Category Archives: maine

Saturday 29th August 2015 – I’M NOT DOING VERY WELL …

… trying to find a slide-in camper back for Strider, but I’m doing my best and having some dreadful luck.

Having had one of the best night’s sleeps for quite a long while I was up and about ready and eager to go at all of … errr … 05:30 this morning. It just goes to show you the benefit of an early night and a good bed.

Mind you, I might have been ready to go, but I doubt if anyone else would have been, and so I spent a good couple of hours catching up on stuff on the computer and on the internet and also made a list, in distance order, of places that I need to go to in order to find out about campers.

By 09:00 I was ready for the off and first stop was Oakfield for some fuel and breakfast. Strider’s fuel consumption has improved a little too, which is good news.

Breakfast, including coffee, came to $3:07 but seeing as I had no loose change, I offered $4:00. “I just love your accent!” said the woman on the checkouts, passing me back $1:00. “No need to load up your pockets with change”. It’s the first place that I’ve ever been to where the staff have tipped the customers.

The RV place at Medway told me more about this camper that they have on offer. It’s 1997, been sitting on a park site for God knows how long and they want $3,000 for it. And there are no accessories with it. We arranged an appointment for “after 16:00” to go to see it, but I shudder to think what it must be like.

I drove on down to Bangor as there were three places to visit there. One of them had nothing, and seemed quite uninterested about the situation (so much for US business techniques). The second one, Harveys RVs, still had listed in the inventory the one that I was originally offered, but which had been sold from underneath me. I reminded the salesman that it was still up there on the list, “but it’s sold” said the salesman. “But we have a couple of new ones you can look at”. Now I understand the sales technique. Quite simply, it seems to be to “get people onto the lot at any price”.

The third one, which I visited on spec, had something extremely interesting and we spent an hour or so going over it. And I would have driven away with it too but when we came to measure up, it was 3 inches too wide and about a foot too long. That was definitely a major disappointment to me. Mind you, they did have a brand-new one that would have fitted on a pick-up smaller than mine and which weighed about half of what any other would weigh, but it wasn’t a fold-down top and in any case $20,000 is much more than what I want to pay.

Still, we had a really good chat for ages, helped no doubt that I was the first person in North America to recognise the photos of his Pride And Joy and correctly identify it as a Mercedes 190 Ponton. This kind of thing helps to break the ice at parties.

Home Depot came up trumps yet again. I need a new Ryobi plus one circular saw (which would have cost me $69:00) but they had a starter kit of saw, basic drill, charger and lithium battery at just $79:00. And a pack of two lithium batteries came to just $49:00. Things are definitely looking up in North America from that point of view.

All the way back to Millinocket afterwards to find this camp site and I must have driven around every dirt track and mountain trail in the whole of Upper Maine but with no success as far as this camper went. This was something of a wasted journey and I was quite annoyed about that. The road was exciting though and didn’t ‘arf rattle my teeth, but I can see the benefit of decent all-weather tyres on a 4×4, instead of high-speed road tyres on a town car, when driving on dirt tracks.

highway maine usaSo I headed south on Highway 11 back to Bangor, on one of the nicest roads that I have ever driven. A new, refurbished black-top with scenic views, lakes, and lovely bends and you’ve no idea how much Strider loved the trip.

I had the speed limiter set to 55mph all the way down here and it really was an enjoyable drive, but Strider has a tendency to wander a little around the road, I’ve noticed. I’ll have to have a look at the dampers – maybe one or two need changing perhaps which is hardly surprising giving the battering he’s just had.

steel girder bridge brownville maine usaBrownville in Maine came up trumps, and for several reasons too – not the least of which being this gorgeous steel girder bridge across the river. It could do with a coat of paint of course, as well as all of the power lines that surround it pulled down so that I can have a decent shot of it, but I still think that it’s quite good nevertheless.

And where I had stopped to take the photo was on the corner of “Railroad Street” with an old sign directing me to the “railroad station”. What more can any man desire?

brownville junction railway maine usaThere’s quite an important railway junction here, with three lines merging in a triangular junction. I did notice a building that might have been a railway station but it was festooned with US flags and “Private Property” signs – clearly the home of Republicans, and so I wasn’t going to risk a bullet in the back of my neck by photographing it, such is the paranoia and the fear gripping most Americans these days.

