Halloween snow

What a difference a day makes - Friday morning there were perhaps 50 units in the campgound. All day long folks came in and there were about 25 open spaces at 9 pm (campground has about 400 sites). Folks were decorating like made all night for the Halloween party pm Saturday. 12 hours later, and we're watching them scurry as some dismantle their efforts and pack up to leave before the storm. Where's their sense of adventure? Or were they just smart enough to decide to go back home to weather the snow in October. We don't have much choice and will let you know how it goes...

If the day goes as planned for the campground, there are Halloween activities for kids from noon to 3, and then tonight is the adults' party. But Mother Nature plans to have 1 to 3 inches of rain falling this afternoon / evening, followed by the snowfall of upwards to 6" during the overnight and morning.

We had fun with the dusting of snow from the other day - Chuck made a mini snowman. But now that there's a considerable amount predicted, things are a bit different. We did keep a snow shovel, windshield scrapers, snow boots and the like when we sold the house last spring. And many times this summer we joked how we thought we were done with snow. Guess the jokes on us...

My biggest consolation is: if I were still working the cruise ships in Bar Harbor, and this was next year...

Road Trip ReCap

I’ve been retired for exactly one week and we’ve been living in an RV full-time for 6 months now. This blog is a quick recap of our travels.

Back in mid-April we moved out of our house and in to the 5th wheel and camped in our driveway for 2 weeks before heading towards Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. From April 29 thru Oct 13, we were parked at the Narrows Too Campground in Trenton, ME. We’ve stayed at Narrows Too the previous two years I did seasonal work on Mount Desert Island and knew it would fit our needs.

In late May we took delivery of our new 5th wheel, a Cameo by Carriage. Although we had to sort through all our belongings when we sold the home, we still had quite a bit to re-sort as we switched RV units.

Last week we finally started the “real” journey of full-timing. We packed up all our goods, once again getting rid of a few more items we decided we didn’t need - many items were repurposed with other seasonal RV friends at the campground.

Our first trip was rather short, less than 100 miles, but was necessary as we needed to stop to see family and friends as we left the area. The first night we boondocked at the WalMart in Rockland, ME. Their primary parking lot is sloped, but there was a smaller lot closer to Rt. 1 that was fairly level. Being after “the season”, ie after Columbus Day, we were the only RV in the lot for the night. Not wanting to take advantage of free camping and to keep with the concept of boondocking, we moved across town to the Lowes in Thomaston (4 miles) for our second night, allowing us another 24 hours to visit people in the area.

Day 3 put us back on the road again, and another short trip of under 100 miles to Portland, ME. We boondocked at Cabela’s in Scarboro as they have designated RV / truck parking as well as a sewer dump station. This night we were not alone, there were several truck campers and tractor trailer trucks utilizing the lot as well. While in the area we visited the “mothership” (our nickname for the L.L. Bean Flagship Store), had dinner with friends and brought the truck to the dealership for standard service.

Our next portion of the trip was the longest yet - a whopping 130 miles, landing us in West Boylston, MA where we camped out in front of my parents’ home for a few nights. We’ll be here another night or two and then will continue our journey, going where the road may lead us.