13. Acadia remembrance, and trip wrap-up

Looking back at this blog, I can see I left out a bunch of stuff we enjoyed during our stay at Acadia National Park in Maine. Just so I won't forget that week, I'll put some of that stuff here now, and dig up some of the photos. It was grand!

Wild Blueberry field with leaves and water and islands!

LEAVES: We were in Acadia during the actual "changing of the leaves" season, where we got to see the difference in colors as they got more intense DAILY. The forests were just beginning to

lose some of their green color when we drove up to Acadia, but by the end of our week there the colors had become more brilliant and spread more widely through the forests. It was magical. We got a few photos showing the colors, even though it was tough to get nice shots. We stayed out of the woods most days until it was warmer later in the day, so the brilliant sunlight usually killed some of the colors on our pics. Go see these scenes yourself, they are spectacular!

SIGHTS: We returned to Cadillac Mountain by car one day with perfect visibility, and were so glad we did! What a fantastic panorama of the whole Park, the surrounding mountains and water, and the islands lying off shore. You could easily see the town of Bar Harbor, and the cruise ship lying off-shore. 
This time up, we weren't freezing and hiding from howling wind...it was really fun. 

We spent time exploring other communities around the Park, drove the scenic parkway around Schoodic Peninsula, and visited the National Park Campground there. Nice, but not as scenic or convenient as our place at Mount Desert!

FOOD: We visited all over and ate whenever we got hungry. Our travels around the Acadia area took us to many cool places. I've already talked about the Popovers we tried at a couple of places in the Park. The other iconic food you gotta eat in Maine is LOBSTER! We had lobster rolls several places. I thought it would be a big deal, but all it consists of is lobster meat chunks spread out on a hot dog bun, with mayonnaise underneath. Sheeeesh, you'd think they invented a masterpiece. 

We ate lunch at one tiny eatery in Winter Harbor on the Schoodic Peninsula...Lynn tried our first MINI-LOBSTER ROLL. Super food, and nice folks who gave us some good sightseeing advice. This was typical of most folks we met during our time in Maine: while they were not very outgoing initially, once you engaged them in a conversation, they were delightful. 

   Our most fun mealtime came at Beal's Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, when we each picked out our own 1 1/2 pound lobster, then ate outside at a picnic table overlooking the harbor, making a mess with all the other folks around us. Delicious fun. Later on, we had a late supper at the Route 66 Diner in Bar Harbor. This place was loaded with kitschy 1950's and 1960's signs and artifacts...and they served lobster rolls...and Guiness! 

When not dining out, we ate in camp. Lynn froze several meals for our trip, so we had vegetable soup, Italian pasta and meatballs, and all kinds of sandwich options. By the time we left Acadia, we were ready for a big ole hamburger. This was not a starvation camping trip! 

COMA trap repair shack

MUSIC: My old friend Brewster and his sidekick Jim live near Acadia NP, so we played as much music as we could stand one night, then they invited me to attend the "Church Of the Morning After" (COMA)  the following Sunday morning. It's a rotating group of lobstermen, local residents, and other ne'er-do-wells who get together in a rundown lobster trap repair shack in Stonington, Maine, 45 minutes from our spot in Acadia. Heck yeah, I was going! It ended up being even better than picking with Brewster and Jim a few days earlier.

 Incredible collection of instrumentalists (banjo, guitars, mandolins, harmonicas, fiddle, CLARINET, percussion, etc.), singers, and spectators all in a loose circle in this beat up old workshop. Everybody just jumped in with whatever they had to play, on whatever song was called out, by whoever felt like singing one. I would have stayed forever, these are my kind of people! A couple of hours of COMA was all I could get, though, then it was over. I'm coming back...

KAYAK: We were camped on Somes Sound, so I had to get in a few paddles. My last trip was much further down the Sound, and I packed a small lunch. Nobody else in the world was on the water that day, I had it all to myself! It was a beautiful day, lots of changed-color leaves to view on each side of the Sound, and safe water to play in. I stopped for a break at a little place I dubbed Peanut Butter Peninsula, in honor of my sandwich. 

The scenery was almost too perfect to believe, so I stayed as long as I could. The outgoing tide forced me to get going again: tide swings here are between 4-6 feet, so I wanted to get out before the water level dropped down to the level of all the boulders that were just under the surface in some spots. I made it back to camp before low tide, so all ended well. 

HIKE/BIKE: Lynn and I tried some of the local trails, and found we most liked the carriage roads that go all over the Park. The Vanderbilts or Rockefellers owned all this land at one time, and built roads of crushed stone all over the place so the scenery could be viewed from horse-drawn carriages by wealthy visitors. When the land was donated to the USA as a National Park, the roads remained and are perfect for hikes & bikes. No motorized vehicles, narrow unobtrusive pathways with good surfaces, and no terrain to tear up your ankles or your bike. One day I rode my backpack bike while Lynn hiked the carriage roads near our camp, and we saw spectacular leaves and mountain scenery at every turn. The sun was out, temp was perfect, no rain...a glorious day!

