Postcard from Maine- 4

14 July 2012

Trenton, ME

We are really enjoying our stay here at the Timberland Acres RV Park. It's a nice park, we get our mail forwarded quickly (NetFlix again!), and the weather has been OK for us (we're wimps and start whining if the weather varies much from our "acceptable" norm!). Trenton has turned out to be a nice location for touring the area and, other than Eastport, is probably as good a homebase as an RVer could hope for.

Repairs to the weather station

Temporarily having a physical mailing address meant I could finally get our Davis weather station repaired. When we drove from Oklahoma to Branson, we went thru N Arkansas to get there. It was a gorgeous drive with new foliage overhanging the road. Normally there would be clearance between the tree limbs and the top of the coach. But we came thru early and the new growth hadn't yet been knocked back by passing delivery trucks. Apparently I was the trail blazer and ended up with no anemometer cups on the weather station (it's mounted on the ladder). Oops.

So I ordered a replacement anemometer wheel which we could receive here at the park. Only problem is it wouldn't fit on the now-bent-out-of-shape shaft on the anemometer!

So next I ordered a new sensor suite (Davis' ISS for our Vantage Vue). When that arrived I found nothing was working on the display. Apparently I received something that had been on the shelf too long as the battery was reporting it had low voltage and there was no wind speed displayed. So with our now-cloudy skies (I'm told this is the summertime norm for this area) I positioned the ISS under a light on the table for a few hours and Presto! We now have wind speed. I'd love to tell you I relied on my superior deductive skills, but the truth is I had seen wind speed suddenly come alive after a couple hours on the original ISS when that unit had been indoors for a couple days and needed to do some charging.

East Blue Hill

Not long after we arrived in Trenton we learned we have friends staying nearby. Connie & Ralph live in Texas but they have a summer cottage in nearby East Blue Hill Village. It would be a shame to be this close and not see them, so we hoped we'd be able to connect with them before we leave to return west to forest fires and dust bowl conditions in the west.

And connect we did. Initially hey had visitors when we first e-Mailed them, plus they had a pre-planned trip to Nova Scotia for a few days. But they were free after that, so we made plans for us to visit on the 14th. The drive from Trenton to E. Blue Hill should have been a straightforward thing to do: enter the address into the GPS and go. Unh-uh... not so fast. As far as Garmin is concerned, we're talking blazed trails here. The chance of having their address actually show up in the Garmin was somewhere between slim and none and none is what it w was.

Fortunately Connie sent detailed directions and off we went... 'over the river and thru the woods', directions in hand, with no clue where we were most of the time. But the directions were spot-on and we made it, only a few minutes late. With the dogs.

Interior of the 1920's-built cottage.

View from the deck

Connie & Ralph have an incredible location overlooking a large inlet off what I believe is Blue Hill Bay. The small main house was built in the 1920s and the tiny guest cottage a couple decades later.

Plus they have added a small barn where Ralph has a shop and can store their tractor with enough room left over for winter storage for their wooden dinghy. Lots of work to keeping a place like this... trees everywhere plus brush, paths and stairs to be maintained, a new sewage treatment system to be installed. The list went on and on!

Motion detectors at work on the deck. My God they're loud!

The house has a large deck which looks out over the water, so the dogs immediately made themselves at home and told anyone that could hear them they were in charge. Later I realized you could hear their bark miles away (I don't want to think about how many raised eye brows we caused!). They seemed oblivious and just plopped right down and made themselves comfy. Good things  they;ve been dog owners!

Connie & Ralph slaving away in the kitchen

Lunch was a Maine-visitor's dream come true: lobster rolls! Connie put together the lobster rolls and Ralph took care of the strawberry shortcake. Wow! What a meal. Thanks again guys!

Celia was right in there asking questions and taking her own photos, so maybe we have some in our future! Till that happens we'll have to be happy with this reminder  us of a wonderful meal with our guests!

The steering station and the spray dodger

When you have a place on the water as they do it's only natural to have a boat as well. Ralph has a wooden Hampton (the vintage style, not the builder). The boat has a strip planked hull, wooden decks and removable wooden floors. Very simple layout with a steering sttion and stowage fore & aft. It's powered by a 3-cylinder Yanmar diesel engine that moved us right along when we went out after lunch. Rock-solid steering! It was a dream to handle as it tracked like it was on rails. It's been several years since I was last on the water, so this was a very special treat for me. And I didn't have to row the tender...

Looks like what it's named for: a pea pod.

The Hampton seemed to be about a 1/2 mile out, so you have to have a way to get to the mooring. And that's where this 13' Pea Pod replica comes in. It serves as the tender and is also wooden. A tender is the 'taxi' that gets you between the shore (or wherever you happen to be) and the boat. Not sure who built his Hampton, but the Pea Pod was built by a local builder in Blue Hill. It's beautifully built and maintained and it came with a 1 person-power engine: two oars pulled by Ralph.

We really enjoyed visiting and greatly admired their house and property. They told us it was something of a disaster when they bought it in 1996 and that they've done a huge amount of work. But it paid off and now they have a show piece. Great job guys!