We
left Cape Cod and headed north to the coast of Maine. We avoided taking the RV through Boston for
the same reason we avoided going through New York City, with our towed car and
bike racks, we are over 55 feet long.
Additionally, just like going under bridges in a boat, we are always
looking for the height limitations of bridges.
Our sailboat needed 65 feet or higher for bridges, but the RV needs 13.5
feet; some older bridges do not meet that height requirement.
Once
we were north of New Hampshire, we drove along the coast to experience what we
missed when we cancelled our cruising trip to Nova Scotia in 2010 (reason for
cancellation? – the boat finally sold J
). We camped at four locations in Maine: just south of Kennebunkport, Boothbay Harbor,
Southwest Harbor (Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park), and the easternmost
part of the US - Lubec, Maine. All of
the locations were beautiful….the rugged granite rocks tumbling down to the
ocean in deeply cut inlets is awesome. And
the Maine people are really nice. Most
of the inlets and bays were formed during the last ice age, when glaciers
scoured the coast, and then ice melting continued the task. Many islands are the terminal moraines from
these glaciers. Bob, a retired
geologist, loved it all.
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| Maine Lighthouse in Fog |
Weather
became an issue but it did not slow us down.
For almost 2 weeks we had fog and/or rain, with an occasional lifting of
the fog for a few hours in the early afternoon.
The weather is similar to the June gloom in California….the warm air
collides with the very cold ocean water and forms FOG. The plethora of lighthouses along the coast
(many of which we visited) is a testament to the foggy nature of the summer
Maine coast. It was cool to cooler, - we
even bought a woolen blanket in Ellsworth (LL Bean’s outlet store for you
shoppers out there). Light jackets were
usually required, even during the day.
We met a lot of people who summer in Maine to get away from the hot,
humid weather of the south; but this had been a cold winter (lots of now),
spring and now a cool summer, even for Maine.
Summer
mansions continued to be a theme along the way.
We had seen many “cottages” in Cape Cod, most well over $1 million, which
were built in the early 1900s for rich people fleeing the heat of the
cities. In Maine, these “cottages” are
also found in many places: Kennebunkport
along Ocean Drive (we stopped by the George H Bush compound, but he was not
home to invite us in J), and Northeast
Harbor (on Mt Desert Island). One “compound” had 5-6 mansions all belonging to the
“Campbell Soup” Trust Fund kids. Sailing and yachting are still big in both of these
areas. We even saw David Rockefeller
(John D’s grandson?) going out on his
powerboat – twice.
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| ME Coast, Mt Cadillac, Acadia National Park |
One of our goals is to visit every National Park in
the US and Canada that we had not previously visited. Although Linda had been there before, Bob had
not. Acadia is certainly one of the gems
of the US National Park System. It takes
up most of Mount Desert Island and many of the small islands around the area;
it is the oldest national park east of the Mississippi River. It became a National Park in 1919. John D. Rockefeller financed, designed and
directed the construction of a network of carriage trails throughout the park. This included 50 miles of gravel carriage
roads (with bridges too low for our RV), two stone gatehouses, all of which are
in use today. These are now fabulous
hiking and biking trails, and include the Loop Road. The views from the top of granitic Mount Cadillac are fabulous…you can see way up and down
the Maine coast on a clear day (we did get one). There is a one way, loop road all around the
park along the coast. We stopped at the
famous blowhole “Thunder Hole”, but there was not much thunder when we were
there…you need an incoming tide.
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| Own caught Lobster Dinner at RV |
Lobsters
are a mainstay of everyday life….and cooked every which way imaginable. We had our share of lobster rolls for lunch,
and even cooked lobsters at our RV for dinner one night. We had spent a few hours one day on a lobster
boat touring Southwest and Northeast Harbors.
We caught several large, hard lobsters and took three to cook at home. Linda had to figure out how to cook 3
lobsters in her small, stackable RV cookware – she managed to squeeze them into
the pot somehow. They tasted great
anyway. It turns out that lobsters, like
crabs, shed their shells, and many of the lobsters we caught still had soft
shells. We had only previously seen and
eaten hard shell lobsters ….guess the soft ones, which have lots of water in
them, go into soups, stews, lobster rolls, etc. The soft ones are much less expensive than
the hard ones. Who knew?
In
hindsight, sailing a slow turning sailboat in the fog and through the thousands
of closely spaced buoys and lines for lobster pots would have been a daunting
task….perhaps it is better we are doing this on land rather than by sea. The
boats we have been on are constantly veering to avoid the lines and pots!
Lobsters
are not the only delicious seafood. We had
Glidden Point Oysters in Boothbay Harbor.
They are grown locally at 40 feet
in very cold water, and harvested by scuba divers. Expensive ($1.50++ each), but because the
water is so cold, the oysters are “dense”; the meat fills the entire
shell…delicious. Try them if you have
the opportunity. We learned there are
now over 300 “appellations” of oysters in the world. Oysters from Apalachicola FL had previously
been our favorite.
Driving
along Rt 1 has been interesting; it has not been well maintained and requires
slow driving. We passed through every
small town, most packed with tourists out for a walk because the weather was
not conducive to the usual beach activities. Based on the number of tourists, you have to
believe the economy is booming; however, when you talk with both the tourists
and Maine residents, that does not seem to be the case. It has been a very hot summer down south, so
perhaps people are just fleeing the heat.
Our final Maine destination, Lubec, is a very small town, way “downeast”.
In fact, it is the town furthest east in
the US (both on the mainland and for the entire 50 states). Lubec is not seeing their normal influx of
tourists, so it depends on where you are.
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| Typical ME Coastal Town Waterfron |
We’ll
keep you updated on our land “voyages” as we move into Canada and then beyond.
Best
regards,
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