CAMP: We loved our campsite at Mount Desert Campground, at the north end of Somes Sound. It is a privately-run campground, with abundant tent and RV sites, spaced out so no one is intruded on by other campers. Significantly, the BEST camp sites at this place are reserved for TENT campers! Yay, those folks usually get shuttled-off to an out-of-the-way crummy spot. Here, they got waterfront spots right on the Sound, usually on a rocky outcropping for beautiful views down on the water, and of the setting sun each evening. This camp doesn't allow RV's longer than 20 feet, so there were no monster rigs blocking out the sun either! We had a beautiful site just across the camp road from the waterfront, and enjoyed views because there was usually a vacancy in the waterfront site across from us. Nice bathroom and shower facilities were nearby, with one quirk: a charge of $1 in quarters for every 5 minutes of hot water in the shower! We quickly ran out of change, but got a bunch to use the rest of the week, because when it's cold outside, a WARM shower makes a lot of difference! 

More trip Photos here if you are so inclined!
TRIP PICS LINK

12. Assateague Horses, Whitby Horsepower!

Movement is our specialty, so we stowed our stuff, hitched the Casita, and headed out from our super-campground at Cape Henlopen State Park...to the dump station! Yes, it's true that you must learn a new set of skills to RV camp, even with a small trailer-RV like ours. You, uhhh, have to dump the contents of your black-water and gray-water tanks occasionally, at "dump stations" usually found at the exit to most campgrounds. Put on big rubber gloves, connect a huge collapsible hose to your trailer tank valve, stick the other end of the hose inside the dump tank pipe in the ground, next open the valve on each of your waste tanks, then stand back and let the stuff flow. Eventually it's done, so then you rinse out the black-water tank by squirting a hose inside the base of the toilet, put in some cleaner chemicals, and stow the collapsible hose and gloves away until next time. No worries, but remember not to scratch your nose during the process.

NEXT, we drove to Assateague, to see the wild ponies. The whole drive was through beautiful farm country, lots of fields under cultivation, and lots of factory poultry operations by Perdue and Tyson. We found the Assateague Beach Park, and a friendly ranger to send us to the right place to see the horses. Sure enough, after a short SLOW drive, we found several of them grazing along a park road, and some others in the marshland, just a couple hundred yards from the beach. Beautiful, but not to be confused with tame riding horses. We left them alone, took photos, and moved along. Maybe we could find some roaming the beach??? Nope, nothing at the beach but beautiful abandoned sand, nice surf, and lots of wind! We had a beautiful visit, and headed off to our next destination.

We crossed one bridge that was remarkable, because it had a separate companion bridge next door, reserved solely for bicycles and pedestrians!

Our GPS map showed us magically crossing a huge stretch of the Chesapeake Bay somewhere down the road. Ferry? Bridge?? Hovercraft? Who knew...so we kept driving. Turns out we drove over and through one of the seven engineering marvels of the modern world: CBBT (the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnnel)! It's a 17.6 mile long bridge across the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, with TWO TUNNELS, each a mile long, interspersed along the way. This way, big ships can come in and out unobstructed, while we mortals drive our little vehicles underneath! It was quite the driving experience. I'll try to post some pics that explain the mammoth-ness of this thing better than I can. 7 Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys...impressive?  HA!!!

Portsmouth Naval Yard, at the end of the bridge! 

We motel'ed it again so as not to have to disturb all our packed stuff...we're on the home leg of this journey. The motel was a typical chain place, free breakfast in the lobby (waffles!) , and the worst shower ever encountered in our entire trip, even counting all the camp bathroom and shower facilities out in the woods in the middle of nowhere! We split early the next morning for the last miles of our journey, headed for Greensboro, NC and a quick lunch visit with my old Cobra-building friend Jeff Collins at Whitby Motorcars.

What a fun reunion, after having not seen each other for probably 10 years! Jeff is still the meticulous craftsman, funny and gentle friend, and just all-around great man as always. After hugs and introductions to new faces, we had a blast touring his shop and looking at all the Factory Five Racing cars under construction, or being rebuilt/restored, or custom-modified, or painted, or Lord knows what. The shop was crammed with cars and parts.

Best part was the people: just like Factory Five's operation in Wareham, Jeff has hired some of the most dedicated young folks to do the hands-on work of turning out these custom cars. Everybody was engaged in their craft, but not too busy to say HI to this old guy visiting and admiring their work. Awesome experience! Lunch was another ton of fun, at a famous local BBQ place., where we caught up on family details and stories from Jeff's (scary) adventures towing a huge trailer filled with FFR cars and parts all over the place. Jeff is a friend I'm so lucky to have made through this Cobra hobby, and I hope to see him more often, maybe while building a new car? Thanks Jeff for everything!

