Approaching Our Turnaround Point
After a wonderful 10 days in Salem we bid our fair adieu's to family and headed north to Maine.
Crossing 3 states in a matter of minutes we cross over the ME state line and enter self proclaimed Vacationland, "Maine"...at least that's what their license plates say, we'll have to give this a good investigation to verify that claim. Based on seeing the number of out of state plates, RV's, pick up trucks with all sorts of outdoor equipment hanging off of them, seems ME may be on point with their message.
We are in transit to Acadia NP located in Bar Harbor, ME about mid state and easterly on the Atlantic coast. As mentioned previously, this is about as far east as you can get, so after Acadia we will be heading westward towards home.
Upon entering ME, we pull our usual move when arriving in a new State, hit the first welcome center, bag a State highway map and haul ass. These places are great for that purpose and that purpose only. Mostly they're filled with commercial brochures on places to go to waste your time and money on. Grab a current highway map, smile and nod at the nice person manning the FAQ booth and split.
Out in the parking lot we map out our loose strategy. This one gets a little complicated as we are approaching the 4th of July holiday weekend and these summer holidays, including Memorial Day and Labor Day, can be tricky with finding places to camp as every campground has been booked for weeks in advance.
Of course we have no reservations so we must soldier on with aplomb, grace and cunning instincts. The holiday starts on Friday and this is the Monday before so we need to fill a couple of easy nites because places will get crowded over the weekend.
This is where a paper, fold out State highway map is essential, a review of a Google map will not give you the big picture nor the lay of the land, at least for me it doesn't. The paper map will show all State, Federal and local camping parks as well as other large public areas where overnighting can be found. This particular map showed a casino, whoo boy, right on our general route.
So Deb, you feelin lucky again? Hell yeah she is, we're there.
Oxford Casino in Oxford ME is about a 4 hour drive from Acadia, this should do nicely for a couple of nites. Our plan was then to afterwards slowly cruise our way thru the weekend, boondock here and there where feasible and stretch it to make our next Tuesday reservation at Acadia for 5 nites.
So far so good, BUT...when we get to Oxford they are sweltering under 100 degree temps with 80% humidity and forecasted to remain that way for the next 3 days. On an unshaded, paved parking lot that puts it at about 250 degrees! Our AC was running off the generator so it was mostly comfortable inside the rig but outside of going into the AC'd casino there wasn't a whole helluva a lot else to do.
Now, we enjoy a fun time at a casino just like the next guy, but honestly after about 2 hours it gets old pretty damned quick. And, I might add, two days in this heat, it gets downright pathetic.
I spend my usual 20 minutes inside the casino, Deb's got a pretty good run going at the video poker machine in the bar, so I leave her and head back out to the RV. Man, this sucks! There's gotta be a better deal than this.
So I consult the invaluable highway map and notice a Sebago (pronounced Seh-bah-go) Lake State Park just 15 minutes down the road, hmmm...wonder if they have any sites available for the rest of this week and holiday weekend?
I go to the ME State Park's camping reservation website (Reserve America, don't get me started on this scam, maybe I'll do a seperate blog on this operation in the future) and I'm scrolling...site reserved after site reserved...there are 250 sites and every site seems, wait, what's this? There is one site and only one site available and I snatched it up. It really looked like a recent reservation cancellation so we are in and sorted for the weekend of the 4th starting on Wednesday. Yes!
Now, what to do about tomorrow nite? A bit more searching uncovered a nice little private campground, Nason's Beach RV Park, right on the sands of Sebago Lake about a 30 minute drive from Oxford for Tuesday nite, done deal.
Run into the casino to tell Deb the good news, she's about $100 up and cashes out. We head back to the LD, have a nice dinner, enjoyed the AC and made it an early night.
Next morning at 9 AM when the casino parking lot temp had just hit a balmy 90 degrees, we beat feet for Nason's Beach RV Park just down the road past Naples, ME. Parked the LD and set her up in our normal 10 minute routine, hotter than hell, we get to the water and spend the day under the umbrella shade and cooling off in the 65 degree waters of Sebago Lake. Very nice day and has it hands down over an asphalt parking lot at that gypsy casino up the road.
Next day we were off to Sebago Lake SP and our site at the Witch Cove camping area for the duration of the July 4th weekend. 250 campsites, I knew this place was gonna go OFF for the fourth and saw it building each day as the weekend neared.
During this stay, I made an observation on the difference between camping and traveling. Camping to me is defined as spending a few great nights away from home, in a familiar setting with family and good friends around you and enjoying each others company. A traveler, such as our case on this trip, is to simply find a place to hunker down over the madness of a holiday weekend and then move on, you know, travel.
