RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Made it to a new state.  Massachusetts – barely.  We are in Massachusetts about 200 feet, but since we are spending the night we still get to fill in our map.

The crowd kept growing at our Harvest Host site yesterday afternoon.  We ended up with three vans, and 5 tent campers – in 3 tents.  All was good and we really enjoyed getting to know the other van owners.  We got a good night’s rest and awoke to sunshine.  (It rained pretty hard overnight.)

We traveled the length of Maine today enjoying the beautiful scenery.  There were miles of coastline at times and then we would dip inland and have miles of forests.  Nice drive.  We stopped in Portland to check out a bakery and doughnut shop that had been recommended.  We have breakfast for the next few days.  We got to visit the Eastern Promenade park where you can sit on the grassy slopes facing the water and watch the schooners and other boats going in and out. Families were there having picnics and playing games.  We also walked downtown to the wharf, shops, ferry and cruise ship terminals.  A nice break in the drive and it was good to see all the people and vendors out enjoying their city on such a pretty day.  It was another wonderful day of travel.  We love traveling together.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

We started the day with rain and fog again.  But again, by mid-morning the sun was shining brightly, and it was a delightful day.  We had our blueberry scone we got from the bakery yesterday for breakfast – very good – and then went through all our food in BB to be sure we didn’t have anything the would be disallowed at the border.  We made sure we had eaten all our fresh produce and citrus.  We had about a thirty-five-minute wait due to the number of vehicles in front of us at the Calais crossing. Longest delay we have ever had coming back into the country.  We were surprised.  We thought Saturday morning at a small-town crossing would be quick.  Oh, well.  We were in no hurry.  As soon as we cleared customs, we headed to Walmart to restock the refrigerator with produce.  Then, for the rest of the day we enjoyed the scenery making our way south.  We stopped for a picture of the huge Paul Bunyon statue when we drove through Bangor.

We arrived at our Harvest Host site in Lincolnville, ME midafternoon.  There are now three of us – a Florida couple in a Roadtrek van who also returned to the US today, a tent camper from Georgia and BB, all enjoying the peaceful rural farm.  Our hosts will be joining us shortly for a tour.  We will fill you in on that tomorrow. It’s been a good day!

Friday, August 18, 2023

This morning was foggy and rainy.  We took the time to do some trip planning.  We needed to work on our route as we return to the US and visit some more new states as well as some plans for later this year. Around mid-morning, we looked at radar and decided if we wanted to do anything today, we needed to do it because the weather was going to be worse this afternoon.  If you don’t get out in the fog and drizzle you don’t get to see much around here.

We decided to visit the cute little town of Saint Andrews by the Sea. Saint Andrews is an old town, established in 1783, one of the oldest and most distinctive settlements in New Brunswick.  The town is designated a Canadian National Historic Site.  We had a lot of fun walking down the old main street – Water Street – and seeing all the old buildings, several currently undergoing renovations.  You really get the 18^th century vibe with the classical architecture. You can see the seashore at the end of the streets and the work going on in the harbor.  There are lots of little shops and restaurants but mostly locals and not as much typical touristy stuff.  We also saw some beautiful artwork as well as good murals on the sides of various buildings.  We of course stopped at the bakery and picked up some cheese tea biscuits to have with our soup this evening.  Very good biscuits. After touring the town, we found the Van Horne trail we had read about and did our walking for the day enjoying the Van Horne.  It’s a nice wide paved trail that weaves by the water and through the woods with numerous deer posing for pictures along the way. We got over our 10,000 steps and about 5 miles, the weather was getting worse, so we returned to the same site as last night.  On the way out of town, we inadvertently drove through the famous Algonquin which was Canada’s first seaside resort.  Although dreary and rainy, it was another good day.

Thursday, August 17, 2023

There was a beautiful sunrise in Nackawic this morning.  There were also lots of Canada geese in our parking lot when we stepped out.  Surprisingly, they did not wake us up this morning.  After our walk and breakfast, we headed south.  We stopped to get gas and paid for it with the last of our Canadian cash, plus a little on the credit card.  Yes, we are trying to do some last few things on our list and eat some last few goodies out of the refrigerator in preparation for crossing the border back into the USA in the next few days.  We are a little sad, but we still have some adventures planned as we head south.  Things we didn’t take time to do on the way up.

Today we drove to Saint John, New Brunswick, home of the reversing rapids.  This was another one of the things on the NB list that we skipped on the way up.  In Saint John, you can watch the big Saint John River reverse course and water move back up over the rapids.  It’s all because of the tidal change in the Bay of Fundy.  The Saint John empties into the Bay of Fundy like you expect rivers to do.  But when the Bay is on rising tide the force of the water rushing into the bay forces water back up the river and over the rapids.  At slack to low tide the river runs rapidly out with the water going over the rapids flowing out to the sea.  We saw this happening to small creeks/rivers in other places close to the Fundy but the Saint John is a big river and yet it is still overpowered by the Fundy twice every day.

We decided to move on to Saint Stephens for the night.  It is about an hour southwest of Saint John.  Surprise, surprise.  We are connecting to a Verizon tower in Maine.  Our phone is back on Eastern even though we are still on Atlantic time.  I suspect the phone will role back to Atlantic Time tomorrow.  It’s been another wonderful day.