The Slide is Fixed

My amazing husband has fixed our slideout so it goes out and yes it goes in as well. Well done, Bob!

I spent the hot day on Wednesday sewing, and made this project bag. It features a product I’ve never even heard of before, called foam stabilizer, to make the sides of the bag stiff enough to stand up and hold its shape. I must say, it worked very well and was extremely easy to machine quilt through.

Today we did a little antiquing and I found this old Fisher Price record player with all the records. Daughter Catherine has been wanting one for little Jillian.

I got it all cleaned up and it’s ready to entertain a new generation. 

Castine, Maine

On Sunday Bob and I put Auggie in the car and drove about an hour to Castine, Maine, a quaint little coastal town. It was a perfect day, with temperatures in the low 70s and a light breeze blowing off the ocean. We parked by the water and just soaked in the view.

This is the entire business district, consisting of a visitor’s center, a restaurant and ice cream parlor, and an inn and antique shop. The Maine Maritime Academy is a couple of blocks away and we saw sailors walking around (and a few tourists,) but other than that it was pretty quiet here, which suited us just fine. This is more of a residential area than a tourist trap, and I could picture living here.

Castine is filled with historical buildings and churches, and many of the homes have water views.

A very pleasant day!

We have been having problems with the electrical service here at the campground, and have not been able to run any air conditioner most of the time. The campground management has been sympathetic but they insisted there wasn’t anything they could do with the site we were on. So on Monday they told us we could move to a different site. We packed up, pulled in the slides...and were unable to pull in the bedroom slide all the way. Or put it back out again. Uh oh. That’s not good. It was still sticking out about a foot. Bob decided we could move anyway so he very carefully drove the motorhome two sites down and parked.

The electrical service at this site is better but is not the 50 amps it is supposed to be. Still, we can make do.

On Tuesday Bob called CoachNet, our emergency roadside service, and spoke with a technician who helped him figure out what to do with the disabled slideout. He spent most of the day messing with it and managed to remove the motor. He has located another motor and will be replacing it today. Fingers crossed it will work!

I have found a very nice fabric store nearby and am working on sewing projects. There are also some very nice antique shops nearby. And once Bob gets this problem solved we want to visit Acadia National Park. It’s all good.

Maine

The day before we left New Hampshire, we drove out to Mexico, Maine, to Rare Woods USA LLC. Bob was looking for some wood he could carve and also some wood for turning on his lathe. We found some good pieces.

From L-R: Wild Olive, Alaskan Yellow Cedar, East Indian Rosewood, Argentinian Lignum Vitae, Katalox, Cedrorana

This place was such fun. There were rooms and rooms of different woods.

The next day, we drove the motorhome four hours east to our next campground in Orono, ME. The scenery along the way was so pretty.

We’ll be here for two weeks, although we have discovered the electrical service here is not the 30 amp we were told it would be. It’s a good thing summer is ending because we may not be able to run our AC at all. Or the microwave. Although if we want to run the generator and use our own fuel we can have these amenities.

At least we are right on a pretty lake. And the people here are friendly. We’ll make do.

Crafting in New England

I realized that I have not shown you, dear blog reader, what I’ve been working on lately. My temperature blanket continues to grow daily.

I have a number of specialty heddles from Stoorstalka and Vävstuga that I want to protect so I took a pair of quilted pillow shams from a thrift store and sewed up pouches for each of my heddles.

I’ve been weaving, too. Here is the eight shaft, 9 1/2” wide Leclerc Voyageur loom that I purchased from my friend, Jeen.

She had sold it to me all warped up for a sampler project and I’ve been having fun using her notes and weaving blocks of patterns. It’s fun to see the designs that appear on the loom.

Bob has been working on his carvings and has made a goat and a horse. I’m very impressed!

Mount Washington

Bob and I have been planning for weeks to drive up Mount Washington’s Auto Road, a half hour drive to the top of the northeast’s tallest mountain. We allowed a week in the area to be certain we’d have a nice day and it was a good thing we did because it has been overcast or rainy much of this week. On Monday morning, however, we took advantage of the partly cloudy forecast and booked a tour.

