A new state of mind......

7:01 am - Thursday - September 20th - Shelburne, NH - 55º F, 82% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north by northeast.....cloudy, cold....with a forecast high of 66º F.

After spending 4 days in the Cabela's parking lot, and having driven many miles around the area seeing and doing stuff it was time to move along.  We've been in the state of Maine since May 12th, and while we have loved our sojourn in the 'Vacation State', it is time to see another state.....why not New Hampshire?

First things first, though......we hadn't dumped our black tank for two weeks, and it was getting pretty full.  Fortunately, Cabela's offers a free (so far) dump station for the use of its patrons, and overnight visitors.  We had thought about dumping when we first arrived, but I had determined the black tank was about 2/3's full, and we could make it for a few more days, which we did, but now it was time to dump it at last.  

We only had about 95 miles to drive Wednesday, so there was no big rush to get on the road, and no real hurry to dump our tanks.  We just took our time, not worrying about the time, and before we knew it we were ready to roll.  It was just 10 am......

Still free as of 9/19/2018

....as I have written previously, other than interstates, secondary roads in New England rarely, if ever, run in a straight line for very long.  Over the intervening 95 miles we would change highways some 6, or 7 times before arriving at our destination.  For much of our drive Wednesday we were still in Maine, only entering New Hampshire after the first 88 miles.

We had covered about 80 miles and it was time for a restroom break, and as we exited the small town of Bryant Pond we found a small roadside rest area, and exited the highway immediately for a break....

.....you never know what you will find while driving secondary roads, and this day was no different.  Apparently the last hand cranked magneto telephone system in the nation was operated in Bryant Pond until 1981 when it was sold by the proprietors to a larger phone company, and integrated into the national dial system.  I felt just a little smarter after this stop than I did before we stopped.....

......the scenery became quite mountainous as we steadily climbed into the White Mountains, and at one point we reach the lofty elevation of 1,000' before descending to 715' at our destination for the day......Shelburne, NH.....

.....at last we saw the 'Welcome to New Hampshire' sign, and knew we were just a few miles from our final destination, which I mentioned above.....Shelburne, NH.  Why Shelburne?  Easy.....it's just a few miles from Mt. Washington, which has been a bucket list item for us for quite a while.

We arrived at the RV park we had chosen for this stay early afternoon.  It was quite cloudy, and cold.  It's the first time we have been this far above sea level in months, and we are enjoying it.  The air is a little dryer, and temps a little cooler......perfect!  We arrived early enough that we could have driven up to Mt. Washington in the VW, but it was raining up there according to the weather report, so we decided to wait until Thursday hoping to get better weather then.  Mt. Washington sits at 6,288' above sea level, and boasts the highest wind velocity ever recorded by a surface weather station at 231 mph!

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No escrow needed.....

7:00 am - Wednesday - September 19th - Portland, ME - 57º F, 91% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the north by northeast.....heavy cloud cover with a forecast high today of 67º F, but we'll be a long ways away from here in another state when that happens.  One side note....we have found the weather forecasts for the Portland/Scarborough area to be much more accurate and reliable than those we were getting in Southwest Harbor.  Either the weather patterns in southern Maine must be much more predictable, or they weather guessers are on an incredible roll right now......:-)

Looks like a good day for a drive!

As I wrote yesterday morning, Tuesday, it was raining when we awoke, and it continued raining until about 2:30 pm.  By that time the day was spent, the roads would still be slick for another hour, so we decided to spend one more night at Cabela's.  Since it was raining, at times quite hard, we also decided to stay home for the day.  We had done everything we wished to do around Portland over the previous 3 days, and with no desire to get unnecessarily wet we called a 'rain day' and just spent the day inside reading.

When the rain came to an end I took the opportunity to run a couple of errands......take the trash out, and then run over to the local fuel station to fill up my 5 gallon gas can which I use to fuel our portable generator.  Until a couple of days ago we hadn't had a need to run our portable generator for over 4 months.  I did, however, pull it out about 3 weeks ago while we were at Tony's, and exercised it for about 30 minutes in anticipation of needing to use it while we travel over the next five weeks.   Better to find out then if something was wrong, and get it fixed before we needed it.  As it was, it started easily, and ran just fine.  It has been nice to have it to use as it has been quite cloudy the past few days meaning we were not getting enough sun for our solar panels to do their job.

