Back in the USA!

We left Quebec and headed south towards Maine with high hopes of soon returning to the US and on low fumes.

The gas tank was down below a quarter now and with the hills we're crawling up and down the gas really burns up fast.  We won't get our whopping 6.5 miles to the gallon like this.

They don't seem to mark the roads a lot up here with signs for where gas might be, so I went with my theory of where there's fast food there's gas.  Think about it...it makes sense.

So it was a Subway sign that led us off the highway and into a tiny little town with a tiny little gas station.  We're talking four pumps here and there was a tanker truck blocking the way.

Left Brain thought he could swing it through an empty lot, get turned around and approach it from the other side.  But then again, he has a lot of thoughts that aren't really valid.

We found ourselves partway across the street and completely blocking traffic and stuck up against the opposite curb.  Ooops.

But faster than you can say "Dumb Americans from Texas" we leapt from See-More and started to unhook the car.  I then crawled into the drivers seat with the brake buddy still attached and thus having very little space to operate the pedals.  But I managed to get it backed up and out of the way so he could now back up and get the motorhome pointed the right way.  Oh yeah, this is how to make friends along the road.

Why didn't he just back up with the car on you might ask?  I can hear some snickering about his inability to do this.  Well, let me tell you...Left Brain can put that RV anyplace he wants to but with our Blue Ox towing bars to back up with them attached means damaging thousands of dollars of gear.  Not to mention paying for services out of the country in a remote area.  You get my drift?

So now he's at the pumps and I've positioned the car to allow me to drive up to the backside of See-More once he's finished to hookup once again.  We are getting so fast at our take down and set up routine that I almost wish there was an RV competition for such things.  But that's just the competitive spirit we have.

With gas in our tanks we headed for the border...literally.  After our first entry into Canada I have a bit of a phobia of how long and awful this might be.  The nice young man asked the questions and then came on board to open doors and check things.  Well, he found out quickly than when an RV has been on the road things will fall on your head as soon as those doors open.  He'll learn.

Once we were clear from customs we breathed a sigh of relief to be in Maine.  Part of me wanted to just stop early at a Wal-Mart for the night and continue on in the morning but with Labor Day weekend looming ahead of us we decided to push onward to Bar Harbor and hope for an empty campsite.

We got in about 6:00 PM and there were a few openings left.  At this particular campground they do not take reservations and you pick what site you want and then go back and pay...cash or check, no credit cards.

The sites on the Ocean were already taken so we opted for one closest to this grouping and proceeded to set up.  It was not at all level and after several tries of adding blocks we gave up and went to another spot instead.

Lesson learned:  when it gets late and you're tired things are not going to go as well as planned.  This is why we like to start looking for a spot about 3:00 to allow plenty of time for set up and relaxing.

But we managed to get in, pay for our spot and get settled in.  And to my amazement George and Gracie surfaced pretty quickly and were eager to eat and play.  Sometimes George will throw up after eating when it's been a long ride but he was fine tonight and this had to be one of the bumpier long rides we've had.  Perhaps they are starting to be able to relax a bit while in hiding after all!

After supper and a little reading Left Brain decided to take a shower.  That's when he realized he didn't turn the water on outside at the faucet.  Sigh.  Clothes back on (thank goodness) and outside he trod to take care of that little chore.

We had not been set up very long before the rain hit and it was nice to be snug as a bug in our RV for the night.  Our expectations for Internet were not high so it was a nice surprise to find it works beautifully. 

I'll post photos of our time in Quebec later this week.

Long Live the Queen of RV Living