Day 13 - Acadia National Park - 0 miles

Today we left the camp and decided to drive the Left loop of Mount Desert Island.
The first stop was Seal cove, except we didn't see any seals! Next was Goose cove and Duck cove and again we didn't see any Geese or Ducks ...Lol Then on to Bass Harbor for a Coffee break.

We stopped a few more places and ended up in Bar Harbor for lunch where we had Clam Chowder from Chowders Pub! Was really nice and not at all like I expected. Mum even tried the lobster soup and found that to be ok.

Bar Harbor is a quaint little village that caters for many tourists that arrive by driving in like we did or by cruise ship. A celebrity cruise ship was docked at the time we were there, no celebrities on board though....just the name of  the cruise liner!

This is what the coastline looked like......

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Day 12 - Oquossoc, MN to Arcadia National Park, MN - 165 miles

After leaving Oquossoc early we got on the road and climbed up a huge hill. Right at the top there was a little left turn, it looked interesting so I took it. We were greeted with an incredible 180 degree view. There had been no signs advertising this and it was only by look we stumbled across it.

Here is one of the shots from the few that I took.....

I was keen to get to Mount Desert Island that holds Acadia National park, because I had been advised to spend 3 or more days there and we were running out of time with the van, so on we pushed with very little stops and made it to Mount Desert at about 8 pm.

After some excellent reversing skills by me at the RV site, even complimented by the neighbours who were watching ... we set up for the night and planned what we were to do over the next few days.


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Day 11 - Errol, NH to Oquossoc, MN - 36 miles

Today was another blue sky day, so we set off on the road at 9 am and again stopped for many picture breaks. One of the stops was at a lakeside dock where a man and wife were launching their boat in for a day of lake cruising. Mum was down there and said to the man 'We just need a canoe now!'....'well, I know just the person,' the man said.....

And so we followed his directions a mile down the road to a canoe hire shop. Now before I start this tale you should all know that once about 15 years ago on a family holiday to Cornwall we borrowed a sit on surf board and went with our Dad to the sea to try and have some fun.....however after about 1 1/2 hours of trying we could not get Dad to stay sat on the board for more than 10 seconds before a wave came and knocked him off. We still to this day laugh about this everytime it is brought up, and im sure the young lifeguards who were watching us still laugh about it too!!!

So needless to say my Dad and canoes do not go together....but he insisted on having another go so we hired a 2 man canoe and a one man kayak. There was no way I was getting in with Dad so mum drew the short straw. We dropped the van off at a bridge next to the river where we would end up, and hopped into the rental companies van, who took us 5 miles upstream and launched us into the water. The river was very shallow and very slow so dad was fine balance wise and I knew my lifeguard skills would not be needed anytime soon.

Here are some pictures....

The Tourists.....

The Lifeguard making sure the tourists are safe......

So off we set and on the first bend encountered a fisher man!...

Safely negotiating ourselves round him and missing his lines we were onto the next obstacle a little weir....

I went first and waited at the bottom, dad took a big circle to weigh up the 'rapids' and eventually he could not paddle backwards any more and over the edge they went ........ (the difference in height was about 30 inches BTW!!)

So at the bottom of the weir they came, still safely inside the boat, however the river then pushed them over to the left where a big boulder was just submerged in the water. Dad didn't see this and the boat went right over it. Mum was fine she just floated over it but when Dad came to it the boat came to a halt........well, I turned round after I heard the boat scrape something to see Dad doing what can only be described as a bum shuffle to try and free the boat from the rock. I could not stop laughing, and mum was getting more and more annoyed with Dad. I was trying to paddle back up the river to help them but was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face. Even now as I write this I have tears in my eyes from laughing so much. I just wish I had a video camera, because I would have been sending it to Jeremy Beadle!!

Finally after dads bum shuffling got them off the rock we carried on down stream, I let them go ahead but as I rounded the next corner I was just in time to see dad face plant mum into the bushes at the side of the bank!! Well this just started me off laughing again!! I could hear mum say she was never doing this again with Dad!! Lol

Because I couldn't stop laughing they got quite a way infront of me by the time I set off again. But as the river was quite twisty and turvy they were not far from me on the other side of the bend. This is word for word what I heard next, but unfortunately I did not see it....

Dad to another fisher man 'Hi there, lovely day for it'
Fisherman, 'Sure is'
Dad 'Which way would you like us to pass?'
Fisherman 'Over there to my left sir'
Dad 'Righty-o'

(Pause of about a minute where I imagine Dad was trying to steer the boat over to where the fisher man requested.)

Dad (in an increasingly higher pitched voice) 'Urrrmmmmm'
Fisherman (all quiet)
Dad (higher than last time) 'Its not us that's taking us there, its the boat!!!'

After this I rounded the bend and saw the canoe going down the river sideways....oh dear!

I approached the fisher man and he said to me 'I think they are having a bit of trouble in that canoe of theirs!!!

Im sure that this fisher men told all his mates in the pub that night about some crazy Brits who came floating down the river in an uncontrollable canoe!!

After this mum got face planted again so I agreed to swop with her, after all I was safe that I was going to say dry!