That was pretty much our Tuesday.  After 4.5 months in Maine we will be bidding the 'Vacation' State adieu on Wednesday as we venture into New Hampshire, and then into Vermont over the next week, or two.  It is wonderful to be able to change one's view without going through escrow, is it not?

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We're retired,right?

7:32 am - Tuesday - September 18th - Portland, ME - 69º F (really? already?), 98% humidity (has been raining for hours.....should be at least 100%, right?), wind 8 mph out of the south by southwest (I agree with this one).  Forecast high for today is 72º F and rain until early afternoon.  We had planned to depart Portland today, but we're retired and don't have to be anywhere, plus no one likes driving a 40,000 lb. motorhome/trailer in the rain, right?  So, we think we'll continue to hang out here in the Cabela's parking lot and see what happens...........

Welcome to our neighborhood!

We arrived in Portland, ME on Saturday afternoon, and needed to stay around until Monday so we could drive over to Waterboro to get our drug testing for Amazon out of the way.  We had to have it done by 9/18/2018, and they were not open on Saturday, so Monday was our earliest option.  The small clinic opened at 9:30 am, so we left around 9:15 to make the 30 minute drive.    As is often the case in the northeastern part of out country, the roads rarely run straight for very long, so we had to change directions and roads 4, or 5 times before we had covered the 21 miles between us and Waterboro.  

As we pulled into the parking lot I noted it was around 9:50 am.  We were back in the car on our way back to Portland by 10:15 am after having donated a few ounces of human liquid effluent for drug testing.

I believe I mentioned the other day that TLE was looking for a new pair of shoes for Amazon.  There is a DSW shoe store (Designer Shoe Warehouse) in Portland near the Maine Mall.  TLE is a member of this national chain, and gets a discount when she shops there, so it was an obvious choice to try and find her new shoes there....

.....it is a ginormous store with features women's shoes, but also has a men's section.  So, here the deal......why is it that anytime you go to a shoe store, about 2/3's to 3/4's of the shoes are for women?  I've even noticed this in thrift stores.....there will be 25 racks of women's clothing, and maybe 4, or 5 for men's clothing.  It's even more dramatic for shoes in thrift stores......there may be 8 racks of shoes (double sided) and only one side of one rack has men's shoes.  So, why is that?  Do men just wear their clothes and shoes until they disintegrate into a pile of dust,  or do women change their wardrobes out way more frequently than men?  These are things I think about on a daily basis.....after all, I'm retired so what else do I have to worry about? 😋

TLE did find a very nice pair of Pumas within about 25 minutes.....that is a record!  Next we were off to the local T.J.Maxx store to look for some new sheets for our queen size bed.  Amazingly she found just what she was looking for in about 10 minutes.....that is a new world record!

Like most malls, the Maine Mall has a theater complex nearby.  We haven't been to a move for a while, so I asked TLE to look up what was playing at the Cinemagic Theaters.  This theater has large, electric, leather recliners from which to view movies.....we last went to a theater like this in Sparks, NV a few years ago.  One of the movies playing there is 'Peppermint' starring Jennifer Garner.  I remember her from the TV series entitled 'Alias' in which she played this bad ass spy.  This series ran from 2001-2006, so it was pretty successful.  Based on the trailers we have seen it appeared that in Peppermint she was playing a similar character, so we decided to check it out.  It's just 90 minutes long, so not a big investment of time for retired people, right?

Getting comfortable!

.....I won't go into the details of the movie, but the script follows the classic 'biter bit' theme, and was actually a pretty good movie for two old retired folk to while away 90 minutes.  If you like action movies where the hero wins out in the end, this is the movie for you!

Our very, very good friends, Steven and Linda ('The Chouters'....pronounced 'shooters') sent us a message a few days ago that we had to check out a local Portland eatery called 'Duckfat' located on Middle Street in old Portland.  They have never steered us wrong, so we decided about 2 pm to make the drive over and check them out for a late lunch.....

