The week after Labor Day we have planned a vacation! A week in Maine, near Damariscotta, to visit friends and be tourists. This trip will give us a real test of our ability to pack up, tow the trailer a real distance, back into a new site, hook up to new utilities, and camp for a week.
On Labor day we started stowing all the gear in preparation for travel tomorrow.
Duck Puddle:
On Tuesday September 7th, the day after labor day, we rose early, ate a quick breakfast, packed the cats into the Kitty Transporter, undocked including pulling all lines, and set off for Maine.
The route we planned would be across New Hampshire to Portsmouth, and drop us onto I95 just north of a CAT Scale where we would stop and get the truck and trailer weighed. Then up I95 into Maine. We would drive on US 1 up through Bath, and on up to just north of Damarascotta where we had found The Duck Puddle Campground in Nobleboro, Maine.
We selected the campground in Nobleboro, Maine because it is conveniently located to enable us to visit long time friends, Gene and Lynn Vogt, and Carlisle neighbors, Roddy and Diane Powers.
The drive up is pleasant and we are able to get the truck and trailer weighed. Even though we have emptied all the tanks, the trailer is still heavier on the truck than we would like.
We arrive at The Duck Puddle Campground around 4:00 PM, and are directed to our site.
Oh dear… The site is all down hill! We spend an hour and half assembling enough blocking under the trailer tires so that we can get the trailer off the truck and then leveled! Learning experience – DO NOT ACCEPT a camp site with an 8 degree slope. Especially since there were other sites next to it that are open. We did manage to get the trailer level, but it was much more work than it was worth.
We get to spend the week eating fresh oysters, and lobsters. We visit with Gene and Lynn Vogt, and Diane and Roddy Powers. We drive on the pretty back roads of Maine, and see lots of coast line. We also find a little time to shift some of the gear in the basement around to try and reduce the weight of the trailer on the truck.
The week passes quickly and is time to return to New Hampshire. Hooking the truck back up to the trailer is even worse than unhooking had been. The trailer’s automatic leveling system does not want to lift the trailer high enough to get the truck under the hitch! Oh No! Deryl suggests that Rob try manual mode. Luckily manual mode does override the system error message, and we are able to get the trailer back on the truck. Deryl and Rob take note again, do NOT accept a site this sloped!
Clyde, in 4-wheel drive low gear, is able to pull the trailer up the hill and we on the road to our next campsite. Yea Clyde!
Lazy River Family Camping:
We have a festival that we are doing sound and lights for on Saturday 9/18. It is Riverfest at Assembly Row in Somerville, Massachusetts. We have been doing this festival for 9 years, and while it did not happen in 2020 due to Covid-19, they are doing the festival this year.
To facilitate our preparations for the festival we decided that we should to be near the storage unit where all of our gear is stored. Therefore we made reservations at the Lazy River Family Campground in Epsom, NH, which is close to our storage unit in Pembroke.
Lazy River Family Campground probably should be called Lazy Family River Campground as the owners obviously do as little as possible. The roads around the campground are muddy potholes. The laundry is filthy and one of the 2 washers is broken. Ya, it is after Labor Day, and high season is over, however there are signs that maintenance has not been done at this campground for years.
We are told to just pull our trailer across the field, and through a set of empty sites. Driving across the field is a good thing. The camp site across from ours has tents constructed all the way out to the edge of the road. This makes the road very narrow in front of our site. Rob is wondering how he will get the trailer out at the end of the week.
The site is just dirt. Level, but just dirt. Not even crushed stone. There is 30 amp electric service, which is fine as we won’t be needing both AC units. We set up quickly, make dinner and call it a day.
This week passes quickly with us working at storage selecting the gear we will need on Saturday for the festival, and loading it into our utility trailer.
The festival goes well and we sleep in on Sunday. Monday sees us unpacking some of the gear back into storage, before moving the utility trailer to the kid’s for storage. Rob decides he won’t unload all of the gear, as we hopefully will have another festival shortly after we return in May.
While we are close to our storage unit, we take time to reduce some of what we are carrying on the trailer.
We start with purchasing a lighter printer. We have a nice Cannon color laser printer, that we had stored in the trailer bedroom closet. However that printer weighs almost 60 pounds. To reduce the weight on the truck, we purchased a smaller black and white printer that weighs 25 pounds. We installed the new printer on the end table next to the sofa in the back of the trailer. The color printer went to storage.
We had a pair of Zero-Gravity reclining outdoor chairs, which are very nice, but they are heavy. Those came out of the trailer’s basement storage. Yep those moved to storage.
Based on reading and recommendations by Deryl’s daughter Aliza, Rob decides he wants a new propane grill. Rob purchases a light weight, portable, grill unit made by Coleman, and the storage crate filled with grill, propane stove, and our other camping related cookware goes to storage.
Return to Oxbow:
After the week at Lazy River Family Campground, we moved the trailer back to Oxbow Campground where we stayed until the end of the season on 10/18.
On our return to Oxbow we were assigned site 90. This site is a pull through site about 1/2 way down the hill towards the ponds from where we were previously at site 2. It is a nice level site with 30 amp service.
We purchased a hitch mounting rack, with a plastic bag, which we fondly call “The Burrito’. We have moved the patio furniture out of the basement to the burrito. This moved the weigh from the front basement area to the back of the trailer.
The rest of the time at Oxbow, we made preparations for travel. Doctor visits for us and the cats. This got flu shots for Rob and Deryl, and new prescriptions for Rob. The cats got their rabies vaccines. Deryl had dental work finished.
We even managed to squeeze in a weekend visit to Stockbridge Massachusetts to visit Deryl’s Mom, Aunt Shirley, and Cousin Stephen.
We have made friends at Oxbow, and look forward to staying at Oxbow in 2022. We will make official reservations with Tom on January 1, 2022 when he starts booking next season.
In the mean time, you can read about the first leg of our journey here on The Trip South page.
Or continue reading about the preparations on the following pages:
- Purchase of the trailer
- Fit-Up of the trailer
- Testing the truck, trailer, and our ability to use the equipment
- The Shake-Down Cruise where we put theory to practice