LIFE’S A DITCH.
Day 86 – Woke up this morning to surprise rain showers. The windows & ceiling vents were all open & everything got wet. The weather forecasters failed again. 7 a.m., 69 degrees, raining hard. We were glad we took down the tent last night; in its place was a big puddle. As we packed up & got ready to move on, the campground was already busy. Today is the first day of the annual Seaplane Fly-In, and it appears to be a big weekend around here.
190 miles (5:45), 31456-31666
We departed Lily Bay after dumping tanks – cloudy, 70 degrees, 9:20 a.m. We got gas in Greenville & headed out of town, south on Rte. 6S/15E. We saw that roads were closed, diverting traffic for the Fly-In, and there was already an increase in Campers, Trailers, & RV’s headed into town.
We’d decided to go northeast to the Mattawamkeag River & a campground in a wilderness area, Mattawamkeag Wilderness Park Campground. It looked online to be interesting, a large County Park with camping on the River. We figured we’d check it out, stay there for a time depending on how much we liked it, then move on to Cobscook State Park where we’d stayed in June. (On September 10, with the summer season over, the Maine State Parks no longer accept advance reservations and all campsites are first-come, first-served.)
The drive to Mattawamkeag was scenic, particularly as we headed into some of the areas more heavily-wooded like we’d seen in the north woods. Huge logging trucks, loaded with cut trees, barreled up & down the hilly roads. We followed alongside the Penobscot River part of the way, through the city of Lincoln. At the city of Mattawamkeag, the Mattawamkeag River branches east off the Penobscot River. Following the GPS, we headed east also – soon onto a dirt road. The farther we went, the rougher the road got. With another 15 miles to go, we turned around. Again? It looks like Maine Camps in the wilderness are just not going to happen for us. It’s not worth destroying the RV for it. Maybe if we had a camper on a big truck or a truck pulling a trailer, these roads would be okay. But we love our RV just the way it is. After disconnecting the tow car so we could turn around on the narrow road, we stopped at a pull-out, reconnected the car, and had our lunch. The kitties were ready for their break, too.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
Regrouping, we decided to go ahead & proceed to Cobscook Bay State Park without any reservations, hoping we could get a non-reservable campsite for a few days to get through the weekend until everything opens up. It was 12:50 p.m. Instead of being done, we were only half through with our drive. Back in the bedroom, the girls were not happy.
Back on paved roads, we went south a short distance to the tiny town of Winn, then east on Route 6 towards Route 1 and south to the coast. We arrived at the State Park at 3:05 p.m., 80 degrees, humid & cloudy. The high today was 82 degrees.
At the Ranger’s Station we were told there were few sites not already reserved. We rattled off the numbers to our favorite non-reservable sites. They were already taken, “not available”, the Ranger said. She asked how big our RV was; 30 feet, we said. We were offered site #23U, in the woods, for one night – then we’d have to take it day-by-day, checking in to see if someone had reserved the site we were on, and if so, moving to another site, if one was even available. We asked again about non-reservable sites #4U & #6X, to try to find out if the people occupying them might be leaving before the weekend. She said, “Oh, you can’t fit in site 6”. We said, “But is it available?” And, Rob said, “We can fit in it, we’ve paced it out.” (I’m thinking, site 6X is an “X” campsite, meaning good for up to 35 feet, obviously we can fit.) She said that site 6 was uneven. Rob said that we can stay there, we’ve checked it out already. And we have boards to level us. She said that site 6 was measured to be only for a 20 foot camper. We’re like, we can get in there, really we can. And so on. So she changes our tag from 23U to 6X and says, “you can only change your site once”. I’m like, boy, did we start out on the wrong foot!
We drove to the dump station to fill up with fresh water, and I took the Honda to site 6X to scope it out. Yes, it was plenty big for us, and I also checked out the campsites we hoped to get when people left, sites 4, 5, 7, or 8 (with 4 or 8 being top on my list). All were currently occupied. I drove back to the dump station, but the RV was gone; Rob had finished & had gone to our site to start setting up.
I drove to site #6. There are two entrances because it is on a loop. At the top of the loop, the top entrance, you look across the campground road to the water. I pulled the car in there. Rob had entered at the bottom entrance on the other side of the campsite. What I saw, because the site is wooded on both sides of the entrances, shocked me. The RV was partially turned into the site & leaning dangerously to one side, like it was going to roll over! The driver’s-side rear tires were in a ditch; the passenger’s-side front tire was 2 feet off the ground. I parked the car & got out, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t see Rob anywhere. At that moment, a Park truck arrived & a Ranger said, “Do you want us to have the ladies call a Wrecker?” Call a wrecker? The RV is wrecked? I said, “I just got here; I don’t know what happened yet.” And they drove away.
I walked down to the RV. “Honey?” “Rob?” I was thinking maybe he was inside lying on the floor, hurt. Rob stumbled around the RV, sweaty, muddy, hair standing on end, trusty boards in hand. “I ran into a ditch,” he says. I said, “Are you all right?” and “The wheels are off the ground.” And he’s like, “I think I can get us out of this.” I asked if he would be going forward or backwards. He didn’t know yet.
He raised the left-hand leveling jacks to raise the wheels in the ditch so he could put boards underneath the wheels to get traction. He then retracted the jacks, dropping the wheels onto the boards. (The ditch was two-feet deep and had been covered with grass & groundcover plants and had not been visible when driving by).
I returned to the top entrance & he went to get into the RV to try to drive us out of the ditch. The RV door was locked. He couldn’t get in. Evidently when it dropped into the ditch, it locked the door? Well, this was easy to fix. We’d locked ourselves out once before on our first trip. We had hidden a set of keys elsewhere since then. Phew. It was amazing that we both were staying calm at this point.
When Rob got into the RV, I could see how precarious they were. I told him not to go forward, from where I was standing, I could see this wouldn’t work. He went backwards & out of the ditch he drove. The guy deserves a medal! Mr. Fix-It does it again.
I moved the car out and he drove around to the top entrance, backed in, leveled the RV using the trusty boards which had been removed from the ditch, and I parked the car at the top entrance again. After putting the boards down, he directed me while I drove up onto the boards. Then he went to get the jack leveling blocks from the lower storage compartment to put down so we could lower the jacks. No jack leveling blocks. We’d left them at Lily Bay. Seriously.
We lowered the jacks, blocks are not a necessity, but definitely the best way to do it, and since Rob had made both the trusty boards and the jack leveling blocks himself, he said that when we got to our land, he’d just make some more blocks. Finally, time to set up & let the poor babies out. They were happy to be settled & not practically lying on the side in a ditch. So were we!
Around 5 p.m. we collapsed, grateful that things worked out so well, and wondered if the Ranger was saying, “I told you so”, LOL. We looked out over the water and had a stiff drink.
Ah, life on the road. Or off it!
Hey y’all, I sent a note to your other email, but maybe it’s no good anymore?
Where is your place in Maine? I just was introduced to some people who live there and told them I would find out where it is. They have a place in puerta Vallarta and I am hoping to be able to go. Fingers crossed!
Sending much love, Ann
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