.....they specialize in Belgian Frites (fries) cooked in duck fat.  They come in two sizes....small and large....of course.  We opted to split a large order of fries, and then also ordered a Beef Brisket Panini sandwich to split betwixt the two of us.  To chase these delicacies we each ordered a pint.....for me it was Allagash White (no surprise there), and for TLE it was Founders Coffee (stout)....OMG that Founders Coffee had such a wonderful coffee aroma, and finish!  This is a very SMALL eatery....all the tables are 'community' tables, which were all full when we entered, so we opted for two side by side bar stools at the very small 6 person bar.  In all I think they can seat about 30 people at a time.....

.....so, how was everything?  Well, this place gets a rare 5 stars for me.  Yelp gives them 4 solid stars on 1,909 reviews!  1,909?  That is the most reviews I have ever seen for a restaurant.  Yelp provides over 1,000 pictures of their dishes, etc......

.....the famous Belgian Frites (fries) above with the five dipping sauces, and the description of our 'flight' of sauces....we got all 5, of course.....is below.  My favorites were the horseradish and mayo, and the garlic mayo, however, all of them were delicious....

.....we were there until almost 4 pm before we decided it was time to drive our Belgian Frite swollen bodies home.  We made one more stop at a local Goodwill to donate my old golf irons I wrote about in yesterday's post, so the circle is complete.  I have a new, to me, set of irons, and my old ones can now be owned and used by someone new.

For our evening entertainment we watched a recorded episode of 'Last Ship', and a few 'American Pickers' episodes before heading off to slumberland once again.  It is nice to remember that we are retired and are not tied to any schedule.

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It was all TLE's idea......I swear!

6:50 am - Monday - September 17th - Portland, ME - 62º F, 100% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the south......foggy with a forecast high today of 77º F.

It is much more humid here in Portland than it was in Southwest Harbor when we left.  We've been living in somewhat humid conditions most of the summer, so we've gotten used to it to the extent we don't complain about it anymore.  Thankfully it has only been in the 70's the first two days, and we haven't had to resort to using the A/C.  We just sit outside in the afternoon in the shade cast by the Newell and it is not bad at all.

So, what to do on a Sunday in Portland, ME?  TLE had a good idea.....in fact a couple of good ideas.....maybe even three......she found two Goodwills in the area, and the Allagash Brewing Company on Industrial in Portland!  Okay, so she had a fourth good idea.......hit up the local Trader Joe's!

We left home around 10:30 am heading for the first Goodwill.  It was only a couple of miles away, and pretty soon we were wading through the racks looking for t-shirts, shorts, etc.  TLE managed to find one pair of shorts, and I found a 'Ball' jar.....I use them for mixed drinks.  Then it was on to the next Goodwill where we both found a few more things we could not live without.  I found a whole new set of golfing irons (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, PW) and a new putter for $2 each, as well as an almost new pair of Bass flip flops for $4 ($25 new).   I've been unhappy with the original set of irons I purchased at the Goodwill in Carson City a few years ago, and have been looking for another matched set.  I know, I don't play a lot of golf, but one of the things holding me back all this time was I didn't like my unmatched set of irons at all, and I wasn't in love with my putter either.  So now I have a new set, and will donate the current set back to Goodwill.

It was now just after 12 pm, and time for lunch so we drove a few miles further to the aforementioned Allagash Brewing Company for some lunch and brews.  First we started with a 'flight' of four of their brews.....$5.......

Allagash Brewing Company

 'Flight' of brews

.....once we had both decided on what we wanted we ordered them (Allagash Black for me, and TLE their Curieux)....then we headed over to the food trailer to order our lunch.....

.....a lobster roll for TLE.....

.....and a lobster BLT for moi.....

.....there is nothing.....I repeat, nothing better than really good beer paired with really good food, and that is what we got at Allagash Brewing Company on Sunday.  After eating we hung out sitting in their beer barrel Adirondack chairs (made from beer barrel staves) for another hour enjoying the cooling weather, and lower humidity....

.....we finished off our stay at Allagash with a couple of Allagash Whites.....still my favorite Belgium White Wheat Ale ever!