A short three hours after we left Whitby's in Greensboro, we arrived at our home in Waynesville, NC, completing the New England tour Lynn planned so long ago. Of course, most of that drive time was in pouring rain, a common factor during this particular trip. It looks like we drove about 2600 miles altogether in the past 3 1/2 weeks,  mostly while towing our little camper. Lots of adventures and fun people and sights are behind us. All three of us are glad to be back in our own home tonight. Sheldon is already back on the big bed, ready to snooze.  I'll try to summarize anything I left out tomorrow, but for now, it's time to pack it in!

Our Photo Album for the trip is at this link if you are interested:
TRIP PHOTOS LINK

11. Delaware Bay - Cape Henlopen State Park

Time for our last "destination" camp before heading for home. We hit the road for Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware. Lynn chose it because it's sort of near the Assateague Beach National Park where wild ponies are said to roam the marshland and beach. Henlopen ended up being a terrific spot to play for a few days, and we learned a lot about this part of the "Jersey Shore". To get here, we had to drive through some crowded Delaware & NY thoroughfares. In fact, we crossed the famous George Washington Bridge at one point! Pretty good, towing a small trailer, but it didn't leave any opportunity for looking around at the scenery.

The camp was pretty full for a weekend, with MANY tent campers and a mix of big RV rigs mixed in with us little guys. We got set up fast, and spent our first full day riding the FERRY! It runs across Delaware Bay from Cape Henlopen, DE to Cape May, NJ. We'd heard the little town of Cape May was scenic and fun, and that the ferry was a must-do ride. The latter part was true...we had a fun ferry ride both directions...windy, cold, but fun!

However, Cape May was mostly a huge collection of tacky tourist shops and schlocky beachfront attractions, many of which had closed from the now-past summer season. 

We loved walking around some of the neighborhoods, looking at the restored Victorian-style homes, that were now mostly B&B's or restaurants. 

We even found "Madison's Bakery" on the beach walk, a welcome reminder of our own granddaughter Madison! 

Someone got married at Cape May, and used a horse carriage for their getaway; we liked seeing that. We got a late lunch at an Irish Pub, a fun place with great Guiness & Shepherd's Pie, and about the only commercial spot we felt at home on the tourist strip. We were glad to get the ferry back to our camp, and don't plan to visit Cape May again! 









   Our plan was to just hang at camp the next day, and enjoy the stuff in the State Park. I got in some great biking: good paved trails all over the place, past all the beach and natural & man-made sights. Lynn and I hiked around those trails, and explored unexpected WWII artifacts of Fort Main.  This place was an important installation to guard against German submarine attacks on shipping and industry in the Bay. Huge observation towers, Fort Main barracks and huge guns were available for us to explore. 

VIEW from the top of the WWII observation tower. They looked out over the Bay to watch for enemy incursions, and directed cannonfire if needed

While walking the lonnnnnng fishing pier, one of the fishermen insisted on taking our photo, so we have this cool portrait of us on a chilly windy day. 





Then, we found the secret trail for launching a kayak on Delaware Bay by the extended fishing pier...so I got a good kayak jaunt in on the new water there. 

TWO lighthouses are visible from the water near the fishing pier, plus the tall observation towers left over from WWII.  I tried to photo them from my boat, no telling how that came out. The part of the Bay I was on was protected from angry conditions by long stone breakwaters constructed out in the Bay. Nice paddling conditions for a novice in these waters.                                                        

Oldest house in Delaware, built in the 1600's

After all our goofing around, we went to nearby tiny town Lewes, Delaware for supper. What a COOL little town!!! Geez, it was everything Cape May wasn't: quaint, beautiful, OLD and unspoiled by excess tourist-crap. This is the first and oldest town in Delaware, founded in the 1600's. We crawled around the ancient Episcopal church in the middle of town, read lots of the old, old gravestones, some dating back to the early 1700's, walked around the beautiful residential streets, grabbed supper at a Main Street pub, then drove down to the harbor to see the historic "lightship" anchored on display there. What a nice surprise...we had no idea Lewes was a destination to visit!

Back in camp, we were goofing around our campfire with the guitar, when a lady who was camped nearby stopped in and spent some time playing with me. I dragged out the mandolin, and we banged around some songs. The music was of questionable quality, for sure, but it was a fun end to the camping part of our travels. 

BTW: You would be surprised how may people talk to us about our Casita camper, all the time, everywhere. It's a fun way to meet new folks...sometimes. When they don't ask about the Casita, they seem to want to talk about the wood kayak on top of our truck. Lots of meeting friendly strangers going on during this trip! 

Tomorrow we drive out of here headed for Assateague to try to see the ponies, then onward to another Cobra-related visit in Greensboro, NC, before hitting home in Waynesville. Good times, indeed! Thanks for reading this stuff. We are truly the luckiest people I know. 

Here are more photos of our trip if you'd like to see:

TRIP PHOTOS ALBUM