On July 8th, we packed up the house and pulled out of our campground in New Hampshire. Getting ready for the move had been a bit more time consuming that usual due to us remodeling the entire back 1/3 of our house but we finally got things tucked away and strapped in and hit the road for Maine. It was just about a 2 hour drive from Carroll, New Hampshire to Riverbend Campground in Leeds, Maine and, for once, the drive actually went super smoothly. We had filled up both gas tanks earlier in the week so we didn’t even need to stop. The cats all made the trip inside the house and Harley rode with me in the car. We have a fairly level pull-through spot and nothing was destroyed or broken in the house so there really wasn’t a lot for me to straighten up once we arrived, either. We got settled quickly and found ourselves with a novel problem – what were we going to do for the rest of the evening?
As we were sitting outside on our HUGE lot, an employee of the campground wandered over and offered me some fresh made popcorn. I am a tremendous lover of popcorn and was immediately delighted. We were told that they were having a food truck on site at 5:00 and would have a band playing at 7:00. Our spot, aside from being so large that we were initially confused by it, is also located directly across from the activity center and catty-cornered from the pool. We decided to do something crazy – something we had never done before (certainly not for a really long time, anyway) and SPEND THE EVENING AT HOME DOING NOTHING! Usually on move days, something goes wrong and we have to spend the evening fixing things or cleaning up or running to the store. We often are so worn out after a move that we don’t feel like cooking so we venture out in search of dinner from a nearby restaurant. In this case, the food and entertainment were coming to us!
We walked down the lane to the office/store and bought some ice cream snacks. The lady working the office was super friendly and wonderful and we chatted with her for a while before heading back to the house. At 5:00 we walked over to the food truck and got dinner and ate in the house while watching some television. The truck was called “Shut Up N Eat It” and we had the Mac Dog, the Slop, an order of fries and a Fried Dough.
When we were done eating, we walked back over to the activity pavilion and chatted with a few people. We retired back to our site, pulled out some lawn chairs and talked to several other campers who stopped by with questions about the tiny house and we listened to the band play for a while. Another staff member came over once the music was underway and talked for quite a while. He gave us lots of information about the surrounding area and a few recommendations on things to do. After he left, we eventually came back inside and got ready for bed. This was absolutely the best campground we had been to in a long while and we slept contentedly all night.
On Sunday we decided to drive into the state capital, Augusta, which was only about 30 minutes away. We found a well rated brunch spot in a town called Gardiner, Bintliff’s Corner Brew, and enjoyed a Kennebec Breakfast Sandwich and a Librarian Omelette along with two local sodas then took a stroll through the cutest area imaginable.
We shopped in a small department store and stopped by a gaming shop for a few packs of Magic the Gathering cards (we have decided to start playing again- we already told you all we were nerds) then walked along the Kennebec river on the way back to the car. We ran a few other errands (including finding a roadside Strawberry stand and a small farm market where we bought some pastries) and took a drive through Augusta (where the streets are lined with giant painted fish) then came back home for another quiet evening of television and relaxation. We could definitely get used to this life!
On Thursday night, we were bored so we took Harley for a ride. There are several lakes near us but most of the lakeshores are private property. We did finally find a spot to pull over and stretch our legs in Livermore Falls at the Livermore Dam. Harley kept trying to drink from the water but it would splash up in her face pretty often and she soon grew tired of trying. We couldn’t get over how fast the water was moving! We also found a little trail area but were attacked by mosquitoes (like seriously swarms of them) and retreated to the car after about 2 minutes. We ended up back at the house where John made stir fry beef for dinner using some mushrooms, onion, and garlic scapes he had picked up from a local farm stand and some beef from the grocery store.
On Friday evening, the campground had another food truck. This one was called Hero’s on Wheels and is a local veteran-owned truck. We had the Steak Bomb and an order of Chicken Fingers with fries. Of course, we had to get the fried dough for dessert. It turns out that’s a thing in Maine and we aren’t upset about it at all.
Other than that, it’s been a pretty quiet week. Between the rain nearly every day and the insane number of mosquitoes in the evenings and other bugs during the day, we haven’t ventured out much. We typically love doing outdoor things but we also prefer to not be eaten alive by swarms of insects so we have been spending time on the couch watching television and movies. We have been trying to knock off movies that we have never seen before so we ended up watching Good Will Hunting and Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania which we both really enjoyed. Television wise, we watched (and HIGHLY recommend) The Bear (season 2 now streaming on Hulu) and Acapulco (3 seasons streaming on AppleTV- we just started season 2).
We did order a few things from Amazon but, due to shipping delays from the Prime Day rush and the fact that we are very much in the middle of nowhere, our 2-Day shipping has turned into 6 day shipping so I will be sure to talk about our purchases and give brief reviews of those next week. And yes, we know that Amazon is not a great company but our lifestyle sometimes requires items that are hard to locate in stores wherever we happen to be that week (bags for our composting toilet, various pieces and parts for the house, specialty electronics). We try to shop local as often as we can but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way.
Coming up next week: Christmas in July and so many donuts!
