Kennebunkport, ME

We arrived in Kennebunkport Maine yesterday. The weather is cool here and the air conditioners have not come on since we got here. We had the windows open for awhile but soon had to close them.

Buddy keeping Pam warm while they take a nap

We drove down to the beach this morning and it cost $25 a day to park. There were a lot of people walking and many of them with their dogs. Buddy was right at home. 

No sun to speak of all day

Our $25 parking spot

Some of the houses are large and some small. If we sold everything we own we still might not be able to purchase even a small one with an ocean view like the two below. These two houses only have the road and the sea wall between them and the beach.

Small house 

Large house

Condo on the beach

Portsmouth, NH

Yesterday, much to his disappointment, we left Buddy at the motorhome and drove back to Portsmouth. Thursday we were in Portsmouth driving around and noticed the best way to experience the city was by walking. We did not want to leave Buddy in the car in a parking lot so made the decision to come back without him on Friday. The city does have a dog park and we took Buddy there but on the whole does not appear dog friendly. We had tried to stop at a park near the seaport on Thursday and there were signs stating parking by permit only and no dogs allowed. Yesterday we exited US1 and took US1A that led to the beaches. We walked on the beach and noticed no dogs were allowed. We visited Odiorne Point State Park that was on land taken from the Odiorne family during World War II to build gun emplacements to protect the harbor. Of course the government never gives anything back and it is now a state park. Looking across the bay from the state park you are actually looking a Maine. When you cross the bridge over the inlet on US1 you are in the state of Maine and the town of Kittery.

There is a Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne Point State Park that is interesting and has aquariums with various species from the local area. In one tank is a large blue lobster and we had never seen a blue lobster before. Reading the sign we learned that pigments of red, blue, and yellow combine chemically to produce the mottled brown tone of the common American lobster. Occasionally a lobster is born with a genetic deformity that results in a brightly colored animal. About one in two million lobsters are born blue and one in ten million are orange. We tried to photograph the blue lobster but he seemed camera shy and backed into his lair before we could get a good shot.

Blue lobster

Seacoast Science Center

Children catching hermit crabs on the beach

Portsmouth was founded in 1630 and has one of the oldest working ports in the United States. At the center of town is the North Congregational Church that was organized in 1671. The present day building was built in 1855 on the site of the original church. William Whipple, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and John Langdon, a signer of the US Constitution, were members of the church. George Washington worshipped at the church on Nov 1, 1789.

North Congregational Church 

Plaque on church

Walking in downtown Portsmouth, NH

We were getting hungry and decided to try a pizza place named Flatbread All Natural Pizza with a stone oven where they tossed the dough and cooked the pizza in the fire. It was definitely tasty and we relaxed and watch pizzas being made.

The oven

Putting the pizza in the oven

Tossing the dough

Getting back on our schedule

 Tuesday morning we left Williamsport and started the journey to get back on our schedule and land in New Hampshire. We stopped for the night at a KOA near Oneonta, NY just off I-88. The first thing we noticed when exiting the interstate was that the GPS wanted us to turn right but signs for the KOA insisted we turn left. Years of experience told me I had better follow the signs even through I knew from viewing maps that the KOA was on the right hand side of the interstate. The signs took us winding back thru narrow country roads making several turns and routing us back under the interstate. We were beginning to wonder about our decision to follow the signs, especially when we got to the KOA and could see the bridge that was very close to the route the GPS had picked. Our first thought was that the bridge may have a very low weight limit so when checking in asked the lady why the signs took the long way here. She said there was a turn off the main road that was almost 180 degrees that only a car could make. Going back and viewing the turn from Google Maps we could see what she meant by a sharp turn. With the rig we have now and knowing the turn was there we could have made it but if you weren't expecting such a sharp turn you might not make it.

That KOA was quite plebeian and asphalt was nonexistent. There were large muddy spots in places and only a few sites that were available for transient RV's such as us. Most of the sites were filled with RV's set up as semi-permanent or permanent. Our water connection was on the opposite side of the motorhome and we had to route the hose under the chassis to make the connection. There was no sewer connection so we had to stop by the dump station on our way out the next morning. The campground did not have cable and over the air signals were too weak for our equipment. The satellite was blocked by trees so our only means of watching television was by streaming. Fortunately our Verizon  hotspot had a strong signal and the local traffic was low so streaming worked nicely. We chose this campground because it was about halfway between Williamsport and our New Hampshire destination. If we had done a little research we would have picked a different campground. Talk about rural, someone from Morgan County Tennessee would feel at home here.

