte 1 that we couldn't hear it, lots of rules, but quiet and dark.  

It rained the rest of the day and Jan decided to create Kung Pao Chicken Wings, delish.

We have been doing more and more Asian food, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc, and because of that need several items that we didn't normally stock.  We have been having a lot of fun and delicious meals, and have visited several Asian markets here and there to get the things we need, in fact we have a traveling garden with us:-)

In addition to the normal thyme and rosemary that Jan always has,
she has added two kinds of basil, mint, and Thai chilis

Believe it or not, up here in the 3rd week of August there are already appearing a few early signs of fall.

Not too much yet, but we are seeing a tree here and there starting to change.

One wonderful thing we got to do was see an old friend that we had fallen out of touch with for over 15 years.  Diane and her partner Don were going to be at an event in Machias, promoting their excellent products, about 50 miles up the road from us so we drove up to reconnect and meet Don.  We had a wonderful visit and a bite to eat and tried to catch up in the couple hours we were there.  I will apologize up front that the picture I took isn't very good, our minds were on visiting, not picture taking:-)

Don and Diane, obviously not posing:-)

Then on the way back we had to go by Tracey's Seafood, that little shack I told you about, and sure enough their live lobsters were still $5/lb, so we picked up 5 for dinner that night and 2 lobster roll lunches.  Oh yeah!!

So glad we brought our cooker this year!

Since it's all about food:-)  When we left Ellsworth, we would be moving more than 100 miles south to Wiscasset which would put this region of Maine out of reach, so we both looked at each other and said maybe we ought to go back to Bagaduce Lunch for one more meal before we leave.  Ha, so we did.

Onion rings, scallops, and whole belly clams!

Our time ran out and off we went to another new to us campground near Wiscasset, Chewonki.  It's with mixed emotion that I tell you about this place, it has been here since 1961, they have 50 acres right on tidal flats, on a rise with exceptional views, and only 47 sites.  They demand quiet and darkness, it is a jewel, and some of the folks we've talked to and friends of ours remember coming here years and years ago.  It is wonderful!  So don't tell anyone, just kidding, no, not really, don't:-)

We had been looking forward to meeting Bob and Harlean again for lunch in New Harbor, but unfortunately had to cancel.  Maybe before we leave Maine, we'll get another chance.

We figured we ought to go try Shaws in New Harbor anyway, and glad we did.  It's a picturesque, working harbor and Shaws was very good.

Lunch itself was delicious and would have been perfect if the fish chowder had been hotter, we should have taken it back, but by that time there were a lot of people to wade through, so we didn't.

Haddock bites, onion rings, fish chowder, and lobster stew

Yes, both were loaded!

I'm going to close this post out with a few more pictures of "secret" Chewonki.  At the end of the week we are moving all of 13 miles to Boothbay, and are looking forward to the arrival of our son Jason, Joanne, and Jax for a visit!

Bye, Bye Narrows Too After a Week

So today is our last day of our week stay at Narrows Too in Trenton, ME near Acadia National Park.  We have seen the price of campgrounds increase unbelievably this year, at a rate well exceeding inflation even with it as high as it is.  And now we have experienced another park using "dynamic pricing".  Everyone is somewhat familiar with this as it applies to airline tickets and even hotel rooms, if you reserve way in advance you get a cheaper price, and then as it gets closer and closer to the departure date and the planes fill up, the price goes up and up.  Well, it seems that now campgrounds are getting in on this deal.  We stayed at Narrows Too earlier in the year on an exceptional waterfront site that we splurged on at $110/night and had made our reservation way early, we found out the price of the same site when we checked before our arrival here was at $198/night!  Even the run of the mill pull through we stayed on this week was over $100/night even with the weekly rate.  But after our fiasco we needed a place to stay.

The weather was stellar the whole week, so we got quite a few things done.  Jan was able to get her hair cut:-)   This is a surprisingly big challenge when full timing, figuring out first of all where to get it done and then working out an acceptable schedule to get it done at acceptable times, but she is quite good at it after all these years.

We saw a very unique unit on one of our walks around the campground.  I was able to find the owner and talked to him about it, and yes, if you look close, the way he put it, was his twin drives the trailer and he drives the coach:-)  He told us that a small company in LA made around 10 or so of these units, he painted it, put murals on it, even a Prevost badge to match his own Prevost coach.  It was made in 1997.  I thought it was pretty cool, you can park it anywhere, you don't have to jack up the front to get it on and off, and there is no tongue weight, much like us towing our truck 4 wheels down.  Oh yeah and it's a stacker as well, so 2 levels inside.