So after a quick change round we set off again....

Dad managed to successfully complete the rest of the river without faceplanting me or getting stuck on any rocks!

Some other pictures from the trip

Day 10 - Newport, VT to Errol, NH - 76 miles

Today we woke up to a hazy day and moved off the camp site headed East. As we got onto the road though the clouds magically disappeared and the blue skies came out.....time to get the camera out me thinks :))

After many photographic stops along the way we moved from Vermont into New Hampshire. And the scenery did change a bit, we saw mountains for the first time in ages and the trees were not as colorful. Guess that's why everyone told us to go to Vermont to see the fall colours then! Well we certainly made the most of them and got loads of shots that I am happy with.

Everybody seemed friendly enough and even one old man pulled up at one of our photographic stops to see if everything was ok with the van. Random but true!

Even though we had only done 70 miles we had been on the road all day as we had stopped more than a dozen times for picture breaks, so we were looking for a place to camp when we saw a convoy of huge RV's turn right...we quickly followed suit as the site must be good if all those were going.

We parked up and set up a fire for dinner, then more star gazing using the app. Again we could see the milky way. I also set up my camera to do long exposures to try and get some star trails. A picture I have been trying to master for a while. I got one after about 30 minutes ...not bad for a first attempt...


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Day 9 - Messena, NY to Newport, VT - 167 miles

So today We really motored on and actually changed state! Whoop, we are now FINALLY out of New York and into Vermont. And boy can you really see the difference in the trees here.

Today we have blue skies, white fluffy clouds and red trees. We stopped in this picturesque location for a chat to the fisherman and have a coffee. Well mum and dad did, I went upstream to take some.

It was then back on the road and motoring on over the boarder from New York to Vermont. The boarder actually changed over this bridge that mum took a picture of...





Eventually we reached Newport and stopped in this car park to find a place to eat some food, only to find that there was a lake there and the sun was just setting....So we spent a good half an hour photographing the sunset!

Here is one of dads pictures..... Not bad for a beginner I say :)



Then after getting a recommendation from a yokle an out a good place to get steak for tea we headed there to eat, except when we got there all of us had seafood! Lol

Arriving at the next campsite we parked up, Dad went to check out the showers and came back saying they were worse than any of the places we had been so me and mum didn't even bother going to have a look!

But what the place did have was stars, not as many as I had seen camping with Kim, Balint, Sarah and Steph but you could still see the Milky Way. At least I got to use the app that let's you hold the iPad up to the sky and it tells you what star you are looking at. Pretty neat app! I found Jupiter and the plough and the minor plough, but no shooting stars this time :(

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Day 8 - Messena International Kampground - 0 miles.

Today dad decided that the site was so nice that we should stay one more night so after booking us in, we were staying!

The beast is so big that it's difficult to unhook everything and move the van unless you are moving to the next site so we stayed where we were all day.

This gave me chance to catch up on emails from the summer, Skype some of my friends and catch up on some sleep that is still missing from camp!! I think it will be another few months until I'm fully caught up, oh wait then it will be time to go back to camp :D

Here are some pictures....

This is the Beast!



It said no parking, but we did anyway!




Wine tasting finger lakes wine...




There is even an island with my name




David Bailey wannabe!




The tourists !



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Day 7 - Selkirk Shores, NY to Messena, NY - 145 miles

I don't know why I haven't thought of this before, to take a picture of the route that we have done that day and put it on here! Duh. Well I will start doing this from now on..... Here is a picture of where we are in relation to the East coast...






And here is a picture of our route today. ....




We went along the route that follows the shore of Lake Ontario, the other side of this lake is Canada.

Whilst driving up the lake we stopped at one of Americas State Parks called Fort Ontario.

The weather for the last few days has been dull and overcast, this has meant that the light has been flat and I have taken very few pictures. The forecast is for much of the same weather for the coming week, so it doesn't look great for picture taking opportunities. Hopefully this will change when we move further North.

After leaving the fort we carried on North East and headed towards another state park that had a camp site, but when we got there it was Closed for the season, so we got the map out and went another 20 or so miles to the next state park along the shore of the lake. When we got there we found that this was also closed for the season. So then out came the iPad and the RV site application to find a site that was privately owned. The next one along our route was is Messena, about 2 miles from the Canadian boarder. Here we headed and started following an even bigger RV than ours (a good sign, they must know where is open!) and turned off the highway to this camp site that was almost full. Another good sign... :)

We got parked up and I started a fire, just like I learned at camp.... :) thanks Big Ryan :) And we had pork ribs over the BBQ marinated in Jack Daniels sauce,...... Mmmmmmmm delicious!

I then went to test out the showers, lovely and clean and no spiders, and hot water! Heaven.

Dad had me put our English flag up on the van as he felt left out because all the other vans had Canadian and USA flags flying..... Some Canadians wandered over to talk to us and thought we were from Switzerland because the flag is red and white!!! Duh!

After this Dad made a friend and mum and dad went to join them at their RV for a campfire and sing song later that night....which ended with mum coming back and saying "What's Sambuka?" ..... "Is it alcoholic??"..... "Do they sell it in England?". Oh my ........

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