In Connecticut ... not Maine!

Well, we left Saco, Maine yesterday morning. Of course that meant leaving some dear friends ... and I didn't even get good pictures of some of them! Anyway, as much as we like to see different places, it is always hard to leave the people we have come to care about.

For once we had a nice, mostly sunny day ... it was awesome! I started out driving and actually managed to make it out of Saco and almost all the way to our destination. I really felt pretty comfortable and Wayne commented several times that I wasn't making him nervous at all. Believe you me, that is quite an accomplishment. Anyway, I drove all but the final 54 +/- miles of the 190 mile trip. We saw some beautiful scenery, although the fall foliage we had hoped to see didn't materialize. There were certainly some beautiful trees, but not like the pictures we have seen. Oh well, maybe next time we are in the area.

The day was not without it's challenges however. We had barely gone 50 miles, just crossing into New Hampshire, when Wayne heard a sound, checked the mirror on his side, and noticed that we had blown a tire ... again! On our way to Maine earlier this year, we had a blowout. That time there was no damage except to the tire itself. This time however, the explosion dented the underside of the trailer by the tire and even broke through the bottom in a few places. It could have been much worse however, so we are thankful it was not. We obviously had to get off the freeway immediately and navigate to a location where Wayne could safely change the tire to the spare. Since I was driving, this meant some in-town driving into a store parking lot ... something I had not attempted yet ... and I managed it just fine. I felt pretty good about that! A half hour later and we were back on our way.


We camped at Mystic KOA in North Stonington, Connecticut last night and stayed today as well. We thought it might be nice to relax a bit on the first leg of our trip to Texas. After getting a new tire this morning, we spent the afternoon at Mystic Seaport. I will write about that later. Tomorrow we will head to Appalachian RV Resort in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania. We stayed here on the way to Maine this past April. It's supposed to be cloudy again tomorrow ... sigh. Oh well, we wouldn't appreciate the sun as much if we never had clouds.

Leaving Saco in 7 Days, 8 hours, 30 minutes, 39 , 38 ....

Well, our time here in Maine is rapidly coming to an end. It is hard to believe that on Friday (October 14^th), we will have been here for a full six months. It has been a good six months with lots of hard work and a lot of relaxation as well. As good as this season has been, it will be equally good to move on. We are ready.

This past Saturday, the 8^th, we went to the Fryeburg Fair. Fryeburg, Maine is only about one mile from the New Hampshire border, and about 50 miles northwest of Saco. We had to leave little Lucy home, as pets were not allowed at the fair. As much as we enjoy her, it was nice not to have to worry about wheeling her in, around and through the crush of people. 

The fair was marvelous, and I have to tell you, I discovered an entire new food group! I never … well, EXTREMELY rarely, will buy cotton candy. I don’t like the idea of all the food coloring used, and quite frankly, I think you can taste it in your average cotton candy and it is nasty. Anyway, one of the first buildings we visited was the "sugar building" or something like that. They had everything maple in that building, up to and including … wait for it … maple cotton candy. When I saw that it was all just a pleasant cream color which one would expect from spinning maple syrup, I just had to try it. Oh. my. word! I could live on it! I shared some with Wayne of course, because my mother taught me to share, but I am sure I ate 2/3rds of the whole thing. I almost bought another one but talked myself out of it! Who knows when I will get such a treat again? I know, I know, it is pure sugar and ever so bad for you, but it was SO yummy! We also had our favorite fair food for lunch – Greek gyros. These were some of the best we have ever had with lots of shaved lamb, veggies, feta cheese and tzatziki sauce in a warm pita … mmmmm! Then to top off our afternoon, we had some amazing, award-winning ice cream. It had to have been in the top two or three ice creams we have ever had. We understood why it has won awards.

Lest you think all we did was eat, let me share some of the rest of our "fair" day. We watched a couple of 4H competitions with some cattle and oxen. It was nice to see how the judges interacted with the kids showing their animals. Apparently part of the competition is the ability to answer questions the judges ask as they examine your animal and how you handle it. 

Anyway, we saw the cows and horses and sheep and goats and pigs … oh yeah, the pigs. Let me just say that once the cute little pink piglets get over a few months old, they are simply no longer cute. Those huge, extremely fat, snoring porkers are just gross in my opinion! Some of them could barely even stand up for their size! Yuck! We didn’t stay long in the pig area.

Some of the more interesting animals to us were the alpacas, llamas and fowl. After our experiences in Mississippi tending to chickens, we have become more interested in seeing them. There were some absolutely beautiful varieties on display, some with feathers that look more like the "hair" on a Yorkshire terrier or a Pomeranian dog. 

We also especially enjoyed the alpacas. They were too shy to allow us to pet them, but they are much more docile than the llamas, and their smaller size makes them less intimidating. There were signs near the llamas explaining that that one was unlikely to be the target of a llama’s displeasure (read, "spit"), but I still found myself warily walking through that area a bit quicker than the rest.

In addition to the animals,  we also watched a horse race that was kind of fun while we ate our gyros. However, the most fascinating thing was watching glass blowing by this amazing artist. We stood there for about 15-20 minutes, and in that amount of time, he took molten glass and formed it into an absolutely amazing piece of art. If we still lived in a "sticks and bricks" house, I might have been tempted to purchase something, but fragile glass and a 5th wheel trailer are for the most part mutually exclusive. 

Weather wise, we couldn’t have asked for a better day. It was around 80° and sunny … so warm and sunny in fact, that Wayne ended up with a bit too much sun, and felt rather puny for a couple of hours. However, after sitting in the shade of the stands for a bit and eating our ice cream, he felt much better.

I will update again when we leave next week. Have I mentioned we are heading to somewhere in southern Texas to gate guard at oil fields? Should be interesting if nothing else!