17-27 September 2022,
Saturday, Freeport, Maine
Our departure from camp is unhurried and we have an easy drive to Freeport, Maine. Camp is soon set up again, this time at Cedar Haven Family Campground. The campground is less than a mile from G&N’s home, but it’s across 295 from us, so we have to drive 4.5 miles to get there. It’s wonderful to see them again, especially after two years apart.
We enjoy a dinner of bread, mushroom and kale pasta and salad. Then we get the grand tour of their circa 1890 house. They’ve done lots of work on it, getting the house habitable. We are camping nearby, rather than staying with them because their septic system is in serious need of repair.
Sunday, Gorham, Maine
We meet G and N in Gorham today. They are covering their peppers to protect them from the cold Maine nights. We assist in the covering operation and then help harvest some husk cherries and cover those plants as well. After a stop for some vegan snacks and non-dairy ice cream, we return to the house to husk the husk cherries while we chat about our travels and other topics. O and I return to camp for fiddling and reading and then settle into the tent for a very rainy night.
Monday we drop off Lucy with G and N and head to LL Bean, a mandatory stop while we are in Freeport. Then we pick up groceries in Brunswick. It’s a generally rainy week, so we are happy to be able to take shelter at G and N’s cozy house (even with its tenuous septic system.)
Tuesday we drive down to Portland to the Standard Baking Co., a very small establishment that G recommended for its excellent bread and pastries. They are, indeed, excellent!
We spend most of the day taking shelter at the house once again.
G and N get the excellent news today that their land is not contaminated by PFAS as they feared. We breathe a collective sigh of relief!
Wednesday morning I avoid waiting in line at Standard Baking Co. by ordering our bread and pastries online the night before. We also make a stop at Whole Foods in Portland to pick up dinner ingredients for tonight with N’s parents and for tomorrow night for just the four of us. G and N are occupied almost the entire day setting posts for their greenhouse, hammering each one in by hand as their rented pile driver broke down soon after they started working. They stop only when it is getting dark and come in for a well-earned dinner with N’s parents, O and I.
Thursday is an exceptionally rainy day!!
O and I once again hang out at the house. We enjoy G’s homemade English muffins for breakfast. I’ll be roasting portobello mushrooms for a quesadilla dinner tonight. Somehow, G and N get the rest of the posts for their greenhouse pounded in to the proper level in between raindrops. G has places to go and things to do this afternoon so she will be gone when O and I eat dinner. However, there will be plenty of quesadilla fixin’s for her and N to assemble their own dinner later this evening.
Friday, The Schoodic Peninsula
After breakfasting with G on more homemade sourdough English muffins, O and I return to camp to shower and pack up for our drive to the Schoodic Peninsula. The drive takes about 3 hours. Schoodic Woods is a relatively new campground. Our site, #21, is surrounded by dense growth of eastern white cedar, maple, birch and other young trees. It feels pretty private. We have an electric hook-up to keep our fridge running. This is a dark sky park and it’s just about time for a new moon (the night of the 24th is Rosh Hashanah.) When the clouds from hurricane Fiona (heading off the coast up to Nova Scotia) clear we may get some good stargazing.
Tonight is very windy due to the storm, with sustained winds up to 45 km/hr and gusts much higher. Our tent rattles and shakes, but weathers the storm well.
Saturday, Bar Harbor
We drive to Mt. Desert Island in hopes of seeing Jordan Pond. However it’s a beautiful fall Saturday in Maine. The roads of Acadia will be crowded. As we approach our destination I realize we will be driving right by Bar Harbor Farm which is run by friends we met 1 year ago on our Sierra Club Trip. We take a detour to the farm and I call our fellow Sierra Club “tripper”, who actually answers her phone! She is pleased to hear we are in the area but is about to head out. We arrange to meet around 3:00 for a walk.
O and I can’t park near Jordan Pond, so we drive back up Route 3 and park near Hadlock Pond to walk on the Carriage Road for awhile. Our friend gets in touch around 3:30. She actually lives in Bar Harbor, not at the farm so we meet near Sieur de Monts and walk the pleasant paths and boardwalk there. Some of the trees are just turning brilliant red.
