Our Time in Maine is Coming to an End

We had an uneventful drive to Houlton, just how we like them:-)  We were here last time in 2022 and had found a take out place we really enjoyed and wanted to go back to, Craig's Clam Shop.  It is a long way 38 miles away, but it was worth it again.

Delicious scallops, haddock bites, and onion rings
We had to eat in the truck since it was raining

We stayed at the KOA there and had a nice site, large and grassy, and after the last place with all the dust, the grass was very welcome.

It's new potato time in northern Maine so we went out to find some.  We remembered from our previous visit that there are self serve stands all over the place so we headed out to find yellow and red new potatoes, and after checking out, oh maybe 15 stands we finally zeroed in on one and got a bunch!

Then off to Greenville and Moosehead Lake, we enjoyed yet another homemade lobster roll for lunch on the way:-)  We were going to a fairly new campground we had never stayed at before, Moose Creek, and we have to say it might be the very best park we have ever been to.  It's a big place, well taken care of, sites are huge, and quite private, lots of amenities, tons of walking, quiet and dark.  Although the roads are not paved they might as well be, the crusher run they have on them has turned them almost into asphalt, and the sites have a stone covering that is clean, smooth, and doesn't puddle, incredible.

A glimpse of Moosehead Lake on the way into Greenville

Our enormous site

We went to the B52 Memorial set on the crash site of a B52 in 1963, it was interesting and moving.

The next day, pretty gloomy and rainy we went out for a meh lunch, although they did have a very good seafood chowder, the name not worth mentioning.

And a gloomy view out over the lake.

Followed by a sighting of a unique animal only found in the local area.

And then our last day in Greenville was beautiful, so we splurged on a fantastic seaplane ride, only marred by the Canadian fire smoke, around the whole lake, it is huge!  In fact, it is the largest lake in Maine at nearly 118 square miles.

Our shy pilot

It was a very enjoyable flight, and astonishing as it sounds, it was the very first time I had ever been a seaplane in all my flying experience.

Quick Stop in Columbia Falls, Then on to Houlton

With a road trip ahead of us, even if it was only 80 miles to Columbia Falls, called for another round of home made lobster rolls:-)

The knife under Jan's is to hold it steady,
they are so full of lobster they keep falling over:-)

We pulled into a nice, but a bit rough campground in Columbia Falls, Cottonwood, it is all gravel and dirt, but the sites are huge, lots of privacy, the people are very friendly, but man is it dusty.  It is a ATV and side by side haven just off the Downeast Sunrise Trail, a big time ATV/snowmobile trail that has hundreds of miles of other trails off it.  We had planned to rent a side by side, but after talking to the host we decided to pass on it.  As I said it is extremely dusty around here right now, and the trail is effectively a lane and a half graded dirt road, and they don't want you to go off the main trail, didn't sound so fun after that so we passed on it.

Karen and Tom were spending their last couple days in Maine down in Winter Harbor so we met in the middle in Milbridge at a lunch spot, Chipman's Wharf .  It was nice, food was okay, but in this area of Maine there just isn't anything. It did work out perfect, we were able to have a nice visit, weren't rushed at all and had a nice view off the porch.

So that left eating out, can you imagine?  We are near Machias where a favorite restaurant of ours is, Helen's.  Probably too much info but I have been on a diet and both of us have been working on what and how much we eat for over 2 years.  Neither of us were sweet tooth people for the most part although I used to eat ice cream from time to time and an occasional sweet.  We haven't had any of that in a very long time, and the only thing I had thought about was Wild Maine Blueberry pie:-)  Maine blueberries are small and delicious, special really, I tried to order it last year and couldn't bring myself to do it, but this year I was determined to have my piece of pie and Jan assured me she'd have at least a bite, so on a foggy, wet day we headed off to Helen's.  Our lunch was great, baked haddock, fried clams and onion rings..........followed by a piece of pie a la mode.  Great lunch, awesome pie, good for another 2 years.

Yes, Maine blueberries are special!

So on our last day with nothing much to do since we cancelled our ATV plans with very few places to eat, this is a fairly desolate section of Maine's coast, we decided we could do a lot worse than going back to Helen's for lunch, no pie this time, but we shared an enormous "Monster" haddock sandwich, delicious!

After we took a nice drive down to Beal's Island, home to one of Maine's largest lobster fleets, believe it or not, actually a place in Maine that we hadn't been to before.  It is a real working harbor area, lots of fishing and lobster boats, in fact saw very few pleasure boats.  Also since we are so far downeast, the tides are larger, around 12'.  The tide was out when we went through and it was interesting to see how many docks were only accessible at high tide, and it was the first time in Maine we had seen boats sitting on the hard waiting to float with the incoming tide.

And we also saw something we had only seen a few times before several "lobster pounds", an enclosure cleansed by the tides coming in and out to hold large quantities of lobsters for sale, a 2 acre pound can accommodate up to 50,000 pounds of lobster as an example.

Off to Houlton to find some new potatoes.

Busy Time in Bangor

So we have just gone through an interesting time here at our campground in Hermon, just outside of Bangor.  When Jan checked us in she was warned that they had 4 pairs of Killdeer families with nests all around the park, and one of them was on our site.  They are plovers and have some unique attributes, they lay their eggs in gravel since the eggs blend in very well, and they protect the nest by coming towards a predator then running away, making it look like they have a broken wing.  Very interesting at first but after the 8th day of it when even getting within 25 feet of the nest is a little much.  Back to the story, the nest is right in the middle of our site, I try to pull in to straddle it and pull forward, but it won't work, so I back out, pull around in front and back into our site, and then there was enough room to park the truck behind the nest.

You can see the Killdeer on its nest, the blue bag is just to
bring attention to it

The broken wing act

And after we'd been there for 8 days the hatching began, the amazing thing is the babies stay in the nest only for a matter of a few hours then start walking and feeding immediately, and they look like miniatures of their parents within hours!

Immediately after hatching

Bottom line to our saga, 3 babies hatched, one was run over, not by us, and one egg that didn't hatch, and now they are all gone.  They sure provided a lot of entertainment.

One of the very first things we did was wash the motorhome, roof and all, it had been a long time, then after it was dry the following day Jan went up and put a third coat of Rustoleum Topside paint on, which has worked out very well for us.

We took a ride down to Ellsworth to go to a fish market and went to a pretty good pizza place for lunch, Zeppa's.

Finally our new diodes came so we could tackle rewiring the truck lights.  A burp in the shipping of the first order made it necessary to reorder putting everything off more than a week.  

One of the new diodes

The original homemade diodes wired incorrectly.

One side done.

Then much to our astonishment and disappointment we found something else, the original installer had removed some of the insulation in order to make his connections to his homemade diodes:-(

You can see the removed insulation in this picture

And when removed left me very little wire to work with

But we got it all done, wrapped up tight, and checked the lights and found they work perfectly now.

All done

Only one more thing to do, go out to lunch to one of favorite places nearby, Angler's, great food, one of the very best haddock sandwiches we have ever had, onion rings that are awesome, fantastic haddock chowder, and wonderful baked scallops, not to mention all the other wonderful things on the menu.

But the highlight of the lunch was we were joined by our friend's Doug and Nancy which made it into a wonderful visit and great time!