Why did we go for a tour rather than drive ourselves? Well, Bob loves to tell the story of him driving through Glacier National Park on the Going to the Sun Road years ago. The road was narrow with lots of twists and turns, and if you were to run off the road you’d fall about a mile to the bottom before your bodies became grizzly food. So I sat looking out the window like this, “ Ooh, that’s the most amazing view DON’T LOOK! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!” And he didn’t see very much.

Ok, we did take a bus tour later but the point is that on these drives the driver has to miss a lot.

The tour up Mount Washington was only a few dollars extra and was well worth it. We learned about the history of the area, the plant and animal life, and about the road itself. We both agreed that it was money well spent.

Temperatures were in the mid 50s with winds gusting to 20 mph. The warmest recorded temperature on top of Mount Washington was 72 degrees, and the strongest wind ever recorded on the planet (at the time) was here at 231 mph on April 12,1934. That record has since been broken in Australia where a gust of 253 mph was recorded in 1996.

The view was amazing

The famous Cog Railway still brings visitors up the mountain. The vegetation at this altitude is that of an arctic tundra.

The early buildings, like this one, have heavy chains that are run across the roof in several places and keep the building from blowing off the mountain in high winds.

There is also a small museum at the summit that educated visitors on Mount Washington history. And since this was the beginning/end point of the Appalachian Trail, there were lots of odorous hikers there. You could feel their excitement.

It was a nice day all around.

On to New Hampshire

Despite having to backtrack for 5 miles when we came upon a bridge that was out, we arrived safely at our New Hampshire campground not too far from the Auto Road to Mt Washington. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll have a pretty day for our drive to the top. There are a lot of cloudy/rainy days in the forecast for the next week.

Our trip here was full of beautiful scenery. Here are some of my favorite photos.

Note the sign. Fortunately we didn’t run into any moose. But it would have been nice to see one.

Montpelier, VT

Bob and I left West Chazy, NY in the rain on Tuesday but by the time we got to Vermont the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. There are three ways to get from West Chazy to Williamstown, VT and two of them involve a ferry. We chose the northern route which was less direct but didn’t involve crossing Lake Champlain on a boat. Here’s a glimpse of the lake with moored sailboats floating in it.

The scenery along the way was breathtaking.

Our campsite gets a thumbs up for internet and for scenic views but a rhumbs down for cell service, causing any phone call to be dropped without warning. But it sure is pretty here.

On Wednesday Bob and I drove north about 25 minutes to the state capital of Vermont, Montpelier. This city is proud to be the smallest state capital in the country, with a population of 7,535 residents. It is also the only capital without a Walmart or a McDonalds. But it does have several Bergamascos, large dogs with felted dreadlocks that hang around in a store called The Quirky Pet.

These guys (there were three in the store) were the official greeters and receivers of love, when they weren’t sleeping in front of a fan.

We ate a very nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Julio’s, where our waiter Draco brought us Margueritas, burritos and fajitas. Ah, such is the life! Afterwards we walked around the small downtown area and enjoyed the sights.

On Thursday we head for New Hampshire.

Montreal

Internet woes have prevented me from posting every day but I do it as I am able. We always hope for a better signal tomorrow!

On Friday Bob and I followed signs to a local antique barn’s Rooster Palouza, a flea market and antique sale near our campground. We enjoyed wandering through the offerings and I picked up a couple of treasures for our Mesa home.

We had been watching weather reports which predicted lots of rain in the forecast but those predictions did not come to pass. We had great weather almost our whole week here. Therefore on Saturday we decided to celebrate Bob’s upcoming birthday in style and leave the country.

It took us about a half hour to make it to the border and about five minutes to pass through. Easy Peasy! Another 45 minutes later we were pulling in front of a parking meter in Old Montreal. Parking in any big city can be difficult so I had researched possible sites through www.parkopedia.com, my new favorite parking guru webpage.

Our first stop was at the Château Ramezay, a lovely home built in 1705 for the Governor of Montreal.

It was filled with exhibits of life in colonial Canada such as finger woven sashes, paintings, and recreated rooms.

This portrait of Benjamin Franklin was one I have never seen before. It’s from the late 18th century and is from an English original preserved at the Offices Gallery in Florence, Italy. 

