Creekside Campground where we’re staying. Nice place we have a creek behind our site.
We stopped in to a little second-hand shop and the lady inside told us about American Celebration and the place across the street called Yellow Barn. American Celebration is different parade floats on display. Yellow Barn is random displays of the old days. It was a fun different way to spend the day.
Since we’ve been traveling with our 5th wheel we have always done a pre-trip inspection. We do a walk around to make sure nothing is loose, we make sure the tire pressures are at 80psi, and we check the fluid levels and that there are no fluid puddles under the truck. We stayed the night at Cabelas in Hamburg Massachusetts and in the morning before leaving we did our pre-trip inspection and noticed that there was a small puddle of oil under the truck. It turned out that the oil drain plug had loosen and was dripping oil. We tighten the drain plug and topped off the oil, problem solved. A saving of thousands of dollars to replace the motor. We noticed that one of the trailer tires had a air bubble where the tread meets the sidewall. We called our roadside service Coach-net and they were able to direct us to a tire shop so we could replace the tire. We ended up having to replace 2 tires because of broken belts in the tires due to pot hole and just bad roads we’ve been driving on in the East. When tires come a part at 60 mph it generally does some kind of damage to the trailer which can cost a lot of money to fix. We’re glad that we have developed this habit of pre-trip inspections.
We are currently in Edinburg Virginia, we’ll leave tomorrow morning and head to the Cabelas in Bristol Virginia to lay over for the Labor Day weekend. From there we’re heading to the Great Smokey Mountains for 4-7 days, and than on to see the Grand kids in McMinnville Tennessee.
We had heard about a reversing waterfall and some cobblestone bridges located around the carriage roads in Acadia National Park. We knew it was a long shot trying to find a waterfall feed by run-off so late in the summer but we thought it would be a great hike. We did find the waterfall but it was only a trickle. Here are some photos from the hike.
We think that there are as many reasons why people RV (full-time or part-time) as there are people, many things work for some but not others, its in the sharing of information that helps us all have a better experience so Thank you to the RV community.
As full-timers technology is something that is very important for trip planning, navigation, communication, and its something we could spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on trying to make sure we have what we need as far as internet access and trip planning tools. When we got to Hermon Maine we found that the WiFi in the RV Park was very slow and that we’re in an area where our AT&T cell phones and hotspot don’t work. The first thing we try to figure out is whether this is an inconvenience that requires patients or a situation that requires a solution. Although we haven’t had this level of inconvenience in our travels we decided that maybe its a good idea not to have all our technological eggs in one basket and we moved one of our phone numbers to Verizon. We went with the Samsung Galaxy S8($760.00) and the 5gb data plan($45 a month) this was going to double what we budget for cell and internet. What we learned was that because of the pre-loaded apps on the phone updating it went through 2.5gb in ten days. The camera on the phone is said to be one of the best cell phone camera out there, but what I found was it was amazing for close ups of flowers, bugs but when you use the zoom it falls short. When we checked the first bill there were charges on it that shouldn’t be there and although Verizon said they would remove them the did not. We had 14 days to return the phone and cancel the plan if we were not satisfied. We decided that this is a inconvenience that required patients so we returned the phone and canceled the plan. This trip to the East we also upgraded our old GPS to the Garmin RV 660 LMT($317.00) which allows us to put the dimensions of our RV in and select no low clearance routes, no toll roads. It also finds things like campgrounds, rest areas, truck stops, fuel, stores and the list goes on lots of bells and whistles. For the most part its been a good upgrade and a good tool to have for traveling, but when we went from Scarborough Maine to Hermon Maine we selected no toll roads and the GPS said there was no way to get Hermon without paying tolls. We got our map out and found a route that did not have toll roads and did not increase the distance to Hermon that was a little disappointing. It also falls short on finding local attractions it seems to find the entrance to a National Parks but not things within the park.
August 14, 2015 the escrow closed on our home of 15 years and we became homeless and started traveling, the only thing we forgot was the RV. While traveling in Arizona we found our truck and 5th wheel and the rest has been an adventure of a life time.
We will be in Hermon Maine until August 27, 2017 so we have started thinking about what we want to see and where we want to go. Here’s a few ideas: Grand kids in Tennessee, Statue of Liberty, Washington DC, Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
We went on a 1/2 day fishing trip out of Southwest Harbor. It was a nice trip we spent 2 hours fishing than over to the island where the seals hang out (but they were all in the water not sun bathing on the rocks) so not much to see. On the way back to the harbor they stop and pull Lobster traps and divide the spoils between the people on the trip.
Being from the West Coast we wanted to put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean so we went to Sand Beach and hiked along the shoreline and got our feet wet in the Atlantic Ocean.
After hiking around for a while we drove over to Northeast Harbor to Dockside restaurant and had dinner. Darla had the Scallop Roll and I had the Lobster Roll.
On the way home we stopped at Cadillac Mountain for Sunset.
Last year we purchased a couple of inflatable Kayaks so we could get some excercise when stop places near water. We went out to a place called Hermon Pond about 10 minutes from where we are. Hopefully if the weather clears we can get some Kayaking in on Wednesday.
Saturday night at the local short track watching the racer’s battling for points is so much fun. We headed out to Speedway 95 to watch the races.
The next pictures is what happens when two car battle for the same real estate. The black car in the background sideways hit the orange car losing control. Later in the evening the black car went after the orange car again and put him out the race but do to lack of lighting I couldn’t get the pictures.
Finally on the last lap race to the checker flag this poor guy was in thrid behind the leaders when one went to low on the track and kick up so much dust he couldn’t see and lost control and ending up in the tires.
Although not technically in Hermon ME we head over to the Bangor ME waterfront which is just down the road from us.
We would like to thank the new followers and those who like our posts. We would like to remind anyone who comes across this blog you can ask questions about any rv lifestyle topic and we will share our experience. You can do this through our contact page or by commenting on a post.
I (Rich) think the full time rv lifestyle offers many opportunities to learn about a lot of different things and we can learn as much or as little as we want to. To keep it simple I like to break it up into 3 categories People, Places, and Things.
Full-Timing with Jesus 