(It has been a challenge to find wi-fi so I’m backed up on posts. Sorry for the delay)
Wednesday, August 19: Awoke late as we only have about a 3-hour drive to get to Blue Mountain State Park (ME) campground. Enjoyed a lovely breakfast of oatmeal, and included the English muffin we’d carried along since the New River Trail camp. Jack and I split it and I toasted it on our stove-top toaster. Yum.
Didn’t get started until around 10A, and rolled through beautiful Vermont and into New Hampshire, winding our way east while missing out the big mountain passes. As we approached NH, we discovered services to be rather thin along the route we’d chosen, so I was glad we’d filled the tank before leaving VT.
Into NH, we saw many “Motel cabins” — a throwback to another era still in operation up here in the north backwoods — and the scenery was nice, looking east to the mountains.
Ate lunch at a cute little cafe just outside of Bethel, Maine. It was called The Hitching Post and it had a deck with an ice-cream window like Cheri has at Tuggles Gap back home, plus you could go inside and order either take-away or sit-down. We sat down and noticed there was a definite “western” theme in the decor — what decor there was, that is.
But the food was delish and the folks were friendly, and after lunch we switched drivers for the last hour. Oddly, it was 89 or 90 degrees. Our young Hitching Post waitress complained of the heat, and we remarked that we Virginians believed it wasn’t supposed to get so hot up here in the northern country, and that we thought it was cooler down in VA right about now (they’re having a lot of rain at home, we hear).
We were interested to note that along the Androscoggin River, there is an actual Canoe Trail! Very interested to know more about that, but other than paralleling the Androscoggin for a long time, we know very little about it. Need to do some research for another trip.
As we approached Weld, ME, where Mt. Blue State Park would be found, we passed one of those darned brown signs that said “state park camping turn here” but our guidance system said we still had 6 miles to go. So this time, we decided to follow the guidance and as it turns out, it appears that was a good choice. We had paved road right through Weld and down another recently re-paved road to the Park entrance, and we found the registration station, and soon we were at our site, #38.
The back-in was a 90 degree path, so we had to remove the anti-sway/load distribution bars, but the place we elected to remove them would not subsequently allow us to remove the jack post wheel.
So we put the bars back on, and I drove around the circle again so we’d be able to get them off at a place lower in the road so we could remove the wheel afterwards.
The final back-in was a snap, and it wasn’t long before we were all set up, but with no services.
And it was still HOT. Jack was pouring with sweat, even though we really didn’t have to work very hard to set up. But the humidity is extreme.
I fetched some filtered water from the nearest access point, which is also near the pit toilets. A friendly fellow camper reported that she’d gone down to the ranger’s station and discovered that shortly, a lot of rain was scheduled to really hammer us.
Jack and I got into Roomba and turned on the ceiling fan, plus got out the 12v oscillating fan we’d gotten from Tractor Supply, and sat down to cool off a little. As I write this, the sky is darkening, but the temps are still stifling. Without hook-up electricity, we cannot run the AC; and if it rains, we’ll have to close the ceiling fan, so I earnestly hope the weather will bring some breezes and cooler temps with the deluge. I’m thinking this is going to be a rather long night.
But our dinner was a reprise of what we had last night, and we’re set for victuals so bring it on, weather, bring it on.
Post Script: We decided that, although we were nicely tucked into the site, and Mt. Blue was nice enough, if it had been a weekend or a busy time, we would have felt chock-a-block and crowded. And the services were just ordinary.
Scenes from the drive:
peregrinations 