But from the other side of the tracks, braving the “private property” and “no trespassing signs”, I could take a photo of the busy goods yard and tell you that the station is on the other side behind the railway wagons.

lumber pile pleasant river maine usaUpper Maine is noted for its lumber industry and there is ample evidence of that all over the place, especially here at Pleasant River where there is the biggest pile of timber that I have ever seen. It looks much more impressive in real life than it does on film.

In the foreground is the finished product – wood for the building industry all cut and planed, and shrink-wrapped to keep out the damp and for ease of shipping. All of this of course might explain the busy railway goods yard at Brownville Junction just up the road.

There were lots more things to see too but the light had gone by now and it was going dark. I’ll have to come back here another time.

But I had noticed that I hadn’t seen a single motel all along this road and so I headed for Bangor. And by the time that I arrived at Bangor in the pitch black, I still hadn’t either.

As for a motel, a cheap cat-house wanted $99:00 for a room so we can forget that, and so I headed to Dysart’s truck stop for tea. And much to my astonishment, Dysarts now has vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

They also had nice, thick artisan-type blankets at $9:99 and if I’m going to end up sleeping some nights in Strider, there’s no time like the present to make a start. It beats $99:00 in a cheap motel.

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Friday 28th August 2015 – HERE’S STRIDER …

strider ford ranger pick up centreville new brunswick canada… all loaded up with a huge domestic fridge and a big cooker, and in a few minutes we are off to Sharp’s, the metal place just outside Woodstock.

I’m taking my leave of Darren, Rachel and family and heading off into the hills. I mean – I’ve been here 10 days and that’s not like me at all to put down roots like this.

At Sharps, there was nearly a lot more metal hauled into the yard as I failed to see a dark purple car against the dark vegetation background as I pulled out to go across the road. That was rather embarrassing, to say the least, especially as I had something of an audience watching me.

Anyway, having done that, I went down the road and to the border with Great Satan at Houlton. Crossing into the USA there took ages with the queue of traffic (but nothing like what it took to get into Canada the other week) and just for a change, every single one of the border guards was friendly, cheerful and helpful. If all border crossings could be like this one, travelling would be a lot less stressful.

However, just to prove that little of the underlying spirit of the USA has changed very little, while I was there, four people were chosen from the queue to receive closer attention

  1. me – with a foreign passport
  2. a black guy
  3. a long-haired hippy-type
  4. an oriental family

Still the same old stereotypes, so it seems. But as I said, even though I was selected for closer attention, it wasn’t a stressful experience by any means – just a friendly chat.

In Houlton, I struck lucky yet again at Marden’s and it made me wish that I hadn’t spent that monay at Canadian Tire the other day because they had everything that I needed there and at half the price too. But this is the thing with Marden’s – their stock is very much of the moment. It’s all bankruptcy, liquidations, fire sale stuff and it comes and goes. You can’t ever rely on them for having anything.

I fuelled up Strider as well, and I’ve come to the conclusion that his fuel consumption isn’t as bad as I was fearing. I let him run quite empty, to a rather depressing 425kms (not enough for Labrador) but to refill, it took 15.4 US gallons – about 55 litres. It’s still not very good, but at least I know what to expect.

presque ile maine usaConsequently, at the Walmart at Presque Ile, where I went next, I picked up a second 20-litre fuel container, just to be on the safe side.

And here, I struck lucky too. 2-tonne trolley jacks on sale at just $18:86. Anyone who has tried to jack up a vehicle on a dirt road with a sill jack (as we did in 2012 out in northern Quebec) will know the value of having decent tools and equipment for tyre changing. I could have done that job in 20 minutes, not three hours, with decent equipment.

Back on the road again, I didn’t go far. Just as far as Bridgewater in fact

1919 Mack fire truck bridgewater maine usaThis is a 1919 Mack fire truck, “used” here in Maine at a fire depot until 1960. Then it was converted to a tow truck but was never used and was simply laid up, until the present owner acquired it.

And I said “used” in inverted commas, because it’s done a verified 1900 miles since new.

1919 Mack Fire Truck bridgewater maine usaNever mind shaft drive, this is chain-drive – in fact twin chain drive – as you can see.

It’s a 4-cylinder engine, displacing 600 cubic inches, and has a belt-drive clutch, which is bound to make for exciting motoring on the modern highway. And it does run too – in fact the owner takes it out to park it on the verge every morning and then brings it back inside at night.