The only difference this time was we had to take a walk to see the view at low tide of Cadillac Mountain.

And Jan tripped over this guy on a walk which prompted us to try and figure out what kind of snake it was, turned out to be a Brown snake, duh, basically a garter snake, and another thing we found out to our amazement is there are no poisonous snakes in Maine.

We drove over to Tracey's Seafood that I had mentioned before in Sullivan where we had such a good lunch, all of 20 miles away only to find out they weren't sure if they were going to open or not due to some trouble with the staff.  We were sorely disappointed and with nothing else in the general area came back and ate lunch in.  And that made us decide to go back the next day to Bagaduce Lunch again, we did and had another wonderful lunch of haddock, scallops, and onion rings, delish!

And quite the view to eat it.

After eating we decided to take a ride over to Castine, a place we had somehow never visited before, home of Maine Maritime Academy.  It is a beautiful town and incredible harbor with historical homes and buildings, even a fort, and immersed in history.  Very interesting.

We were gawking so much, we never took pictures except this one of part of the harbor.  Yeah, we get a failing grade on this one:-)

As our time grew short we wanted to go hike around Jordan Pond again, and this time we left even earlier than before as we did not want to deal with a bunch of people or have trouble finding parking, yes it is a popular place and hike.  So we left at 0530am and started our hike by 6am, and so, so worth it, wonderful!

Sunrise on the way there

Looking down at Bar Harbor

Happy hikers at the halfway point at 7am

We even saw and heard the loons and watched a beaver slap the water when couple of kayakers got too close to their hut.  He slapped and slapped his tail to get them away from their home.  We had never seen them do that before.  What a gorgeous day.

Goodbye Jordan Pond and the Bubbles

So we saw a display sign on the way back and after reading it we were so thankful for climate change and especially global warming so that we could be able to experience this area and hike this hike, turns out that during the ice age, before global warming (and before people) the ice in this area was over one mile thick!

On the way back we stopped into Northeast Harbor and had a cup of coffee overlooking this picture perfect cove.

So as we move again tomorrow we will be making our way west and south eventually back to Scarborough near Portland again until we leave Maine and head back south.  We've still got a lot of things we are looking forward to and know we'll be here until the end of September but we are already hating to leave:-)

Unexpectedly Back To Hermon(Pumpkin Patch RV Resort)

After our fiasco and finding out we couldn't stay for 3 days unless we paid for a week, we needed a place to go.  We were able to add a few nights to our Narrows Too reservation in Trenton, but at almost $100/night, we didn't want to get carried away, so we looked at each other and wondered if Pumpkin Patch, a park we really liked had any vacancy.  It turned out they did, so we came back up here for a few nights, today we move down to Narrows Too in Trenton, and  near Acadia National Park.  So I'll start right off with food:-)  We had a cool wet day so we made homemade chicken pho, turned out wonderful.

While at the park that shall not be mentioned, we were able to stay the first 3 days that we had paid for in full so we tried to make the most of it.  Walked along the shore a bit.

We were close to a seafood shack we had wanted to try, but was closed earlier so we were able to go to Tracey's Seafood in Sullivan.  It is a tiny place run by very friendly people with excellent food.  We had awesome fried whole belly clams and haddock nuggets, lots of food and perfectly cooked!

As we were eating outside we noticed a small sign that said lobster---$5/pound, could that be right?  Sure enough, so we picked up 3 live ones for dinner that night, cooked up in our boiler:-)

We did sightsee around Schoodic Point and had a beautiful sunset.

Jan found a great hike nearby to Flanders Bay, we went early and had a great time and a very scenic hike, quiet and peaceful.

That's Cadillac Mountain on the left and Bar Harbor straight across

The "beach" was interesting 

The trail back was cool, reminded us of the Jordan Pond hike in ANP

We ran down to Corea, a tiny little seacoast town to have lunch, what a gorgeous spot with so much potential, and such a terrible lunch:-(

So after our disappointing lunch Jan made a delicious Spicy Thai Beef Salad for dinner, which was awesome, but we each learned something, homemade chili oil is HOT!!!  WOW.  But delicious...  And I'll enclose the recipe if any of you are feeling bold and like a little heat:-)

Delish!

So one more food post.  We knew if we got back to Hermon, we had to go back to Anglers for their awesome haddock chowder, and wonderful scallops.

Amazing chowder