YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT.
Day 69 – At 6:15 a.m. it was 53 degrees and clear out. Rob got me up at 7 a.m.; we wanted to get an early start for our trip to Big Eddy. A beautiful day, we packed up, dumped tanks, and headed away from Moosehead Lake at 9:30 a.m.
231 miles (6:40), 31013-31244
We headed south out of Lily Bay State Park, 60 degrees & partly cloudy, stopping at Greenville for gas and then for propane for the RV. We figured, going into the wild wilderness of Maine, we’d need to make sure all tanks were either empty or full depending on which tank. We took Routes 15/6 south to 16/6 east to 11 north. Routes 15, 16, & 6 were fairly rough but paved roads through small towns. Route 11 north was a fairly narrow two-lane road, paved and in better condition. Less towns, beautiful scenery, mountains in the distance, particularly as we approached Millinocket, the “Gateway to Baxter State Park”. Mount Katahdin loomed in the distance; many lakes were visible on either or both sides of the road. There wasn’t much traffic, but large logging trucks were rushing by. They must’ve weighed thousands of pounds. We watched for Moose, as instructed by the signs, but didn’t see any. We pulled out at Twin Lakes Rest Stop, beautiful!, and ate our sandwiches & gave the kitties a break.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
After Millinocket, we turned off onto the road to Baxter State Park, then following directions, turned off on Golden Road. This is a much-travelled logging road, and it’s the only way to get to these Maine camps that are situated along the West Penobscot River flowage. If you Google directions from Lily Bay State Park, Greenville, ME to Millinocket, or enter it into the GPS, it takes you most of the way on the Golden Road. This is the way everyone goes. We knew to expect it to be a dirt road, but if it’s used by all these logging trucks, and truckers, and cars, and campers, we figured it couldn’t be that bad.
There are warnings about the logging trucks – that they have the right-of-way, pull to the side & let them by, that they barrel along and take up most of the road – but we didn’t expect to be taking our lives into our own hands & maybe not surviving. Suffice it to say that once on Golden Road with its washboard dirt road surface with horrible bumps, we decided even though it was something we’d wanted to do for a long time, it wasn’t worth causing damage to the RV or Honda, at a minimum, or worse. The next problem was how to turn around on this road with a 30-ft. RV and a Honda CRV hitched up to it. The road wasn’t that wide and it was dangerous to be turning around with the logging trucks raging by in a big cloud of dust. We pulled over and as quickly as possible, unhitched the Honda. I drove it while Rob drove the RV. Once we got back on a paved road heading back to Millinocket, we stopped, hitched back up, and regrouped.
The Golden Road! Looks pretty benign, but the RV felt like it was being shaken to pieces for the 1 single mile we managed to drive on it!
What the logging trucks really feel like as they whoosh past on narrow winding roads!
As much as we hated to do it, we e-mailed Big Eddy & cancelled our reservations; they have no phone out there in the boonies. Then we backtracked to Millinocket & took 11/157 east to I-95, for once grateful to be on a major highway. We went north then east to where I-95 ends at Houlton, then north on Route 1. We did not have reservations and there weren’t that many campgrounds this far north. After almost 7 hours of driving we got to familiar territory: Aroostook State Park below Presque Isle. We happily grabbed a campsite for two nights and set up camp. Our previous favorite site, #3U, was occupied. We got site #18U, an excellent non-reservable campsite. It was 4:10 p.m. when we arrived, 71 degrees, partly cloudy.
Aroostook State Park, Presque Isle, ME
Site 18, Aroostook State Park, Presque Isle, ME
Site 18, Aroostook State Park, Presque Isle, ME
The high today was 76 degrees. We’ve given up the idea of spending time on the backroads of the Baxter State Park area of Maine, for now. We’re going to check out way up north near the Canadian border until around Labor Day when we head south again. (The far north section of Maine was where we were going when we had to go home briefly in mid-July.) Meanwhile, the girls are happy we’ve stopped driving on these ridiculous roads, our campsite is great, and we are headed to bed early. Oh, and that bit about not having internet & cell phone coverage for a while? We have it today. That’s all we know for now.
If you get close check out what used to be Loring Air Force Base outside of Caribou. What have they sone with it? I lived in the building actoss from the movie theater.
Hi Mark, we wondered if it was Caribou where you were stationed. We’ll check it out and let you know what it looks like now. It is beautiful around here!