You all know where this is though – it’s at the place where they have the scrap Rolls-Royce that has featured on these pages in the past. And he also has a 1925 Dodge Brothers (NOT a Dodge) convertible, a 1924 Renault, a 1910 Panhard-Levassor (and we spent ages discussing the merits and otherwise of sleeve-valve engines) and, would you believe, a Kawasaki motorbike with an Isuzu 4-cylinder 1700cc diesel engine fitted.

I couldn’t take a photo of it because they were still “work in progress”, but I’ll be back here next year to see how he’s getting on.

Not I’m in a motel just off the highway going south. I’ve had a shower, washed my clothes, and had beans and chips for tea. Now I’m ready for anything.

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Saturday 4th October 2014 – A LONG DAY

We wawoke with the dawn all stiff and cold, with the weathe rhaving broken and it was now pouring down with rain. But, quite surprisingly, we hadn’t felt a thing through the night and slept the sleep of the dead.

The cafe place was however open and so we went for breakfast, the whole point of sleeping on the car park. And the cafe did us proud too for which we were both grateful.

A 5-minute drive from there took us to Weare, New Hampshire, and this was where the engine needed to be. We arrived just as they were opening up at 08:00, which was what we had intended. Half an hour saw the engine off the back of the truck and another half an hour saw it stripped right down (it’s nice to watch professionals work and the key to all of this is that they have their workshop spotlessly cleean and all of their tools right to hand and isn’t that a lesson to me?)

It turns out that a big-end shell had seized onto the crankshaft and in a high-performance racing engine at 8600 rpm, a broken con rod was inevitable. The broken rod had thrown itself around the lower part of the block and the sump and damaged just about everything that there was to damage.

While Darren was paying his respects to the engine, I was taken out for a walk by the owner’s father. he has a collection of vehicles from the early 1950s and he spent a delightful hour or so showing me around his vehicles. I really was in my element there and I was having a really good time, even if Darren wasn’t.

We stopped back at the cafe for lunch on our way back and then in the driving rain headed for home. A stop for tea at Dysarts just outside Bangor and then another refuelling at Oakfield. A relatively-painless crossing of the border saw us back here at 22:00 (don’t forget there’s a time difference of an hour between Eastern Time and Maritime Time) and that’s one more project accomplished before I leave.

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Friday 3rd October 2014 – WE WENT TO NEW HAMPSHIRE THIS AFTERNOON

Darren had to go down there this afternoon after work to take the engine of his pulling truck back to the makers so that they could have a look at it.

However, he had suffered a slight welding flash last night and that makes driving uncomfortable in the sunlight, especially as there’s a 200-mile stretch between Houlton and Portland in Maine where the road is full south-east and the bright setting sun is in your face for the entire distance. Consequently, a second driver was required for that leg, and I was the only one not doing anything.

I’d had a bad night too, so I ran a few errands here and there, and then crashed out in a layby for an hour or so. I may as well use the free time profitably.

We were held up at the border by the US Border Patrol, as anyone reading these notes might have prophesied. Apparently the engine is classed as “commercial goods” as “it can be used to generate income”, hence an import tax was required. What income it could generate with two con-rods sticking through the sump became a matter of quite some considerable discussion.

Apparently anglers who cross the border with fishing rods, and golfers with golf clubs, and anyone with a car or van might now be liable to a US import tax now – all these items are capable of generating income. And what about a man who crosses the border with a woman? There is an enormous number of street corners in the USA after all and so the income-generating potential is enormous.

But the USA customs officials were intransigent and that was that. But whatever is going on in the USA? It’s almost as if they don’t want people to come to their country to spend … gulp … a good deal of money … … in their country.

We fuelled up at Oakfield and then I took the wheel for the 200-mile dash down the highway. A big Chevy C5500 with a V8 6.6-litre Duramax diesel engine. It’s the biggest thing that I’ve driven since I had a tour bus, and all the way through the rush hours of Bangor, Augusta and Portland too. And I managed it without hitting anything and killing anyone too.

Once it was dark, Darren retook the wheel and we drove a little further on to a shopping mall just off the highway where he met a few of his friends for a chat, and then we continued on along the old highways, passing many of the places that I drove through on my way here, right into the depths of darkest New Hampshire. We stopped in the car park of a small cafe-restaurant place, Darren on the front seats and me in the back, and I went out like a light and that was that.

