Good-bye to Maine

2013 Sept 15

Good-bye to Maine

Our brief time in Maine was spent in three different campgrounds. We initially drove north to Harrington and stayed at Sunset Point which was an Escapees park, and because the price was good, the owner was nice and lobster could be ordered and delivered to your rig, cooked, we extended there to five days, instead of the three we originally planned on. 

When we moved on to the mid-coast region, we allowed ourselves to be seduced by the campground's website. We stayed three days at Searsport Shores Ocean Campground. It was a bit pricey, as we failed to ask about costs, assuming the web prices indicating off season prices would be in effect were accurate. Normally, one or the other of us does the registration, but this time because we were also buying propane and the rig needed to be moved, I left in the middle of the process, before prices had been discussed. Raymond took over at registration and never thought to ask. It wasn't until I was balancing the checkbook at the next campground, that I realized we had paid a lot more than the $45/night I had expected. Totally our fault for allowing ourselves to be distracted. It was a nice campground, with very pleasant owners. It did however rain two of the three days we were there, so we didn't make good use of the ocean access. Also, from the website pictures, we thought the campground was more open than it turned out to be. Heavy tree cover meant no satellite reception for Raymond. That made three damp days seem even longer.

Our third campground was in Scarborough, near Portland. We again let ourselves be sold via the website. Wassamki Springs Campground bills itself as "closest campground to Portland". Indeed, it was an easy drive to see Portland Head Lighthouse, which was on my must see list. The campground also bills itself as "family owned", which I'm sure it is, and the owners live on site. However, the staff working in the office seemed completely uninformed and a bit surly. The one working when we tried to check in sent Raymond off to check sites, with a map indicating the ones available. However, what R found was that the map and the employee's indicators were wrong. Upon returning and explaining what he had found, the owner checked the computer, found that R was correct, and booked us into an open site. The owner was very nice.  Of course, my perceptions were colored by the fact that as we waited to sign in, it began to rain. And the rain came gently at first and then became a steady downpour. We found our site and hooked up in the deluge. The enormous amount of rain provided several huge puddles on our site. Thank goodness we weren't in a tent! The campground also bills itself as "family oriented". What we have discovered is that sometimes family oriented is not for us. There were preteen girls running around and screeching most of the day and evening on Saturday. Thank goodness we only booked for two nights.

All in all, the Maine portion of our trip was good. I got to see many lighthouses, which was the only thing on my to do list. It was a change in the way we normally travel and set up, and because neither of us was quite mentally prepared for that, we were more tired than usual. Generally, we like to set up and stay put in one campground for anywhere from a week to a month. This time, because I wanted to see lighthouses in different parts of the Maine coast, that wasn't really feasible. Also, our time was limited to about 10 days, total. Most days we spent seeing sights, with only a day or so of down time, which is very different for our usual approach of seeing some sights, then taking a day or two to regroup.

Someday, maybe we will visit Maine again. After all, there are many lighthouses that can best be seen by boat, and I haven't seen any of them.