......soon my watch told me it was after 2 pm and time to begin our trek over to Trader Joe's.....we haven't seen a Trader Joe's in over 4 months.....oh how we have missed you, Trader Joe's!  This Portland Trader Joe's is, by far, the largest TJ's we have ever seen.  We managed to find a bottle of the same Argentinian Malbec (Catena) that we had with our anniversary dinner at Red Sky a couple of weeks ago......$15 at TJ's, and $41 at Red Sky.....

.....we were done shopping and back in the Beetle for the drive home before 3 pm.  I sat outside for the rest of the afternoon enjoying the cool breezes, and napping in one of our beach chairs, while TLE stayed inside (allergies)......

......caught a picture of the sun setting over Cabela's.

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Southbound and down........

7:10 am - Sunday - September 16th - Portland, ME - 62º F, 92% humidity, wind - CALM - clear with a forecast high today of 77º F.

We awoke to fog Saturday morning......not heavy, I can't see 10 feet kind of fog, but the kind of fog you wouldn't want to drive through for any length of time.....

.....see what I mean?  We discussed just staying in Ellsworth another day and then heading south for several reasons.  Reason #1 was the fog which hung around until after 11 am, and reason #2 was that we were kind of hemmed in where we were parked.  If you look at the picture above you can see a black SUV parked just in front of the Class A motorhome, right?  Well, that was how I was going to exit my parking spot.....I was blocked to the front, and just to the right you can see one of those shopping cart return stations.  We didn't know if that SUV belonged to a Walmart employee (it was not there when we went to bed), or what.  If 'he' didn't move we were stuck.  The people in the Class A had taken their car out of their trailer and took off to go sightseeing, so they weren't moving.

While all this was playing out TLE made me one of my favorite breakfasts of all time.  Why 'all time'?  Well this was the first breakfast she made me after we were married.    So, a little background.  We spent our wedding night at the Pasadena Hilton in, of course, Pasadena, California......Sunday, August 29th, 1971.  The next morning, Monday, we had breakfast in a restaurant, and then began our drive to South Lake Tahoe where we had rented a cabin for a week.  We arrived in SLT just before sundown Monday evening, and before we checked into our cabin TLE had me stop at a local supermarket called 'Bijou Market' (still there) so she could buy a few food items.  The next morning, Tuesday, August 31st, she made me this exact breakfast......two English muffins, two slices of cheddar cheese, 6 slices (3 for each English muffin) of Buddig Beef, topped with two sunny side up eggs.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  She hadn't made it for me in a long time, and I had mentioned my interest in having this dish for breakfast in the near future, so she made it happen!  I love you TLE!

About 10:30 am I noticed some movement in the black SUV......someone  was sleeping in it, and had just awakened.  Within 20 minutes they had driven off and our exit lane was  wide open!  I turned over the big Detroit Diesel 6v92, pulled through the gap and repositioned the coach facing the exit of the parking lot with no obstructions in front of us.  Now if the fog would just dissipate!  About 11:15 am the sun had come out and the fog had lifted.  We decided to hit the road south to Portland, and were on our way by 11:30 am

On our way north 4 months ago we had stopped off overnight at the Cabela's in Scarborough, just south of Portland.  They have excellent RV parking, and a dump station, which we will need to use when we leave Portland on Monday.

The drive south was completely uneventful......just like we like it.....and after one 20 minute stop at a Rest Area we arrived in Portland around 2:45 pm.  The Newell ran like a charm as we seemed to be floating down Interstate 95 on a cushion of air.  The temp had gotten close to 80º F in Portland Saturday, and it was noticeably humid as we found a good parking spot and set up for two nights. While we drove we began to notice the leaves are beginning to get a little color as Fall approaches.....

Picture courtesy - TLE

.....not a lot of color....just enough to let you know Fall is just around the corner.

About 5:30 we decided to walk into Cabela's to do a little window shopping.....TLE does want to buy another pair of shorts, and perhaps a new pair of shoes for Amazon, but she didn't find anything that fit her that was on sale......she is so thrifty!  I love all the props and displays they have inside the store......

 Just a sample of a few of the exhibits

We spent the evening reading.........I had a College football game on in the background....and were in bed by 10:30 pm.  It is good to be back on the road, isn't it?

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