The end of 'Island Life'.......

7:31 am - Saturday - September 15th - Ellsworth, ME - 54º F, 100% humidity, wind 2 mph out of the east by northeast.....foggy......

Fog in Ellsworth

.....forecast high today for Ellsworth is 73º F, but we will not still be here.....the high in Portland, were we are headed, will be 71º F, and it appears it is foggy there, also.

We were up before 7 am on Friday, our departure day.  As usual I woke up several times during the night thinking about what needed to be done before we rolled our wheels.  Our Jello goal was to be doing just that between 10 and 11 am, and our day's destination was Ellsworth.  Ellsworth?  Yup....the road between Tony's home and Trenton, which is just off the island, is quite narrow, and rough, and I knew by the time we covered the 20 miles to Ellsworth over those roads I would be ready for a break, so we just decided that would be it for the day.  We needed to do a BIG shopping, and there is a Walmart Supercenter in Ellsworth....perfect!

Amazingly, we were rolling our wheels away from Tony and Janet's home by 10:58 am, and on our way through the local maze of incredibly narrow roads.  Driving through Southwest Harbor at 11 am with all the cars parked along each side of the street can be difficult in the Beetle, but now I am doing it with an 8 foot wide, 62 foot long motorhome/trailer.  Needless to say, we took our time, and drove very slowly.  As far as we know no small animals, or children were harmed.

Once we were past the downtown area things widen out for a while, but then comes Somesville, with even narrower streets.  Once we get past Somesville the roads widen somewhat, but the problem is the outer edges of the road are very crumbly and rough, so even though the road is technically wider the usable portion of the road is, once again, quite narrow.  I find myself driving with my left wheels right on the yellow line.....not fun!

At last we come to the bridge which separates Trenton from Mount Desert Island......

 The 'Narrows' bridge......almost off the island.....

....and there is Trenton!

......and then we were entering Trenton, and much wider roads!  It's about 7-8 miles to Ellsworth from Trenton, and our first order of business would be stopping at the local Shell fuel station to take on propane.  We last filled our 60 gallon tank in mid May, and it was down to about 15 gallons left.  We had noted this Shell station a week, or so before when we were in Ellsworth and had both commented that the station provided easy in and out access, so we had decided that was where we would fill up our propane tank......

 I've only seen one of these propane stations once before, and that was in Flagstaff, AZ.....it's just like using a regular fuel pump, except one of the staff must operate it.

......we took on just over 38 gallons at a total cost of $134.80.  No need for diesel as are tank is still almost full....we last topped off our diesel tank in Portland, ME mid May....we'll probably make it into early October before it is necessary to do so again.  The Walmart is about two blocks from the Shell station and we were there and parked by 12:05 pm.  Just over an hour had passed since we left Tony and Janet's, but it seemed much, much longer......

Set up for the night....time to shop!

......we spent an hour slowly walking through Walmart buying what was needed, and were back to the Newell by 2:15 putting away groceries and relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.

So, our 4 months of 'island life' has come to an end.  We are on our way to new adventures, new views, new places.

Thanks for stopping by!

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