New England trip report - Fall 2015
My family has made many trips out West but our last long trip together was somewhere entirely different, New England. My husband and I met up with Dad in New Jersey where we visited with a relative then the three of us (me, DH, and Dad) traveled up to Maine where we met up with Kohldad and his wife. I’m going to pick this report up on Day 5 of our trip as we enter southeast Maine and feed it to you a little bit at a time :-) I’ll update the thread title each time I add a section so you’ll know when to look for the next segment.
SEP 29
After a full day of driving, we were happy to reach Maine and meet up with Kohldad. The day was late and a light rain was falling so we were happy to settle in at Winslow Memorial Park and Campground on Casco Bay just south of Freeport. Just 23 of the campground’s 100 sites are on the bay but they weren’t busy so we were able to park with our door just steps from the bay. Dad prefers campgrounds with hookups but even he had to admit it was worth forgoing electric to enjoy the beautiful view just outside our door.
SEP 30
The next morning we were ready to tour Freeport despite the rain. And what rain it was! The forecast was calling for half a foot of rain! We were traveling in the fall, a little late for hurricanes or even tropical storms; the weathermen were calling this an extratropical storm. It had caused widespread flooding in South Carolina before moving up the coast to Maine and had poured an inch of water into Dad’s basement due to a clogged gutter drain. But he wouldn’t know that until he got home two weeks later. Luckily it’s an unfinished basement mostly used for storage.
Our first stop was the DeLorme Map Store where we marveled at Bertha, the world’s largest rotating globe. That’s Dad and Kohldad at the base of the globe. The rotation device for the globe is surprisingly small. We enjoyed browsing through the maps in the store and bought a few things before making a dash back to the vehicles.
Leaving the DeLorme store, we drove through the continuing downpour into Freeport. We parked in an RV lot at the bottom of the hill and the others dashed through the rain into some stores. Meanwhile I’d stepped over to the sidewalk where I was splashed by a passing car so back into my camper I went to put on some dry clothes before rejoining the others. The big draw at Freeport, of course, is the huge LL Bean store. It was interesting to see but we weren’t big spenders.
We found the rain had let up some when we left the store so we walked down Main Street a bit. A huge donut sign caught our eye then we saw the smaller sign for the Harrington House, a 19th century structure that now houses a small but free museum. Its main focus was on the town’s historic shoe industry which predates the LL Bean store. Worth taking a look if you visit Freeport.
After one last look down the wet streets of Freeport, we headed back to the RV parking lot. Uh oh! Guess where all that runoff went! We found stormwater drainage had flooded the lot where we’d parked the campers. It wasn’t deep enough to cause any damage though and had receded enough to allow us to get to our vehicles.
We didn’t have far to go to our stop for the night, Recompense Shore Campground at Wolfe’s Neck Farm, just east of Freeport and again on Cosco Bay. This is a non-profit demonstration farm dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture. Revenue from the campground helps support the farm’s activities. The camping facilities were average but quiet and it was nice to be able to walk around the farm and along the bay.
Hey, look, the rain has finally stopped! We got a glimpse of blue sky shortly before sunset.
To be continued …
SEP 29
After a full day of driving, we were happy to reach Maine and meet up with Kohldad. The day was late and a light rain was falling so we were happy to settle in at Winslow Memorial Park and Campground on Casco Bay just south of Freeport. Just 23 of the campground’s 100 sites are on the bay but they weren’t busy so we were able to park with our door just steps from the bay. Dad prefers campgrounds with hookups but even he had to admit it was worth forgoing electric to enjoy the beautiful view just outside our door.
SEP 30
The next morning we were ready to tour Freeport despite the rain. And what rain it was! The forecast was calling for half a foot of rain! We were traveling in the fall, a little late for hurricanes or even tropical storms; the weathermen were calling this an extratropical storm. It had caused widespread flooding in South Carolina before moving up the coast to Maine and had poured an inch of water into Dad’s basement due to a clogged gutter drain. But he wouldn’t know that until he got home two weeks later. Luckily it’s an unfinished basement mostly used for storage.
Our first stop was the DeLorme Map Store where we marveled at Bertha, the world’s largest rotating globe. That’s Dad and Kohldad at the base of the globe. The rotation device for the globe is surprisingly small. We enjoyed browsing through the maps in the store and bought a few things before making a dash back to the vehicles.
Leaving the DeLorme store, we drove through the continuing downpour into Freeport. We parked in an RV lot at the bottom of the hill and the others dashed through the rain into some stores. Meanwhile I’d stepped over to the sidewalk where I was splashed by a passing car so back into my camper I went to put on some dry clothes before rejoining the others. The big draw at Freeport, of course, is the huge LL Bean store. It was interesting to see but we weren’t big spenders.
We found the rain had let up some when we left the store so we walked down Main Street a bit. A huge donut sign caught our eye then we saw the smaller sign for the Harrington House, a 19th century structure that now houses a small but free museum. Its main focus was on the town’s historic shoe industry which predates the LL Bean store. Worth taking a look if you visit Freeport.
After one last look down the wet streets of Freeport, we headed back to the RV parking lot. Uh oh! Guess where all that runoff went! We found stormwater drainage had flooded the lot where we’d parked the campers. It wasn’t deep enough to cause any damage though and had receded enough to allow us to get to our vehicles.
We didn’t have far to go to our stop for the night, Recompense Shore Campground at Wolfe’s Neck Farm, just east of Freeport and again on Cosco Bay. This is a non-profit demonstration farm dedicated to promoting sustainable agriculture. Revenue from the campground helps support the farm’s activities. The camping facilities were average but quiet and it was nice to be able to walk around the farm and along the bay.
Hey, look, the rain has finally stopped! We got a glimpse of blue sky shortly before sunset.
To be continued …