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Tuesday 30th September 2014 – I’VE BEEN SHOPPING TODAY

I was planning just to chill out a little today but then Rachel asked me what I was doing. And so, a few minutes later, I was on my way to the bank. But a bank with a difference, to whit, a bank in the USA. Darren is of course quite often on his travels to tractor-pulling events in the USA and so needs USA cash for expenses, but then his prize money (because he almost always wins something) is paid in cheques likewise. Consequently, it makes sense to have a USA bank account.

I was once again nailed at the border by a very unfriendly USA border guard and I’m beginning to hate that country with an undisguised passion. I’m absolutely convinced that they must comb the ranks of the USA civil service for the most unpleasant and arrogant officers that they can find and then dress them up in border guard uniforms and stand them at the frontier. As you know, it’s long been my contention that the USA doesn’t have any enemies at all except those that it has created for itself, and this is where the border guards have contributed enormously.

And don’t forget that I’m white and English-speaking too. Whatever must it be like to be a brown-skinned foreigner?

And this reminds me. In all of the years that I have been crossing the border in and out of the USA at all kinds of different border posts I haven’t seen any USA border control person other than a white-skinned one.

So abandoning yet another good rant for the time being, off I went to the bank at Mars Hill to pay in a couple of cheques.

Over the road from the bank at Mars Hill is an IGA supermarket and Rachel had given me shopping list of things that she needed; so I duly obliged.

coconut milk ice cream IGA supermarket mars hill maine USA september 2014And that’s not the best of it either. If you remember from a few weeks ago I found an IGA supermarket in Quebec that sold some ice cream made with almond milk.

Here in this one, there was ice cream made with coconut milk. Four different types too, and who could resist the chocolate version, even though the temperature was a mere 7°C? And delicious it was too. I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Make no mistake – I’ll be back there again.

Having done the chores, I then went off on my own little adventures around the shops. The most exciting find was in Presque Ile where in the Graves supermarket next to Mardens, I discovered not only a pile of vegetarian and vegan food products but about 6 different types of hummus. Yes, despite all of the USA-bashing that goes on all over the place … "as if…" – ed … it’s specialist-diet ranges are light years ahead of whatever mainland Europe can offer and it’s the place to be for products such as this. France, take note.

two way ratchet half inch drive 3 8 drive tractor supply company presque ile maine USAThere’s a new chain of shops opened up in the area too, called The Tractor Supply Company or something like that. It’s mainly for farmers (as indeed you might expect with a name like that) and Darren recommended that I go for a nosey around in there.

He was right too.

As you know, I’ve been buying a few odds and ends of sockets and that sort of thing while I’ve been over here, and in here they had a , well, agricultural-quality reversible ratchet that had a half-inch socket end on one side and a three-eights socket end on the other. And all for $9:99 too. Being designed for farmers, it’s huge and well-nigh indestructible, just the thing for me. It’ll go nicely with my 25-inch power bar.

So that was everything that I did today (apart from the obligatory refuelling of course) and then it was time to confront the border guards again.

Just for a change, there was a human being at the border control on the Canadian side and after what can be best described as “a brief exchange of pleasantries”, I was on my way.

If only every border crossing person could be as friendly as this, it would be a very agreeable way of spending the time, going back and too across the border, instead of having to quite literally run the gauntlet of the nasty and aggressive people whom one usually finds in places like this. They must really have some unfortunate control issues with their spouses at home that they have to vent their spleen and demonstrate their authority to the poor and wretched passers-by who have come to invest a little money to prop up their crumbling economy.

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Monday 9th September 2014 – HALL TOWERS …

eric hall mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canada… is looking rather worse for wear these days. It seems that a little bit more of the gable roof has disappeared. So much for my plans to donate it to a worthy cause. I tried several of these historic villages to see if anyone wanted it, but no-one did, even if I offered to pay the transportation.

I only hope that if it does fall right down, it’ll fall across the border into the USA. Usually I seem to be able to attract trouble without going out to look for it, so a frontier incident or border war should be right up my street.

Talking of frontier incidents and border wars, last night I was working for the STIB – the Société de Transports Intercommunale de Bruxelles as a bus driver. They started me off on an easy route, just following one main road, but even I managed to complicate matters and deviate from the plan … "no surprise there " – ed.

The next day they were planning to send me out driving the route 23. I’ve no idea where that goes to but last night in the Land of Nod it was the bus that hugged the roads back and to across the linguistic frontier between Flanders and Wallonie. That was a route that was the subject of endless confrontations between drivers and the public as a French-speaking driver would be harassed by the Flemish and a Flemish driver would be harassed by the Walloons, and there was no way of having a typical Belgian compromise and splitting the route. Putting an Anglophone driver on the bus would be a red rag to everyone.