In this kitchen you see a large round cage set into the wall. A small dog would have been put into it to turn a roasting spit in the fireplace. When the dog ran, the wheel turned and so did the spit. This method was used at the end of the 17th century although spits were usually turned by hand.

The cigar store Indian was used as a tobacconist’s signboard. Since they were the first to grow tobacco in North America, Indians (called Amerindians in Canada) became a symbol of tobacco vendors beginning in the 1850s.

We had a lovely time wandering through cobblestones streets and visiting shops, and enjoyed a lovely lunch at Maggie’s Oaks.

Construction played havoc with our exit from Montreal but after being redirected several times we managed to get back on the road back to the States. And as a plus, the border crossing we ended up using was much less crowded than the one we had planned to use. So after five minutes we were through again and heading to the campground.

Bob’s actual birthday on Monday was more low-key. I made him a big breakfast and in the afternoon we took in a movie. It was a lovely day.

Tuesday is a moving day for us and we head for Vermont.

West Chazy, NY And the War of 1812

Happy Blogaversary to all of my loyal blog readers! This marks four years since I started recording our travels and I appreciate all of you for following my rambles.

On Tuesday, Bob and I traveled north from Rhinebeck, NY to the sleepy town of West Chazy, located on the NY/Canadian border. It was not a trip without issues; after 14 years or so of RVing we made the embarrassing mistake of driving off without unhooking our electric cord from the pedestal. Bob called the campground after discovering this and we are still waiting to hear if we will have to pay for the damage done. It could have been worse. Our cord is still useable and photos from the campground of the damage show just a small portion of the outlet having been torn off.

Apart from that, the trip went smoothly and we settled in for a week in upstate NY. It is beautiful country here and is filled with history. The next town over, Plattsburgh, NY, was the site of the deciding battle in the War of 1812. We visited the museum there on Thursday and learned quite a bit about the war itself and the battle that changed the course of the USA as well as Canada and England.

Do you remember much from your history lessons about this war? I sure didn’t. On June 1, 1812, President James Madison sent a war message to Congress, with the intent of declaring war on Great Britain. There were four main reasons:

• England had been seizing American sailors and forcing them into impressment on British ships. Between 3,000 and 6,000 American men were taken between 1807 and 1812.
• The U.S. wanted to trade with both Great Britain and France, who had been at war with each other since the 1790s. However, both countries tried to prevent the U.S. from trading with the other one by seizing American ships. 
• It was believed that the British were supplying Indians with arms in an effort to stop U.S. western expansion, which exacerbated attacks against American settlers in the Northwest.
• The U.S. wanted to take Canada. While this was not in the war message, a plan had been in place that if we went to war with Great Britain we would use this as an excuse to conquer lands north of the Great Lakes. It was generally assumed that it would be an easy conquest.

Less than three weeks later the United States declared war on Great Britain.

The Battle of Plattsburgh, on land and on Lake Champlain, took place September 6-11, 1814. Despite facing an Army and Navy of greater numbers, the U.S. forces out maneuvered the British and were victorious in this battle and in the Battle of Baltimore the very next day. This determined the end of the war and the Treaty of Ghent was signed soon afterwards.

According to a plaque at the museum:

“The War of 1812 has been called the “ Forgotten War.” Two years of fighting ended with no clear victor. There was no transfer of territory, no grand surrender. Instead each side gained a quiet victory. The war protected British interests in Canada while giving the Canadians an opportunity to show their loyalty to the Crown. Canada’s success in staving off American attacks gave rise to a budding feeling of Canadian identity. 

As the British tried to forget the War of 1812, Americans fully capitalized on it. The War solidified, once and for all, the concept of American independence. The country successfully came together as one to defend against the force of the British Empire. At the conclusion of this conflict there was a renewed sense of national unity and pride within the United States.”

For me, I came away with a greater understanding of why the war was fought and what was the outcome, which has always been much more interesting to me than the names and dates that my high school history teacher made me memorize.

The museum has a lovely collection of artifacts and paintings of the battle.

Tomorrow I’ll write about the rest of our week here.