New England Trip

Internet access is really not reliable on the road. Last night we put together the text and pictures for the blog for the last three days, expecting to send them out this morning before a mid-morning departure. As it turned out, Steve worked on sending the posts until about 10:15, and we barely made our check-out time of 11:00 a.m. The signal strength of the campground network was weak, so that was most likely the problem. Do not worry about us if there are long gaps between our posts. We will not have Internet access again until July 5, and after that not until July 11. And that assumes we will actually be able to connect.

Tonight we are camped at Umbagog (pronounced Uhm-BAY-gog) Lake State Park in Errol, in extreme northeast New Hampshire on the Maine border. The campground is fairly primitive, but the lake is beautiful. A spectacular sunset is just now finishing, and shading the lake pink and purple. We hope to find a way to get out on the lake in a canoe or something while we’re here. We grilled some salmon for dinner, and are enjoying the evening and the quiet of a small campground.

The White Mountains are just south of us, and the tallest peak is Mt. Washington, at 6,288 feet, just a bit shorter in elevation than Mount Mitchell near Asheville in North Carolina. Our friend John Hamerslaugh says that Mt.. Washington has a concrete block weather station and a building that is held down by chains like mooring tackle, to keep it from blowing away in 200 mph winds.

We will be staying here for three nights, and hope to make a trip up to the top of Mt. Washington while we’re here, if the weather permits. We took PoohDog to the top of Mt. Mitchell years ago, and thought Wicket would enjoy a trip like that. He will certainly appreciate getting to go along, rather than be left in the motorhome.

Steve still feels pretty bad with his cold, and we are hoping that several days rest here with limited travel will help him feel better again. Today’s trip from Vermont was only about 160 miles, but it took about six hours driving over some terrible roads. At one point, we went under a 13 ft. bridge with our 12 ft. 10 in. overall height – a real white-knuckler – on an alternate route intended to avoid a 12 ft. bridge on the main road. Steve got out to watch the clearance while Margaret drove under the bridge and listened for scraping noises. (We made it fine.) The two-lane road was worse than I-10, like a washboard, and went up and down some very steep grades where the motorhome struggled to hold 30 mph uphill at 3000 rpm, or a safe slow speed down 6% grades. For a while, the road ran beside a whitewater river called Androscoggin fed by the waters of Umbagog Lake, so the view was great.

We are out in the boonies for sure. We can barely pick up some Canadian TV stations (in French!) with our antenna, but no high-def., and no PBS. Margaret has to do with out her nightly NewsHour fix. We can, however, receive an NPR station with some static. The nearest cell phone access is about 40 miles to the west.

There are many Aspen trees in the campground – at about 1,200 feet elevation. We are not used to seeing Aspens below 8,000 feet.

The little town of Errol, NH has the most amazing store. It occupies 1 of the three blocks in town and is a log structure on three levels. They sell: gas, groceries, hardware, all terrain vehicles, wood stoves, bush-hogs, outboard motors, guns and ammunition, clothes, fishing gear, camping gear, lumber, a Subway, and we don’t know what else. The hardware section rivals an ACE and the camping gear is nearly an REI. The fishing gear department must be 1,500 square feet.

3 pictures follow - one of the Vermont countryside and two of sunset views from our campsite.