Trip Report : Quebec and New England

Great report! Glad to see that you're back on this side of the Atlantic. I hope to get up there someday.

Thank you very much for sharing with us. You took us to a lot of places we hadn't been before... and in a strange vehicle. trip reports are the things that dreams are made of.... and you and Sally do a great job of getting us started.

Fantastic trip report!


Chet and Janet

Monday 14th September : Montreal

It had been a great 9 days and Derek and Nikki's hospitality had been wonderful and generous. It was sad to be leaving them, but it was now time to hit the road.

As expected traffic was bad over the Champlain bridge. Things weren't helped by my GPS having an out of date map, so we missed a freeway turn. Most importantly though we arrived back at the rental station just before 11:00 - any later and there would be a substantial late return fee.

A different rental guy was working this day, and very efficient he was too. We had done slightly higher mileage than we had bought so had to pay an extra 0.34 CAD per km + tax. This is something to be aware of when renting RVs, in North America at least. In other parts of the world we have had unlimited mileage agreements. Rental guy ordered us a local taxi who had us at the airport very quickly. This was still 7 hours before check-in for our flight, so we dumped our bags at the airport luggage store for 7.5 CAD each (you need ID and a copy of your boarding pass, ticket or flight literary - maybe to stop people using it to store things for nefarious purposes.

Then for 10 CAD each we purchased one-day travel tickets and took the 747 bus into the city centre for a look around:









Then check-in, airline lounge, upgraded seats on the way back (just as well, sleeping in coach overnight isn't fun) and a taxi waiting for us at Heathrow Airport.

It had been a lovely trip and was wonderful to spend time with Derek and Nikki again. I must thank them so much for their hospitality and the effort they went to for us.

Steve.

Sunday 13th September : Bromont

In the morning Derek and I take the class C to the local dump station to dump grey and black water and fill the drinking water tank.

On the way back we take a detour to a propane station where they fill the propane tank for us. Yes, I could have just taken the camper back to the rental station and had them refill it for a fee saving the time, but we wanted to see what the mechanism was for refilling a fixed tank as seem to be commonly fitted to class Cs; and it turned out to be pretty straight forward.

Back at the house all four of us then took the car into Bromont for a look around and to buy a pie for dinner; it is a lovely little town:



First signs of the fall appearing:



Luckily this bird hadn't seen Sally with the hunting jacket and shotgun:



Back at the house Nikki baked up the pie for us - a local meat pie, and very delicious. Then a wonderful final evening talking about endeavours past and future before we all retired exhausted.

Saturday 12th September : Middlebury VT to Bromont Quebec

In the morning we crossed the road and visited Jay who lives opposite:



Jay's house is an Aladin's cave of fascinating bits and pieces:



Remember this album?:



"Duck-Dynasty-Sally" gets a chance to test her $150 camouflage jacket:



Critters Sally failed to catch:





Then on for a quick look around the nearby Morgan horse ranch:





Then on to the open air museum at Shelburne:











After lunch we head for the border - this time the smaller crossing at Richford. This crossing involved no paperwork, just some jokes about bring back un-drunk Canadian beer into the country.

And back to Derek and Nikki's house for the night.

Friday 11th September : Freeport ME to Middlebury VT

Started reasonably early, and picked up breakfast in McDonalds in Freeport.

Well, you can't visit New England without seeing a light house - in this case Portland Head:



Then head North. I always like to see old industrial buildings:



Then on to Kennebunkport for lunch:



This restaurant has a good view. Apparently there used to be an older seafood restaurant here that Derek and Nikki had used several times, but now in its place was a posh boutique hotel and associated seafood restaurant. Still, seemed decent for dinner, and they stocked Prosecco, so Sally was happy.



And then there was desert (again):



Derek bought me some Whoppie cake - but I'd had far too much sugar this week already - saved it for later in the week.



Time to head inland. Nikki's family have property near Middlebury VT, so we headed in their direction. We had a 20 minute stop half way as something I had eaten was disagreeing with me, and I let Sally carry on the driving after that:



We camp out on Nikki's family's property:

Thursday 10th September : Freeport

Canoe time - Sally and I went up to the office and hired a canoe. We would have done this yesterday afternoon, but you are only allowed to rent a certain time either side of high tide. With the knowledge learnt from Derek over the weekend we were now more confident to take a canoe out on our own. The sea was as flat as a mill pond and we were on it at slack tide, so it wasn't too challenging:







We didn't overdo it - maybe an hour out there. But we had plans for the rest of the day.

