Pretty much as I expected

Not surprisingly, I haven't been keeping up on this blog as much as I should be. On the other hand, we haven't really done a lot this summer, other than a trip to Erie so I could go back to Behrend. A lot has changed on campus in the past 25 years, but fortunately, the Gorge is pretty much the same.
We're heading up to Bar Harbor soon for 3 weeks. I'll post more then.

The new season

We got back from a successful opening weekend at Country Haven in New Holland. We like having our opening and closing weekends there because it's close to home, Shady Maple is nearby, and there are 2 WalMarts pretty close for any needs.

Our friends Steve, Bev, and Carly were there as expected, and we had a good time eating lunch at Shady Maple. We also made some new friends from New Hampshire.

We'll be heading down to Hilton Head soon for 2 whole weeks - we can't wait.

Freeport

We headed up to Freeport for our annual mid-winter/birthday escape. A stay at the White Cedar Inn is just what the doctor ordered.

Literally, as it turned out.







Rock and Monica are first rate innkeepers (well, since it's Maine, I guess they're 'innkeepahs'), and Rock whips up a mean breakfast. The White Cedar is a relaxing place, yet within easy walking distance to L.L. Bean and a host of other fun places to shop and eat. We got there Saturday afternoon, and decided to just run to Hannaford and Pat's Pizza for supper. The next day, we asked our hosts where there was a good Chinese restaurant, after all, nothing says "Maine" like good Chinese food! They told us about the Hunan House in Auburn, where we had the best Chinese food since our favorite restaurant Peking closed.

Well... long story short - the rest of our stay was pretty unremarkable, except for the fact that we spent the next couple days at Parkview Hospital in Brunswick, where Cindy had her gall bladder removed. If you're ever in Maine, and need some work done, we recommend Parkview; very clean, and the staff couldn't have been more friendly.
We were even welcomed back to the White Cedar by 'booboo bear', a little, stuffed Boyd's bear left on our bed as a get well present from Rock and Monica.

We'll be back again next year, even though we might not get as much Olympic curling coverage as I'm jonesing for.

Bar Harbor wrap up

It was a great trip, but even 2 weeks was too short. The weather was fantastic (except for the "hurricane") and the leaves were some of the best we've ever seen in 20 years of coming to Maine.

Another thing we did was drive up to Bangor. There's a Tim Horton's there, so of course we stopped. I got coffee and a cruller, eh?
We also drove past Stephen King's house to say "hi".



We spent some time with friends old and new. The first week, we ran into Anita, a nurse that Cindy had worked with almost 30 years ago. We enjoyed spending time with her and her husband, Neil.

Our friends from Vermont, Bev and Steve came during our second week and, as always, we enjoyed spending time with them as well.

Krimpet enjoyed spending time with Carly (Bev and Steve's Shelty), as well as making lots of new Golden friends, like Molly and Bailey.

Stonington and Deer Isle

Stonington is said to be one of the best kayaking areas in Maine, so we wanted to check it out for next year. The town is a quaint little working village at the southern end of Deer Isle.


Around Stonington is an archipelago of 60-some islands, with Isle Au Haut at it's southernmost point, which is why it attracts so many kayakers. The beauty of this area is breathtaking.

We were here for the earthquake too!

We arrived in Bar Harbor just in time for Hurricane Kyle - the first hurricane to hit New England since Hurricane Bob, some 17 years go.
There are very few other campers here right now, and no one is allowed in the waterfront sites. They have us in another area temporarily, but we can still see the water. Fortunately, there are no trees near our site, so we don't have to worry about being crushed during the night.

...EARLY THE NEXT MORNING - So much for the hurricane. It was supposed to make landfall sometime during the night, but it went farther East, so we didn't even really get any rain.

No sweetness in Hershey

Well, we went to the Hershey RV show yesterday. After all the talk about the economy and the state of the RV industry, we thought that we could get a good deal.
It seems this is not the case. Part of our problem is having a motorhome to trade rather than starting from scratch, but it didn't seem like they were discounting units any more than normal. We're going to work with our dealer - we're pretty sure they can get us into something.

...LATER - At around 3:00, my cell phone rang. Sure enough, it was somebody from Colton RV (the Tiffin dealer) wanting to work up some numbers on an '08 coach they had at the show. We'll see how desperate they are to sell.
I hope it works out, since we liked what we saw.

...EVEN LATER - Well, I waited the whole weekend for them to get desperate at their lack of sales to come to their senses and accept our offer, but no dice.

My new website

I've been looking into buying a domain name, and creating a website for a while. Today, as I was looking into how to do this cheaply and easily, so I could link this blog into the domain name (or at the very least, my site), I stumbled across the fact that, if you buy a domain name from GoDaddy.com via Google, you can do this for $10/year. Along with this, you get Google apps, which gives you a mess of webspace and email accounts. The hardest part about the whole thing was picking out the name.

I've had a couple free sites, but it's not quite the same as having your own .com name. Now I just need to figure out how to make my millions!

I'm just getting things set up for right now, but check it out. GeezaNet

Full Timing

In the near future, we hope to be fulltiming in our RV. We're beginning the process now by researching what we need to do. Cindy is talking to recruiters from Travel Nursing companies, and looking into heaqlth care costs and coverage. I'm looking into the nuts and bolts of traveling - getting a new RV, where to claim domicile... that sort of thing.
Not surprisingly, Krimpet is keeping herself pretty busy by keeping up with her naps and snacking schedule.

...And so it begins

The main point of this blog is to document our travels for our family and friends.
Krimpet hopes you enjoy it.

This is Krimpet. She'll be 7 on Sept. 22nd.
We originally got an RV so she could
travel with us everywhere we go.
She's a great travel dog.