Start- Saco KOA, Old Orchard Beach, ME

End- Somes Sound View Campground, Somesville, ME

Miles- 182.4

Total Miles- 752.3

After dinner last night as we were packing in the kitchen, Tom closed the back hatch and I heard something. I pulled back up the hatch and discovered that he had left a steel cup in a spot where it would hit the door and it had created a semicircular crack in the birch ply of the back cover. It made both of us sick to see how easily this part of the trailer can be damaged.

During the night Tom awoke to the sound of rain and realized we’d left chairs and lamps out. He got up and moved everything under the trailer. We awoke in the morning to discover we’d survived our first serious rainstorm and were dry and snug in the Shadow. Our gear wasn’t much worse for the wear and we got around and Tom went for a run while I walked the dog. Tenzin and I discovered another similarly marked shih tzu on our walk and his owner noted that they were like “two chinese gentlemen” greeting one another.

After showers and breakfast, I noted that lots of people seemed to be packing up and I checked the “rules” sheet. Right. Check out was in 10 minutes and there was a charge if you were late. Seeing how they had been sticklers for most other rules, we packed up fast and got out of there.

It was still overcast and rainy and we headed for Portland to visit the L.L.Bean flagship store. The roads had been rough along the way and I thought I had heard something with the camper as we headed into town. We were stuck in traffic when someone ran into the road and knocked on my window. He said that the stabilizing bar of the camper was down. We got off the road and Tom got out to check. He said it seemed loose. He got it tucked back and I noted that it hadn’t seemed right when we left camp that morning.

We hadn’t realized that Portland is just a big outlet mall.  It was packed to the gills with people who were avoiding the rain and doing some shopping. It took forever to find a school parking lot where we could park the trailer. We left Tenzin napping in Blubaru while we headed over to the shops. We noticed a couple of L.L.Bean guys with a clipboard making notes in front of a couple of houses that were for sale. We joked that they were making plans to buy up more houses to expand the “campus” and then realized we were probably right.

We both stocked up on a few cool weather items at L.L.Bean and took pictures of the big boot. We got some camp stove fuel and found Tenzin a pillow (we hadn’t packed his and he’ll steal yours if he doesn’t have his own). We checked out Horny Toad and Patagonia. Then we decided to get some lunch and get out of Dodge. As we left, we noticed that the library building had been taken over by Abercrombie and Fitch and that the church across the street had a sign that said “God Is Still Speaking” as if to warn people away from thinking the building would make a good store.

Back on the road, we kept noticing that after bumps in the road we’d hear sounds. We kept stopping to check and sometimes the stabilizing arm would be down and sometimes not. It made for worrisome travel. Eventually it got to a point where we had to just stop and get out some tools and try to figure out what was going on. We discovered that the spring that holds the arm had come off but was still there. We called Preston from Miller Trailer to see if he had any ideas about how best to fix it. He gave us some ideas, but we didn’t have the needle nose pliers handy that would be necessary. In the end, Liisa was able to bungee the thing tight enough to hold it until we could get to camp. And fortunately our next step gives us a week to figure out how to get the thing fixed before we’re back on the road.

We got to the Somes Sound View Campground at around 7pm and it was still a little rainy out. When we pulled in, I was concerned that this would be a good camp since we are staying here a week. It was so hard from the internet to know exactly what each camp would be like and every camp had both positive and negative reviews. We were initially annoyed by the fact that though the camp is expensive, it has paid showers. $1 for 5 minutes.  Then as we headed towards our site, we were nervous that we were so far up a hill and away from the bathhouse. We managed to get the trailer into the site pretty easily and it was a nice site, but close to the road. We couldn’t decide right away if we liked it here or not. On one hand, the sites were nicely spaced apart and there are lots of trees. On the other hand, the bath house is a serious walk down a hill away from us and we are close to the main road. We guessed it might take a day or two to decide whether we loved or hated this camp.

After we got things setup, Tenzin got out of the car and suddenly couldn’t walk on his left back leg. It had been fine earlier in the day and we weren’t sure if maybe his leg was just asleep from having laid on it in the car for so long or if there was something more serious going on. He seemed to want to try to walk a little and circled the campsite a few times limping along. We figured we’d go to bed and if it was still bad in the morning we’d head to the vet we passed on the way onto the island. (Yes, I’m one of those people who notes when I pass a hospital or a vet or a grocery I might need later)

Pics from today are here- http://bit.ly/8X2Ton