On returning to the campsite we went for a quick shower then loaded all 4 of us and the paddles and life jackets into the RV (the wet stuff could conveniently be stored in the bathroom - a luxury we don't have in our little Shadow Cruiser at home).

We dropped the rental gear off at the office, then headed up the coast and then down through Orr's Island and on to Bailey Island.







Plenty of interesting rock formations on the Maine coast:



Back to the top end of Bailey's Island for a late lunch, and to admire their bridge:



My first time eating lobster - I feel posh now (OK, it was only Lobster in a bread roll - no champagne was involved either):





Scanning the desert menu I noticed the perfect combination of the two things I love most (on that part of the menu at least) - cheese cake and Peanut butter cups. It was suggested that this was suitable for two, so I allowed the others around the table to look at it:



Now I remember what it felt like as a child when you consumed far to many candy bars at Christmas.

We staggered out and headed for Freeport, where we dodged the local meth addict begging in the parking lot. She seemed slightly out of place in Freeport, begging amongst the three-axle class As and German executive cars.

Priority 1 for any visit to Freeport:



No, not admiring taxidermy, shopping at the L.L.Bean campus. Sally found a whole section she liked, and I came away $150 worse off as a result:





I drew the line when she started looking at Winchester rifles.

No need for dinner tonight - I seriously needed to let my blood sugar level drop before consuming anything else.

Wednesday 9th September : Freeport

Rained during the night and therefore misty this morning. We went for a walk along the shore line:





Then over the bridge and down Wolfe's Neck:



Belted Galloways:



On our return Derek and Nikki were making plans to rent bikes from the campground, so we joined them for a cycle ride back down Wolfe's Neck - this was the barn towards the end:



At the end of the road was the 1920s Stone House, owned by the University:



Looking through the front door showed the beautiful stained glass windows:



Another one visible from the rear deck:



It is a nice house and although not that old needs to be preserved, but it was clear to see that although not in bad condition, it would need a lot of expensive work to maintain it.

We cycled back to the shore line where we were this morning - view was a bit better now:



Now, here is a bit of a mystery. We looked directly south past Bustins Island:



On the extreme horizon we could see an array of structures sticking up, distorted by the extreme distance. In comparison the smoke stacks of the generating station on Cousins Island looked like they were mere walking distance:



We checked again after we had cycled back around towards our campsite, and these pinnacles on the horizon hadn't moved in relationship to each other, so that made me doubt they were yachts racing. Plus due south you soon run out of islands and the next thing in that direction is Cape Cod!

Discovered this racing snake on the way back off the beach - boy could it move - there were actually three of them and Sally was a bit shocked as one shot over her foot in a panic:



On our way back we spotted this basic TC - is this one of those cowboy campers?:





The ladies went in to check out the baby animals at the farm - looks like a Jersey:



Getting its salt intake for the day:



We cycled around the campground to the cabins that are now available to rent. These seem expensive, given they don't have bathrooms or electricity, but take into account the location and divide the cost by the 6 people who occupy it and the price sounds much more reasonable:



This is the view you are paying for from your deck:



While we trespassed on the deck a couple of cars turned up and a voice called out "Can I help you?". It was the people who had just rented the cabin. We got talking to them. They had rented these cabins for 3 years now and loved them. He was ex USAF and used to be based in the UK. She was from a village in Oxfordshire 15 miles from our house that we have walked around a several times, and married him while he was serving in the UK, before moving out to the US. This is what we tend to find when travelling - even in remote parts of New Zealand we have come across people who know the road we live on!

We left the family to it and carried on around the campground, getting off our bikes and pushing them along one of the walking trails:



We returned the bikes and bought well-deserved ice-creams from the office. Then back to the campers for dinner.

Tuesday 8th September : Bromont to Freeport

Following breakfast at McDonalds in Bromont we set off for the US border at Stanstead at the top of I91:



There weren't many people crossing that day, and we had to park and go into the office to do the paperwork. The border guys in the office were fine - joking amongst themselves. Though it does seem like a fairly heavy duty border presence unless Canada is actually a very unlikely harbinger of economic migrants, terrorists and drug smugglers. More likely I suspect the US has to harmonize all border controls and doesn't want to be seen to be more favourable to one neighbour than another.



Definitely in the US now:





A bit of old England here - a Norman style church - the style the Norman (French) invaders built in England after 1066:



We passed Crawford Notch and stopped for lunch just down the hill:



Then headed on towards the coast:



We stopped at the Factory outlet for LL Bean, but couldn't find anything we needed. We also looked for a Timex outlet where Derek had found expedition watches at a huge discount in the past. Sadly it had closed down.