However the depot where the 23 was garaged was also the subject of complications. It was far too small for the purpose of garaging the buses that were needed in the vicinity – just an island dividing two carriageways, but neither the Flemish or Walloon communities would agree to its expansion or its displacement elsewhere as it would give some kind of advantage to the other community.

Sounds just like real Belgium, doesn’t it?

saint john river florenceville new brunswick canadaRegular readers of this rubbish will not need to be told where the Saint John River might be. It’s in a steep-sided valley, and although it is nothing like as steep as the valley of the Sioule near home, it’s steep enough and you’ll be able to guess quite easily.

Yes, it was cold during the night and when I took this photo, at about 08:30, it was a mere 7°C.

I went to see the guy who was supposed to be looking for a vehicle for me, and his (rather predictable, I’m afraid) response was “ohh, I forgot all about you after a month or so”. It seems that it’s too much like hard work for a businessman to haul himself out of a chair and earn a couple of dollars these days. Rather sit at home and let the dollars flow through his fingers. What a sad state the Western World is coming to when businessmen can’t even be bothered to earn some money.

I tell you now, customer service in North America is disappearing rapidly down the tubes. It’ll be like Belgium soon.

So after checking on Hall Towers, I crossed the border into the USA. I went over at Riviere de Chute, the same crossing point as last year, and it was the same miserable old whatsit on duty, but just for a change he was cheerful and happy. No idea what was happening there.

So negotiating the Amish horse buggies I arrived in Presque-Ile to some devastating news. The huge Salvation Army Thrift Centre has closed down. I had a pile of good books and music from there last year and this was my main reason for going.

cook florist presque ile maine usaStill, I could always go to the local florists and buy some suitable flowers to express my feelings, but if Cooks Florists had any flowers to express the feelings that I was having right at that particular moment I would have been very surprised indeed.

I wonder if there’s a Trading Standards Bureau in the USA that checks for misleading advertising. I think we should be told.

Still, not to be outdone, I went old-car hunting, and look at this!

h m vehicles freeway presque ile maine usaThis is a Freeway, a three-wheeled vehicle made by a company called HM Vehicles in Burnsville, Minnesota. That was a company that made vehicles for just 3 years, 1979 to 1982, before closing down.

This vehicle is one of only about 700 ever made, so it’s as rare as hens’ teeth, and what remains of it, because you would need to be dedicated to have a go at restoring this one, is available for purchase at a mere $2500, or near offer.

I suppose that there would be some takers at that price, and I might be interested myself. It would fit into my suitcase and would probably come within the weight of my baggage allowance too.

frazer nash metropolitan presque ile usaThat wasn’t the only interesting car either. There were plenty of others, including this one. This is a Nash Metropolitan, either a Series III or a IV, and the claim to fame of these cars is that they were built by Austin at Longbridge for Nash, the American car company and were imported for sale in North America – the first car ever to be totally built abroad on behalf of a USA manufacturer. There will even probably still be the old 1489cc BMC B-series engine in there.

A few were sold in the UK and people with long memories will remember the pile of them dumped and abandoned for years on the waste land at the side of Grocott’s garage in Wistaston, Crewe in the late 1960s and early 70s.

I could cry when I think of that, how rare these cars are now.

I headed on back to Canada afterwards, and at the frontier I was once more given a hard time, this time by a Canadian border official. I just don’t understand what it is with border officials. Do they have to undergo a surgical operation to remove their goodwill, good humour and pleasant disposition before they are appointed to a post?

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Sunday 7th September 2014 – BACK TO CANADA

You wouldn’t believe, given the beautiful morning, how evil he weather had been last night. We woke up to clear blue skies and a pale dawn sunshine. And also an enormous amount of dew and some freezing cold weather.

We weren’t long in setting off, and went to Dysart’s in Bangor for breakfast. That’s an enormous truck stop just off Interstate 95 (at mile marker 180) and long-term readers of this rubbish will remember that I met a team of cheerleaders here last year. I had toast and jam, with home fries and mixed vegetables, and enough coffee to sink a ship – although whether it is correct to call this hot brown-coloured liquid “coffee” is a matter of some debate.

