2023 New England in June

                                          

Judy and I are off for a trip to Maine, both to catch up with friends and family as well as see new places.  Traveling with us are our doggie buddies, Zoey and Parker.  Just to review, about 3 months ago (March 22nd to be exact) we started out on a trip with a 10 week old Golden Retriever, Parker the Puppy that we had adopted only a week earlier and weighed 19 pounds.  We wondered if we were crazy.  Today, we start another road trip, albeit a much shorter one, with that same puppy who now weighs 55 pounds!!  He doesn't really look like a puppy anymore, although he still has a puppy brain.  😊 

We left on Friday, June 16th and our New England trip will include 4 stops.  The first one is a new one for us, the Brattleboro KOA in East Dummerston, Vermont for 3 nights.  

274 miles:  Rt 812 to Utica, I-90 to Albany, I-87 to Troy, NY 7 and VT 9 to Brattleboro

Site B-23

This KOA is a very small and charming one.  The pads are generally level, gravel and the sites are larger than the average KOA.  The atmosphere fits right in with the bucolic setting of this area of rural Vermont.  The hosts, Kat and Alan are extremely pleasant and outgoing.

Judy's daughter Christl and family drove over from Babcock Lake in NY, about a 90 minute drive, and spent Saturday with us.  Judy's son Matt and Mary Ann brought up their camper from Hyde Park for the weekend as well.  So, we had lots of activities.  Between dog walking, face painting, playground visits and catching up conversation, it was a very busy, but fun day.  On Sunday, Fathers Day, we made the 90 minute drive to Christl's for BBQ ribs and family time.  After returning to the campground, we had campfire time with Matt and Mary Ann.

Our next stop, again for 3 nights and again, another new campground for us was the Shore Hills RV Park in Boothbay, Maine.

231 Miles:  I-91, NH 9, I-89, NH 101, I-95, I-295, US 1, Maine 27.

Site 132: back in with nice wooden patio.

Shore Hills is a very nice park.  The campground basically consists of 2 sections; a heavily wooded section with 30 amp service, and a newer section that is much more open and has larger sites with 50 amp service, which is where we are.  I no longer get the thrill I used to have of trying to navigate and back into small wooded sites.  😁  That said, I discovered some beautiful large sites in the wooded section on my dog walks.

That's us at the far end on the left.  On one of my dog walks, I counted 18 motorhomes
and only 6 trailers. The center pull thru section was completely full of motorhomes.

View of the tidal basin at low tide from site 57.

Neat looking retro camper on a large wooded site.

Beautiful view of tidal basin at low tide from site 76.

On Tuesday our friends Christine and Nava (actually hometown our HS classmates from back in the day) who now live in South Portland joined us.  They took us to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, just 10 minutes away from the campground.  We went to the gardens last year, but it was more than we could cover in a day.  Unlike last year, the gardens were very busy, but they are so large and spread out, the crowds were not a problem.

Rebar reindeer sculpture.

On Wednesday Chris and Nava again returned to Boothbay and we joined a 2 hour sail tour.  We had the most amazing sailing adventure out of Boothbay Harbor on the East Wind Schooner.  The crew, Captain Sean, John and Megan were great teachers.  Not only was the wind and weather perfect,  we learned so much about sailing technique and even got to help hoist the sails and steer the helm.   It was a wonderful experience.  More about them here: Boothbay Sailing.

Schooner Eastwind

Captain Sean

Captain Sean even took this video of the 4 of us and added his own humorous dialogue.

We ended that day with a late lunch/early fish and chips dinners at Robinsons Wharf in Southport.

Thursday the 22nd was a moving day for us. We arranged for a late checkout at Shore Hills, since the drive today to Sun Outdoor Saco/Old Orchard Beach Campground was only 2 hours, retracing the samee roads getting here. We stayed at the park last year and we liked it. By shear coincidence, we were placed on the same site we were last year, 155.

Sun Outdoors Saco/Old Orchard Beach Campground:  Site 155.

Friday we went to Chris and Nava's house in South Portland, about 30 minutes away and spent a leisurely afternoon.  Parker the Puppy played with their dog Dooley until they both were exhausted.  The 4 of us went to Portland to try out a new brew pub, the Liquid Riot.  They had a great selection of their craft beers, and they even make a non alcohol brew, Lucid.  Later, after stopping at a fresh fish market to pick up ingredients for dinner, it was back to the house for homemade fish stew, one of Chris' specialities.

Beautiful view of the fishing harbor from the deck of the brew pub.

The weather Saturday turned slightly wet with a continual drizzle.  We had tickets to see the musical Newsies at the Seacoast Repertory Theater in Portsmouth, NH.  And what a great show it was!  The theater is small and intimate (280 seats) so everyone is close to the players.  Newsies is based on an actual event, the NYC newsboys strike in 1899.  The show was on Broadway for a number of years and then turned into a Disney production.  A great summary of the newsboys and the musical can be found on Wikipedia.

280 seat Seacoast Repertory Theater

Sunday we moved on to the KOA in Quechee, Vermont. We ave stayed at this campground many times in the past, as it is a convenient halfway point from our home to Portland.  But we made a stop on the way.  Judy's cousin Mike and his wife live in Merrimack, NH which involved a short detour on the way.  Mike and Jane offered us lunch and we had a great couple of hours catching up.  Then it was on to Quechee.

Cousins Judy and Mike

Quechee KOA:  Site 13

Monday morning we went shopping at the Quechee Gorge Village.  This eclectic mall has all sorts of shopping opportunities, including the Quechee General Store,  Vermont Antique Mall,  Vermont Alpaca Store, as well as other small shops.

On Monday we made two more Potsdam HS connections on our RV travels this year. Mom and daughter, Grandma Kathy Robinson, daughter Brooke and Granddaughter Chloe in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Kathy is a former colleague and Brooke is a former student. It is so nice to stay connected with the past. We had a really nice lunch catching up.

Parker is tired, and so are we.  Time to go home.

Tuesday, June 27th we made the uneventful 5 hour drive back home to Gouverneur.

Thus ends our 12 day swing through New England, where we added new adventures to our travels and caught up with some wonderful family and friends. Stay tuned for our next adventure!