CONGRATULATIONS BETH & JOHN (June 1, 2018)!
When we’re camping at our land in Maine, often our days are quiet & uneventful (last year when we were here for 5 weeks during the summer, we didn’t blog at all). Rather than just repeat each day’s activities over & over again, we’re condensing some parts of this trip into more days in each post. Days that are pretty routine will just go into one post, and this will hopefully help us to catch up with the blog and to keep up with the posting.
This visit to the land was brief. We initially intended just to be here a night or two, stopping on our way to northern Maine in order to check on the land & to drop off some tools and the chipper/shredder for our use later this trip. But the weather was good & we’d settled in so happily at the new RV pad, we stayed for 8 nights. During this week on our land, we spent most days just hanging out, not going anywhere, and enjoying the quiet and the beautiful scenery. Two days it rained, but the rest of the time it was fairly clear out with very little fog. Normally June is quite foggy. There weren’t many bugs until we had those days of rain; more bugs arrived after the rain & we had to bring out the bug spray. The temperatures were mostly in the 60’s during the days and 40’s at night.
Rob worked on a project outside some of the time. He added a permanent well pressure tank & switch inside a plywood enclosure so he could leave the pressure tank at the land rather than carrying it back & forth each trip. We didn’t clean up the fallen trees. We’ll do that when we come back. We’re not sure exactly where we’re going. Lots depends on the weather (is it foggy everywhere along the coast; is it too hot inland), the bug situation (if everywhere we go is inundated with black flies & mosquitoes, we might as well stay at our land in the RV and/or screened tent), and the crowds (once school is out parts of Maine will be very crowded; finding a place to stay that is not overcrowded could be difficult).
For the first several days we spent our time catching up on some things and going to the top of the cliff to the screened tent looking out over the water. Because it’s still early in the summer, very few people are here at their summer cottages. But we did get to see Diane (THANKS FOR STOPPING BY, DIANE; GREAT SEEING YOU; HELLO TO TED)! Not too much going on bird and animal-wise either. Our visit bothered the squirrels & the crows were harrassing the bald eagles daily. Bird activity was down, but we found that last year also until July/August.
Red Squirrel welcoming us back. Cliff Haven, ME
Bald Eagle in rain, across the harbor from the Cliff Tentsite, Cliff Haven, ME
Bald Eagle (left) being harassed by a Raven (right), across the harbor from the Cliff Tentsite, Cliff Haven, ME
We went into town (Lubec) several times, and it was fairly empty, too. Restaurants & stores were either still operating with winter/spring hours or not even open yet. Rob made several treks to the wonderful Lubec Hardware Store for supplies, and we made runs to the Post Office and to the recycling station. We went to Becky’s Seafood twice. Her lobster rolls – the lobster practically melts in your mouth, it’s so tender & fresh. Even though Lubec is only about 15 minutes from the land, we always enjoy the ride into town with the ever-changing scenery & the tidal flow to watch. We also went to Machias on our trip for fresh vegetables. Machias Market Place, open Wednesday thru Saturday, is a wonderful store for the freshest produce brought in by local farmers. In addition, the freshly-baked breads are out of this world. Machias is 35-45 minutes from the land; we usually go there every other week or so when we’re here. We always go to Riverside Take-Out in East Machias on these trips. We love the two guys that run the truck & they have the largest portions of the best fresh fish around. Unfortunately, they were closed this time, but we’ll be visiting them often later in the summer.
Once Rob finished his project and we’d received from the Post Office the orders we’d placed (including our mail from the mail forwarding company), we started thinking about where we wanted to go next. The cats were completely settled in and happy, so were we, but we were starting to get the urge to move on somewhere. We were remembering Cobscook Bay State Park, how beautiful it is, and how long it’d been since we camped there. Okay, why not go there? It’s still early in the season & they won’t be too crowded yet. The weather’s been good & not foggy. But it seemed strange to pack up & drive somewhere so close by. Why not stay where we are? Well, let’s try it and see. We can always just turn around and come back, or we can continue north. Tomorrow we leave.