Nikki had booked us several nights into Recompense campground just outside Freeport, Maine. I think these were sites 720 and 722. I was really careful about parking this time, trying to get the camper absolutely flat so both the shower and fridge would work:



It was fairly empty, which was great - a real change from the holiday weekend:



These sites don't have hook-up, but they have water a few yards away and there is a shower / toilet block a couple of minutes walk away.

Monday 7th September : Mont Orford to Bromont

We found the outside LED light by the side door to be very good, and the dinette a good size for us to sit around (being that the RV wall goes all the way to the floor rather than being stepped like a truck camper which restricts the dinette floor space), and plenty of interior LED lights.



That first night we had tried to work out how the curtains worked at the front of the RV, but being very tired I resorted to just attaching them together with the velcro - though that leaves quite a gap at the top - nearby campers might get a worrying view when you climb into the bed:



This raises another concern with the class C. I love having a fixed bed and our experiment with a class B showed that I hate having to make the dinette into a bed every night and back again in the morning. However, on a truck camper there is a nice, often wide, step below the bed. The class C has nothing there because that is the cab access, plus being a van it has quite a high cab. So in the night, when you need the bathroom, you have to feel with your feet to find the step on the back of the dinette couch. Miss that and you could tumble all the way to the RV floor.

The aircon was pretty good - this was the only night we had hookup, so we tried it and it worked well, but sticks up a long way on the roof and is therefore quite vulnerable:



There are no large roof escape hatches - there being a large sliding window as an escape route. On the roof are a couple of smaller vents - these use a T-handle to open and adjust them, which is quick and convenient - better than the rotary knob on my truck camper's vent:



The wet bath has a small electric extractor fan and a tall domed skylight (which is also quite vulnerable when backing up at tree-lined campsites):



However, we were parked at a slight angle. We are used to that and it makes no difference to us when sleeping. However, it made a big difference to the shower drain as Sally found. The shower is on the left side, the grey tank on the right, and it has a very flat drain which airlocks at the slightest angle:



This is more likely to happen because of the tendency to park so that your head is upwards in the east-west bed. But this puts the shower on the downward side. This may be difficult to avoid because the dinette is on the same side as the shower and that is what you use as a step, and hence needs to be at the foot of your bed.

I moved the RV later to drain the shower, but not before checking for a problem in the plumbing under the van. I didn't find one, but I did find this:



Yes, that orange section is unpainted steel where the builder has cut into the floor of the van to run pipes through it, then covered it with unpainted steel, which is covered in surface rust during the 7 months since it was built. Not a great sign of quality.

The RV also has an absorption fridge:



We've got used to a compressor fridge and were pleased to try a modern absorption fridge allowing us to run off the grid. But on Nikki's drive we had to park at an angle, so I turned the fridge off. Once on the road I had turned it on again and it got cold fairly quickly. But at Orford we had camped at a slight angle. It didn't feel like much of an angle - we happily park and camp at that angle or greater in our truck camper, but with the absorption fridge, that angle disabled it and it was warm in the morning. So when people say "if the camper is level enough for you to be comfortable then the fridge will work" bear in mind that comfort is in the eye (or behind) of the beholder.

At 9am we are down at the water's edge renting canoes. We get a 50% discount being campers as opposed to day visitors. I've never canoed before, but Derek has (though much of it was in central American rain forest) and kindly gave me some lessons.



We have a lovely hour paddling around the lake:





Afterwards we go to investigate Derek and Nikki's campsite:



It is soon time to leave the the campground, and we head back towards Derek and Nikki's house for a short hike up the mountain nearby, the trail of which Derek had a major hand in building:





It was interesting to compare experiences here because we had helped develop trails around the local woodland by our home also.

Dinner tonight was in Bromont - in that same bar / restaurant I was in 3 and a half years ago. I enjoyed some of their excellent selection of ales, brewed on site. That meant that afterwards Sally had to get acquainted with a left-hand-drive, automatic transmission, column-shift RV driven on the right. I forgot Sally doesn't have anywhere near the diverse driving experience I have - but after a quick refresher course she did well.



Back at Derek and Nikki's house we decided that for a quick getaway in the morning we would employ the Sleepy parking position at the relatively flat bottom of the drive - flat enough at least for the fridge to work (side-slope, not fore-aft):



Stay tuned for our crossing into the USA. For those reading this as I type, sorry, but you'll have to wait until after the weekend for the next instalment - all this talk about truck campers is making me desperate to use mine tomorrow - please check back in then...

Steve.