New England: Things that go bump in the night

We arrived in Vermont on May 27th and enjoyed driving through historic downtown Bennington, with its tall memorial to their fighters in the Revolutionary war. We then spent two days in nearby Woodford at a lovely RV park/campground in the Green Mountains. While there, we finally ate the scrapple we had purchased while we were in Philadelphia. Jim, a native of Philly, grew up occasionally eating scrapple, which is made from various parts of a pig - you don't really want to know the parts. Jim's mother, Eleanor, had many years ago introduced me to scrapple and fortunately, due to the amount of herbs/spices used in its making, it wasn't bad. Nothing like a culinary trip down memory lane.

We enjoyed our drive across Vermont and into New Hampshire, seeing several more quintessential small, charming New England towns. I can't think of better adjectives to describe them, so we'll continue with 'charming'. We arrived in Merrimack, NH on Sunday, May 29th at the home of long-time friends, Bunnie & Dana Knight. Bunnie and I have known each other since junior high school in Sacramento and have maintained our friendship over the years. The Knight's were amenable to letting us park in their driveway for a week while I flew to/from Pierre, South Dakota. Bunnie even shuttled me to/from Logan Airport in Boston. The arrangement worked out well for Jim, especially when Truman became incontinent: Bunnie called her vet and escorted Jim and Truman to the vet for treatment. We think it also worked out OK for Bunnie & Dana as Jim insisted on helping do some yard work.

Before and after my trip to Pierre, Bunnie & Dana drove us to the very pretty town of Milford for lunch and on another jaunt - to Lowell, MA where we enjoyed seeing the Lowell National Historic Site that included a ride on an old trolley car and a boat ride through one of the locks on Lowell's many canals. (Hooray again for our National Park Service!) We learned that Lowell, an early leader in the textile manufacturing industry was also the birthplace of author Jack Kerouac. We ended our visit at Knight's Inn with an excellent home-cooked lobster dinner.

Oh, we should mention a couple of other RV related adventures (aka challenges/issues). As we were departing MA, we heard a crunching noise as we were pulling in the back slide out. Not seeing any obstruction, we finished the job only to later learn that something had gotten caught in the storage area underneath the slide out and as a result, we damaged the bed frame on which the slider mechanism sits - not to mention our mattress. We appealed to Dana to help us out with his technical/handyman skills - and he was successful in repairing the bed. At least this time we didn't hit the roof with any more branches!

The other RV adventure was when we awakened the morning after my return from Pierre to the CO alarm beeping. We quickly opened windows and then tried to figure out the cause of the alarm. Long story short - it appears the alarm was wrong. We were able to determine this because (1) we borrowed Bunnie/Dana's CO alarm and put it inside the RV then (2) proceeded to close the windows. (3) Without thought, we left the dogs inside and headed into town for some groceries, forgetting about the possibility of a real CO leak! Fortunately the dogs - now known as our canaries - were just fine. Phew!

I should mention that while in Pierre, I was able to see friends and enjoyed dinner with Dennie & Cheryl, and Mike & Kathi. We're looking forward to spending more time when we get back to South Dakota in July.

On June 5th, Bunnie guided us out of NH and into Maine. We stopped at Portsmouth, parked the RV and then rode in her car into the historic town, which in spite of the rainy weather was charming. We followed Bunnie in our RV through the charming town of Ogunquit and to our RV park in Wells. After getting the RV set up, Bunnie drove us to a little seafood cafe where we enjoyed lunch and then to Kennebunkport - another pretty New England town - and the George H.W, Bush compound at Walker Point. Bunnie then drove us back towards York and the Nibble Lighthouse on Cape Neddick. Bunny bid us farewell in the late afternoon but thanks to her generosity, we enjoyed seeing these small towns without worrying about driving or parking Tiny Tin.

After heavy rains and cold temperature last night, we awoke this morning to sunny skies and warm temps and enjoyed a day of exploring part of the town of Wells. As we listened to the local National Public Radio (NPR) station, a routine from home we have continued on this trip, we had to laugh about how NPR's fund raising efforts has followed us on our trip across the country.

Tomorrow we head to Searsport, ME, then we're off to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Our campground in Woodford, VT