Everybody in the 250 site campground was camping this weekend. Talking with some of the neighbors they have been doing this for generations. Let's book 5 sites at Sebago Lake over the 4th, invite the family and the gang, have some laughs, get caught up...kinda like our family's experience at the lagoon in Carlsbad.
And it was so nice to see all of these family get togethers, it brought back many fond memories of our times 'camping' with our family and friends...we miss you all so much! And, much more 'camping' to come with you all.
But, we are in traveling mode at the present time. People would walk by our campsite and you could just tell from the look in their eyes, 'don't these guys in site 148 have any family or friends?'. Yes, my friend, we have the best family and friends anyone could ask for, stop eye balling us, we're just travelers.
OK, so you dear followers are not going to get away on this post without a reference to some sort of civil engineering/public works nugget from the Sebago Lake region. And damned if I didn't find a good'un for you.
The Songo River Lock works and Swing Bridge. The Songo River empties into Sebago Lake at the State Park and the locks and bridge are a few miles away. Pedaled from the campsite one morning over to the locks and bridge just to give it a look see.
All of the info I had seen heralded the locks as an engineering masterpiece, which it was, built in the early 1800's to lift boats on a 30 lock canal system thru Sebago Lake stretching from inland Maine some 150 miles to the Atlantic Ocean port of Portland, ME. Mostly, in those bygone years, sent lumber and timber products downstream and finished goods upstream. Nowadays just pleasure craft and tour boats.
The lock was really cool, but to my surprise, the real gem of this trip was seeing the swing bridge just up the Songo River about 200 yards from the lock. This thing is an absolute beauty and quite rare.
Built in 1901 by the American Bridge Company it was the first bridge completed by the most domineering bridge constructor in the US during the 20th century. These guys went on to build the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, Tappen Zee bridge over the Hudson River, Mackinac Bridge, Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, Chesapeake Bay Bridge and countless other spans across waters worldwide...still, after all these years, business is good and quite a going concern.
Now, back to the Songo River Swing Bridge. The bridge is comprised of a steel truss, supporting a 14' wide wooden deck with a span of 56 feet. The truss system rests on a single circular turntable which is hand turned to move the bridge 90 degrees so it is in line longitudinally with the river channel allowing boats to pass by. Quite simple yet very ingenious. Bridge historians (yes, they exist!) state that there are only 3 or 4 such bridges still in operation worldwide today.
The lower chord of the bridge is only a couple of feet above the river waterline so pretty much any boat (even a canoe or SUP!) needs to have the bridge swung to get thru. The bridge operator gets out on the deck, closes down vehicular traffic with gates and first unlocks a rod attaching the bridge structure to the concrete abutment and then inserts another rod into a hole in the middle of the deck that is geared to the turntable and walks in a circular fashion around this turntable deck hole to rotate the bridge a full 90 degrees. The boat passes thru and the process is repeated in reverse to reopen the bridge for vehicular traffic. $15 for a one way passage, including the lock fee.
So simple, yet so elegant.
However, modern day bridge designers would do things a little differently such as building the bridge a bit higher off the water than 2 feet eliminating the need for the bridge to swing!
Well, we survived the merriment of another 4th of July, hope you all had a good one as well. Time to move on.
Currently writing this on Monday July 5th from a Walmart parking lot in Thomaston, ME. Settled in for the night and heading to Acadia in the morning. Our good friend Lynn is flying out from San Diego to hang with us in Acadia, really looking forward to this visit, should be tons of fun. I'll post up on that in a few days or so.
Some have asked me about our route back west. During the past holiday weekend we've had a chance to do some general planning and it's sorta looking like this:
After Acadia, head west thru NH and VT to the Adirondacks of NY and then to the Thousand Islands, NY on the St. Lawrence River, cut west along the south side of Lake Erie thru Erie, PA, Cleveland, OH and it's Rock 'n Roll HOF, westerly thru OH and IN and into MI and up the west side of MI alongside Lake Michigan to Lake Superior, then down thru WI and MN and westerly picking up the Lewis and Clark Trail in ND and on into Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP.
Then south thru MT, WY, ID and NV to Lake Tahoe and down the eastern Sierras on Highway 395 and back home to SD end of September. That's it very loosely and subject to change dear readers.
So far Maine has been spectacular with knock out gorgeous scenery and more to come. Having the time of our lives, g'night all and thanks for following along.
Post script: Apologies for the delayed posting. Currently posting this on Friday July 9th from Acadia NP in Bar Harbor, ME. Our good friend Lynn arrived Wednesday night and we've been cruising thru the park, dining on scrumptious lobster meals and hanging out. It is presently pouring down rain as TS Elsa moves thru but looks great rest of the weekend.
A detailed Acadia report coming soon!
Peace out, Deb and Howard
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