As we walk and talk I am reminded that our friend grew up in Alaska and still has family there. She has driven there many times. I pick her brain about the drive and what to see. She thinks the best time to visit is August – mosquito population is down and the days are still long. She mentions the Kenai Peninsula and, of course, Denali. She also recommends we not miss the sea life there. We finish our walk and send regards to her husband, who is at the state fair in Unity, Maine this weekend. Peekytoes Provisions is recommended for a quick dinner of sandwiches before we drive back to Schoodic.
We take her recommendation and enjoy delicious pan roasted halibut sandwiches along with a shared Baby Genius blond ale before our drive back to camp. At Schoodic the stars are indeed, spectacular! The Milky Way spills across the sky.
Sunday, Schoodic Peninsula
We begin the day with pan fried potatoes and a tofu scramble. After breakfast, we strike the tent as it’s supposed to rain tonight and we’d rather not take it down wet in the morning. Next we go on a diesel fuel hunt and then drive to Schoodic Point. Parking is no problem on mid-day Sunday. After watching the surf and the rocks for awhile we drive a bit further around the loop road looking for the trailhead G, N and I hiked back in 2019. O and I are pretty sure we had parked at the Blueberry Hill lot, but it’s full. We drive a bit further and find a pull-off with room for Vincent. Lucy, O and I start up a fairly rugged trail towards “The Anvil.” This is not the trail I remember from 3 years ago. There are lots of roots and some steep step-ups. O climbs up first, then I lift Lucy up, and finally I climb up myself. At one point there’s a pretty steep scramble up a small cliff. Again we figure out a way to lift Lucy. For an old dog she’s doing very well. We meet several other hikers along the path. In places you need to keep a sharp eye out tor the blue dots marking the trail. We remind ourselves to look up at the rocks, not just at the cliffs. We reach the first lookout, which has a fine view and then I look at my watch. We’ve gone 0.7 miles in an hour. Deciding we’ve had enough adventure for the day, we turn around. At this rate, if we keep going we’d be walking back to Vincent in the dark. . . and we didn’t bring headlights. Lucy approves of our decision! On our way down we direct two other parties who have lost the trail up the “cliff.”
Back at camp we have a lovely Rosh Hashanah meal. We dip our apple in maple syrup since we have no honey. The rest of the evening is spent in our usual pursuits: reading and fiddling. One of our fellow campers, obviously a Dr.Who fan, stops by to say she really likes our license plate.
Monday, Back to Cedar Haven in Freeport
Getting on the road is easy this morning since we slept in Vincent. It did rain during the night – good choice to pack Wglwof (our tent) yesterday. We drive to Riverside Cafe in Ellsworth. O and I order the same dish for take-out, Veggie Benedict. Our breakfast is delicious and comes with very good hash brown potatoes. O and Lucy wait outside while I wait inside for our dishes to be prepared. Lucy attracts lots of attention. There is even one man who comes inside to request “leftover meat’ for the “puppy” outside. The waitress goes to the kitchen and comes out with two very nice looking pieces of bacon. She points out to the man that he needs to ask if it’s OK before giving it to the dog. (Of course it’s OK) Lucy is in seventh heaven!
We arrive in Cedar Haven near noon, shower, go grocery shopping and then head to G&N’s house to prepare dinner. N’s parents will be joining us for dinner. O and I prepare roasted veggies, oven roasted pesto tofu, polenta, tomato sauce and a salad. Dinner is delicious. Our conversation is very pleasant and it’s later than usual when we parents depart. O and I don’t get to bed until after 10.
It’s Tuesday. G is making sourdough waffles for breakfast this morning. O and I are up at 7:40. We walk Lucy, straighten up the van, disconnect the fridge from the AC power and arrive at G&N’s place by 8:30.
The waffles are great! After breakfast N retreats to his home office to work. G and I get to “jam” a bit on banjo and fiddle. It’s fun, although I’m a bit out of shape and since we know very few of the same tunes, G ends up trying to accompany me as I play. She’s better at that sort of thing. We also play a few tunes solo for each other.
At noon N comes out to say goodbye. G is off to do lots of Tuesday chores. We are glad that we’ll be seeing them again in 3 months, instead of 2 years!
O and I return to Cedar Haven. There’s laundry to do before we turn south. Unfortunately, the campground laundry isn’t working so we drive to Brunswick to find a laundromat. We also find a source of the proper type of diesel fuel, top tier. By the time we return to camp and have dinner there’s no time left for a walk. We’re in bed soon after dark. We have a long drive to Pennsylvania tomorrow.