Post #98 - Maine - May 17 through June 25, 2018

We have survived our first six weeks in Maine and are settled into our summer site. We arrived on Thursday, May 17th and the black flies were HORRENDOUS; I was trying to direct Marty into our spot but had to constantly wave bugs out of my face, we’re lucky he didn’t land in the creek! We had been warned but nothing can really prepare you for how bad they are. Luckily, we had our head nets from our adventure on the Mississippi River back in 2014 and they helped a little. The black flies lasted about three weeks and then it was mosquito season - yikes! We seriously wondered what we had gotten into and considered leaving but as I write this on June 23rd, the bugs have died down.

Our summer spot and the empty caretakers cabin

Raising the 1790's Flag

The grounds here are beautiful, we are parked behind the empty caretakers house (which we have the use of). Down the road from us are the water hand pump, the smoke-house and settlers cabin. Across the covered bridge over Blackman’s Creek are the water powered sawmill, the blacksmith shop, the sawyer’s house (used for spinning wheel demonstrations) and other “old-timey” buildings. Up the hill is the gift shop (where I work), the machine shop, and the saw mill complex. The parking lot is at the top of the hill and there is a gate that is kept closed so there are no cars except our truck. It’s very peaceful and now that the worst of the bugs are gone it’s a pretty nice place to be.

The sawmill (shot in infrared)

Night sky over Blackman's Creek

We are roughing it this summer. We are not connected to electricity but we do have solar panels and the use of a generator. We turn the generator on for about 1/2 hour in the morning to make coffee and then turn it on again in the evening for another hour to watch the news and Jeopardy and to make dinner. It hasn't been too hot yet so we're ok without A/C for now. We aren’t connected to sewer but the museum did buy a “blue-boy” portable tank that we can use to dump our waste into and then Marty loads it into the truck and dumps it into an outhouse. We also have the use of the caretaker cabins bathroom and 6 outhouses (TMI?). We get our water from a well which is electronically (generator) pumped into a cistern which is located on the second floor of the cabin. We then fill our tanks from the cistern. It seemed a bit overwhelming when we first arrived but we’ve settled into a regular routine. We have no internet or cell service but we can get a signal at the top of the hill. We have also found a spot that we can drive to about 1/2 mile down the road which has a decent signal. Our boss, Sherry, has an office in the Forest Service building and we can go in their to plug in and catch up (Monday- Friday). I think not having internet and cell service in our rig has been the hardest adjustment. You don’t realize how much you use the internet until you don’t have it at your fingertips.

Our view (osprey net) as we sit in our truck downloading

We are near Bangor and do most of our shopping and dining our there. Our first purchase at Walmart was a Bug-Zapper! The mosquitoes have gotten into the rig and are very annoying! The bug zapper didn’t work so it was returned and we bought a dust buster. The dust buster works pretty well for sucking up mosquitoes. We also use a fly swatter and I’ve killed quite a few with my hands - whatever it takes!

The Maine Forest and Logging Museum
The museum has five main events and we’re here for four of them. Children’s Days were May 23 -25; three days of school groups (about 300 kids a day). All the buildings were open with activities and demonstrations for the kids. They could make necklaces with a tin punch, bookmarks with quills and stencils, and catch alewives with their hands and move them over to the fish ladder. There were old fashioned games set out that they could play (checkers, tic-tac-toe, tug of war), wooden stilts to try walking with. There were horse drawn wagon rides available, with two beautiful Percheron horses, Amos and Andy. It was a very busy three days, the kids all seemed to have a really good time and we’ve even had a few come back with their parents.

The next event was Alewife Day on Saturday, May 26th. There were over a million alewives swimming upstream this season and they were pretty easy to catch. On Thursday Marty helped set up the smokehouse and then tended it. On Saturday smoked alewife samples were available for tasting.

Alewives, swimming upstream

Catching alewives with nets

Preparing smokehouse for the alewives

48 hours of smoking and they're ready for human consumption (or lobster bait)

 
The next big event was a cross country run held on June 16th. That was also the day we had the “Axe Women of Maine” here for three shows. The run was 3.8 miles down a logging road and thru the forest. The museum complex is on over 400 acres of the 4000 +/- Penobscot Experimental Forest.