If you have not spent any time traveling in New York state you might be surprised to know there are very few roads that are not constantly going up hill or down hill. The interstates here have many long and steep grades. Our new motorhome is built on a Ford E450 cutaway van chassis with the new 7.3 liter V8 and the 6 speed tow/haul mode transmission. This power train continues to impress us, especially the transmission. We can set the cruise on 65 MPH and when we hit one of those long downhill grades the speedometer stays locked on 65 MPH all the way down the hill and we do not touch the brakes or the accelerator. Even our little Chevy Sonic with its impressive 6 speed cannot do that although it does a nice job of transmission braking. We are curious how Ford is doing that and think it must have something to do with the torque converter.

We finally made it back to the East coast and you immediately notice the increase of traffic due to the dense population. We got to our new campground, Wakeda, which is a large campground with all the sites under the canopy of trees. No satellite here and the only over the air station we could get is PBS. The campground only has WiFi at their store and our Winegaurd Connect dose not see the signal from our campsite. The Verizon hotspot is slow due to high traffic so streaming is spotty. Connecting to live television streams is touch and go but Netflix's works ok. If you are unfamiliar with steaming live television it is not tolerant of gaps in the connection and you have to keep re-connecting which is a pain and you miss some content. This campground has a large number of permanent RV's on sites which seems to be common in this area. Folks from the large cities keep them like summer cabins for a place to escape the rat race of everyday life. Another component is folks from the Northeast who retire to Florida but don't like the hot weather there head back north in the summer. Walking around the campground you see a lot of Florida license plates.

 

Williamsport PA - Home of Little League Baseball

 Today we drove up to Williamsport known as the birthplace of Little League Baseball. On the way to the baseball park we drove down the section of West 4th Street know as millionaire's row. For about a mile on each side of the road were stately old Victorian styled mansions with barely enough room to walk between them. Near the end of West 4th Street is the location of the first Little League Baseball game and plaques commemorating Charles E. Stotz who organized the first Little League Team.

  

Looks like the rain is over

 The rain stopped here about 5 am just in time to take Buddy out for his morning walk. Buddy loves this campground because they have a large number of goats and chickens near the entrance. He always tries to pull me towards the pen where the goats are and is fascinated by them. I did not count them but would guess about 25 with 5 of them being babies. The young boys who tend the goats first get the babies isolated from the adults and feed them with a bottle and then they feed the adults.

Purchased some glue from Walmart the other day and when I tried to use it last night found out it was hard. Must have been old. Guess we will be off to Walmart again today for more glue. When we left home we had one bad tire pressure sensor for the Sonic. For those of you that are not familiar with towing a car behind a motorhome the tire pressure sensors are part of a system that continuously transmits the tire pressure to a monitoring device we can view as we drive the motorhome. If you develop a flat tire while towing the car you most likely will not know it until the tire catches on fire. With the monitoring system you are notified immediately. We had contacted the company that makes the system weeks before the trip and they were sending us a new sensor via Fedx. The only problem was they were slow and the new sensor arrived the day after we left home. Fortunately they sent another sensor to the campground we were at in Rhode Island and it arrived the day before we left there.

This storm dogging has prevented us form our planned campout in the state of Connecticut. I looked at what was involved with camping there on the way to New Hampshire and have decided we will do Connecticut at a later date. We are still planning a future trip to the Eastern Provinces of Canada and will work it in then.

Safe in North West PA

 We had made a reservation in Bristol, CT for a place to move to away from Wawaloam Campground and then the storm decided to move West with our newly chosen campground dead center of the path. When we got to the campground on Saturday we were informed that our reservation was canceled and the campground was being evacuated. We found a KOA near Williamsport, PA and spent the rest of the day traveling to our new destination. We are here now and will stay here until Tuesday morning when we will start moving back East and try to get back on our schedule.

Space Farms, Zoo, and Museum

 If you are like us when you see the name you wonder when did NASA put a farm, zoo, and museum in orbit. Or was it one of the billionaires? Turns out Space is the last name of the man who put it all together, Ralph Space. His son, Fred Space, wrote a book about his father and his endeavors.

https://www.amazon.com/Ralph-Space-Legend-Story-Beemerville/dp/B0049H684M

The farm, zoo, and museum is not far from Newton, NJ and we visited the site on Wednesday.

https://spacefarms.com/about/

Although there are many animals here they are all behind fences and many of them behind two fences to keep people from sticking their hands and fingers inside the fence. We are not a fan of taking photos thru fences so will not post pictures of the animals. There are two acceptations of chickens. At the front of the building a roster seems to keep watch and remained in the same spot for our entire stay.

