Palmyra, Maine (Again)
9/6/16 to 9/10/16
Tuesday 9/6/16 We hooked up the trailer and left Millinocket, ME around 10:15 and headed back to Palmyra, ME. The reason we are going back to Palmyra is that we have some time to kill. We have reservations near Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island starting Sunday the 11th of September. Wendy is driving up to stay with us for a while and she can’t make it until that date. So we have 5 days before we need to be in Acadia and didn’t want to get too far away. Palmyra is about 2 hours from Acadia and we really enjoyed the campground when we were there a week ago. I called and asked for the same site and it was empty on the dates we wanted. This campground is very quiet and well taken care of. A nice place to take it easy for a couple of days. We were tucked way back into the trees with no one else in sight. There’s also a Walmart, fuel, and a couple of restaurants just down the road.
After we set up camp we walked up to the laundry room and washed clothes. Their laundry room is very clean and one of the least expensive we’ve used on the road. After that, I washed part of the trailer. I’m getting a lot of diesel soot on the right side of the trailer. Whenever the truck is pulling hard it puts out a lot of exhaust smoke from the tailpipe. This oily smoke rolls along the side of the trailer and circles around the back. Some of that soot sticks to the trailer and even to the bikes mounted on the back. If we open a storage compartment on that side or unload the bikes we get black soot on our hands and clothes. After over a month on the road, it was time to get rid of it.
Wednesday 9/7/16 Today we took a ride into town to do some grocery shopping. Then decided to just go for a ride. It’s interesting to drive down the local roads to see how people live in different areas. We ended up driving around for probably an hour. There’s lots of rundown farmland and houses around this area. But we also saw a few nice farms and even a winery. There’s also a lot of ATV and snowmobile trails around here and it looks like everyone’s “second car” is an ATV. After we got back I washed the bikes and the rear of the trailer. The rest of the day we just relaxed.
Thursday 9/8/16 Today we took a ride into Bangor, ME which is about 30 miles from the campground. I read about a river trail and city walk that Bangor has and we wanted to check them out. We parked at a small plaza near the middle of the trails and walked the part that goes through town. I would say downtown Bangor is quaint but it also had its bad parts. The city trail takes you through a couple of small parks, through the oldest part of Bangor and to the river waterfront. There are small restaurants and coffee shops in town where you can sit and eat outside. A couple of the parks had some homeless people hanging around. Really not our kind of trail. We didn’t even complete the trail. Once we got away from the businesses it started to look run down and there wasn’t much more to see. We turned around and headed back to the truck.
We drove to a suburb of Bangor that had almost all the restaurants and stores we have at home. Ate a late lunch at Olive Garden and did a little shopping at Walmart, Target and Home Depot. After that, we went back to the river trail and walked that. The trail is called The Kenduskeag Stream Trail and starts at the edge of town and follows the river. The trail is short but nice. Mostly a gravel path for walkers and runners. Not a lot to see but better than the city walk. It would have been better if there were more water flowing in the river. We walked to the end and then returned to the truck. As I mentioned before, not long but we got 8 miles and 21 flights of steps in for the day.
Friday 9/9/16 We picked up a local paper the other day and there was an advertisement in it for The Clinton Lions Agricultural Fair which was being held this weekend. Since we missed the Canfield Fair this year we decided to go. The town of Clinton was just down the road about 18 miles. Clinton has a population of 3,486 so we knew it wasn’t going to be anything like the Canfield Fair but it would be fun to check it out. Wow, this fair was small! We made the mistake of going late on Friday morning. Half of the vendors weren’t open and the midway rides (all 5 of them) didn’t open until 4:30 even though the fair opened at 8 am. When we walked in there were probably 30 other people there. Everybody must have been working or in school. They had two tents with farm animals, a couple horse corrals, 2 small buildings with displays, a tent for entertainment and a couple of food vendors. We did find a sausage sandwich and a french fry vendor so all was good for lunch.
The only thing going on around lunchtime was The Woodsman Competition. I guess this is a big deal in Maine. Some of the events include log rolling, springboard chop, speed climbing, standing block chop, ax throwing and chainsaw speed cutting. It was something to see but we didn’t stick around for all of it. The competition moved slow, it was hot and sunny and there was no shade.
One other thing I got to do was ride a Segway. This is something I’ve always wanted to do. There was a guy set up with 2 Segways. You could pay $3.00 for 5 minutes. That’s all I needed. I just wanted to see how they balanced and how easy they were to ride. There was a small roped off area that you had to stay in so I rode around in circles and also did a couple figure eights. Pretty easy to ride but I almost fell off when I tried to turn going backward.
We only spent 3 hours at the fair because there wasn’t much else to see or do.
Saturday 9/10/16 Today we decided to head back to Bangor. We got restless in the morning and had to do something. I found a short trail behind Bangor High School that was only a mile loop so we walked it twice. It was a well-maintained trail and I think the cross country team must use this to train because all the rocks and tree roots were spray painted a bright orange. Probably so the runners don’t twist an ankle. As you can see in the one picture below, I wasn’t so lucky. After that trail, we drove around a little and had lunch. After lunch, we decided that 2 miles weren’t enough walking so we headed back to the Northeast Penjajawoc
Sunday 9/11/16 We packed up the trailer and headed to Acadia National Park in Maine.
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