The Axe Women show was pretty cool. They did log rolling with a “peavy” (log rolling stick), demonstrations of log chopping with axes, and showed off their axe throwing skills.

The Axe Women of Maine

Showing off their chopping skills

 
Beanhole beans are very popular in Maine and were served all day along with biscuits to all who wanted them. The beans were soaked and then the pots were buried overnight in hot coals. They are cooked with molasses, onions and salt pork. The biscuits were also cooked outside.

Preparing the beans

Tending the fire

Lowering the beans into the fire pit for overnight cooking

Here's a link to the beanhole cooking process as shared by our boss, Sherry (double-click): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEmcONyZcEk

I worked in the gift shop all day with Ruth; Marty spent the day hanging out with the guys giving rides on the steam powered Lombard Log Hauler.  The Lombard Log Hauler was used in the woods of Maine in the early 1900's.  The museum has two steam powered log haulers, one is operable and it's quite a big deal when it's operating.  They run it maybe four times a year and we got to see it running on June 16th.  Marty even got to drive it and took me for a ride! Here's a link to the Lombard Log Hauler running:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgy4xzRlLzM

Riding in the Lombard Log Hauler

Our Day Trips
We drove through Acadia National Park on Monday, May 21st. We took the loop road up to Cadillac Mountain and drove past some of the famous carriage roads.  We will be back with our bicycles to check them out.

At the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park

A gull enjoying the view from Cadillac Mountain

On Sunday, May 28th we took a drive to the coast. We stopped at West Quoddy State Park which is the eastern most point in the continental United States. We took some pictures of the lighthouse and did a little bit of hiking. There are no bugs along the coast!

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Lubec, Maine

On the following Sunday (6/3) we drove south to Freeport, Maine to check out the LL Bean Flagship store. It’s quite a complex with the flagship store, the bikes and boats store, home supply store and an outlet store. There’s even an outlet mall of other stores across the street. I found two nice flannel shirts on the clearance rack in the main store for 10.00 each, I think that’s a pretty good deal!

Our next sightseeing day was on Monday, 6/11 (Happy Birthday Rick and Derek). We drove to Fort Knox State Park and Observatory. The observatory is 400’ high with windows on all four sides overlooking the Penobscot River -- beautiful views. The observatory is actually part of the bridge structure. After the observatory we took a stroll thru Fort Knox State Park. It seems like we’ve seen quite a few forts this year - I liked this one because they have overnights there in October; “fright at the fort”, what a fun idea for kids (very brave kids).

Looking out over the Penobscot River from inside the observatory

Inside Fort Knox State Park

  

Which way should we go?

We had a nice drive west to Moosehead Lake on Sunday, June 17th. On our way there, we stopped at the Appalachian Trail and hiked a bit of it (a very little bit). Once we got near Moosehead Lake (largest lake in Maine) we stopped at the visitor center and the young woman working there suggested we take a loop drive. We drove along the lake and then turned west (and south) and drove along the Kennebac river. Moxie Falls looked like a nice hike so we stopped there and hiked the mile trail to the falls. Once back in the car we discovered the Kennebac River Brewery and stopped for a late lunch

Getting up close and personal

Moxie Falls

 

Campobello Island, summer home of the Franklin Roosevelt Family

On Wednesday, 6/20, we drove 2 1/2 hours back to the coast to Campobello Island. Campobello Island was the summer home of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. It’s a 34 room “cottage” on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Campobello Island is actually in New Brunswick, Canada but since it’s considered an international park half of the employees are American and the other half are Canadian. We took a tour of the amazing cottage and then had lunch on the porch of an adjoining cottage.

Megaphone used by Eleanor to call in her five children

On the shore of Campobello Island

 
We don’t always go sightseeing on our days off, sometimes we have local adventures. On Tuesday, 6/19, we got our bikes out and took a ride on the logging road. Unfortunately it had rained the day before so there were very large puddles. Rather than turn around and ride the 4.5 miles back on the logging road we decided when we got to the end to take paved roads back. We ended up doing a 15 mile loop road on somewhat hilly roads. It was a good ride but next time we’ll be dressed more appropriately and we’ll bring water.

Well that's it for the first six weeks of our Maine adventure.  We still have lots of exploring to do so stay tuned!