Guard roster

There was an interesting chicken that had free roam of the grounds and was worthy of a photo.

The museums were interesting and full of old cars, tool, motorcycles, etc.

1918 Harley-Davison

Model T Ford

My Dad had a 1923 Model T that he cherished. For years people would stop by his body and fender shop and try to buy the old car. He would not sell and I once remember him being under a car working and someone came in with an offer to buy and Dad would not even come out from under the car.

 

Hurricane Henri

 We got here to Wawaloam Campground in West Kingston, RI yesterday and have a reservation for 3 nights scheduled to leave on Sunday. Hurricane Henri is headed straight for us so we will be leaving in the morning and moving 100 miles west into Connecticut. We have been here before and visited Newport where all the mansions are but have never camped in Rhode Island. We have now so can officially count this state.

Newton, NJ

Those of us from down south have a tendency to think big city when we hear the words New Jersey or New York but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure there are densely populated areas of both those states but there are more rural and farming areas than crowded cites. Newton is the county seat of Sussex County and a very old township. Sussex County claims to be the greenest county in New Jersey and looking around the country side seems to support that claim. We noticed many fields of tall, healthy looking corn and even sunflowers. When we think of sunflowers we think of North Dakota but here we are in New Jersey with fields of sunflowers. There are farms and gardens at every turn and we have seen numerous road side stands selling local vegetables. The topography is very hilly and reminds us of East Tennessee.

Welcome sign

Sunflowers near the welcome sign

At the center of downtown Newton is a square that has been there since 1762 and was originally the courthouse yard. It was used for political meetings, corporal punishment, militia training, public entertainment, and a common pasture. Until 1858 voters in township elections indicated their choice by moving either up or downhill on the green for a head count. North bound traffic passing thru Newton navigates the downhill side of the square and South bound traffic the uphill side.

Looking downhill at the square across the path for South bound traffic

 

Facing South bound traffic traveling uphill

North bound traffic traveling downhill

Looking downhill inside the square

Monument inside the square

Presbyterian church above square

Us parked beside the Presbyterian church

Typical houses near the square

House behind the church

Old mansion now used as a rest home

 

 

Our first trip in the Quantum JM31

We are on our first trip with the Quantum JM31 and left home on Saturday. We planned this trip after ordering the JM31 in January and were hoping we would be in the new coach by August because some of our campground choices were based on having the smaller rig. As we write this we are at The Great Divide Campground in Western New Jersey. This is a 100 acre campground with narrow, winding, and hilly roads in rural New Jersey and walking in the campground this morning we saw six deer. We have not seen any diesel pushers in the campground and sure glad we don't have to maneuver one here. This is our first stop for more than one night and was chosen so we could claim we have camped in New Jersey. We had originally planned to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and camp on the shore of Delaware and then take the ferry over to New Jersey and camp on the coast there. After that we would need to move further West to continue out trip to Maine. We happened across this campground in West New Jersey and decided to stop here and camp in Delaware on a future trip. It may seem like a silly goal but we are trying to check off the remaining states that we have not camped in. Once we finish this trip we will have camped in 48 of the 50 states with Hawaii and Delaware not accomplished. Of course Hawaii may not happen but we do have a niece who lives there on a farm and could fly there and camp in her back yard with a tent.

Traveling is significantly more pleasant and less stressful with the JM31 compared to our previous 41 foot diesel pusher. The JM31 handles and rides nicely and there is very little if any affect from passing 18 wheelers. We know it may sound strange to hear the JM31 rides better than our diesel pusher but it does. The diesel pusher was a 2006 model with a straight front axle that banged harshly on rough roads and bridges. We worked for many years and spent significant funds trying to improve the ride with only marginal success. We do miss the Quiet Diesel generator and the torque of the ISL400 Cummins. There is also more wind noise in the Class C than in the Class A and of course getting in and out of the seats is more challenging in the Class C. But we knew that would be the case going in. What we don't miss is that large windshield that would pour heat into the coach and the lousy dash air conditioner with the 40 foot lines back to the compressor. On this new Ford the dash air will freeze you to death and we find ourselves turning it way back as we drive. On the Class A we had to always run the generator in the summer as we drove to keep the coach cool. The Class C cools down fast and we find ourselves driving more with the roof AC's off. Another thing we don't miss on the Class A are the electric steps that were always giving trouble. The Class C is low to the ground and only needs the two built in steps at the door.

We have already made some improvements to the JM31 but as we use it we discover more things we need to do. For one the water pressure is terrible no matter how good the campground feed is and the water pump has poor pressure. Also the kitchen sink drains very slow. We plan to delve into these when we get back home.