From there we went on up to the exit at mile marker 188 and Sam’s Club. This is one of the leading wholesale outlets in the north of Maine and Darren and Rachel needed to stock up the shop at the tyre depot. I limited myself to a pack of 4 of the bottled gas that I use in the cooking stove – all of $5:49. I don’t really need it but it’s the kind of stuff that you can never ever find when you need it and if I’m going off up to Labrador I might need it.

We fuelled up at Oakland, which is the cheapest fuel in Maine apparently, and then crossed the border into Canada. Here in the Maritimes, the time is one hour in advance of the Eastern USA and so it was 19:30 when we arrived here.

I’m staying here for a day or two and then I’m off to the Jazz and Blues Festival at Fredericton. I’d better polish up my guitar.

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Saturday 6th September 2014 – WHAT A FARCE …

… this tractor pull has been.

The morning started fine enough, a beautiful bright blue sky and nice hot weather. And I had a most enjoyable breakfast too.

After that I went for a walk and it wasn’t difficult to find Rachel, Darren and Amber. They were parked up by the fence of the pits.

The security staff wanted to charge me $10:00 for an entry into the pits but enough was enough. It appears that, for the Dodge, I’m paying the same price to stay overnight as one of these monster caravans pulled by one of these monster trucks. A family of 6, occupying six times the footprint that my Dodge is occupying, is paying the same price that I’m paying.

Not only that, the “bigger” pitches have water and electricity too – I don’t have anything like that and so you can see that I’m being ripped off even more by the Clinton Lions Club and I am extremely unhappy (to say the least) about all of this. So there was no way that I was paying an extra $10:00 on top of all of this to visit the others. I made “other arrangements”.

amber perdy in the pink clinton lions club tractor pull maine usaDarren needed some help to fetch “Perdy in the Pink” out of the trailer but before I could volunteer, I was overwhelmed by Amber who rushed to his assistance.

With Hannah now having started University Darren finds himself a pair of hands short, so I can well imagine Amber stepping into the breach in a couple of years time. Nothing like starting early.

So having done that, we all relaxed and chilled in the sunshine while we waited for the competition to start.

clinton lions club tractor pull maine usaThere are various classes of pulling vehicles. This is one of the competitors in the diesel 2.6 – 3-litre class and it looks like an old-time steam train roaring across the prairie or up into the Rockies or something. I’m glad that there were only a couple of competitors in this class, and so is the planet.

So Darren went to pull but found to his surprise that his tractor was overweight. With Hannah having driven it until recently it was set up for her. Some of the weight balances had to be taken off the tractor and as it was easier to do it from the back, this was from where the weights came out.

This also meant that the tow hitch was too high and this needed to be wound down a couple of inches.

As a result, the machine was totally out of balance and so the first run wasn’t particularly impressive.

We spent the next couple of hours readjusting the weights and rebalancing the tractor so that the weight was correct and all in the right place, but as Darren was about to start his second run, this was when the heavens opened and we were all drenched in a torrential downpour, the like of which I had rarely seen. There was no grip on the track for Darren so the tractor simply slid across the track when it set out with the load.

The competition was immediately cancelled and that was that. We were there in the pouring rain cleaning off the tractor before we put it back in the trailer and that was that. We went off to the fairground where I had chips and onion rings for tea. And after that, an early night, in soaking wet clothes.

And who in his right mind builds mudguards with pointy aluminium front ends? Cleaning off the front tyre, I’ve ripped open the side of my thumb. That isn’t half painful, I can tell you.

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Friday 5th September 2014 – MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CAMP SITE …

mileaway camp site lake camp site new hampshire usa… I had had one of the best nights sleep that I had ever had – flat-out for about 9 hours non-stop and I was awake quite early.

So after updating my notes on the computer I had a lovely wash (but I’m still drawing the line at paying for a hot shower on top of whatever campsite fees I’ve paid already) and then a breakfast of bagels, strawberry jam and coffee (the orange juice has gone off, so it seems).

campsite new hampshire usaIt was still early and so I went for a wander around the lake in the early-morning sun.

And the place was as quiet as the grave too, even though there were quite a few campers on the site. I came to the conclusion that I would have been quite happy to have stayed here for a few days in the peace and quiet. I might have found a little peace, but I’m not sure how I would be able to keep her quiet.

mary baker eddy christian science mount pleasant concord new hampshire usaOne of the places that I encountered on my travels was this building here in Concord, New Hampshire. This is the site of a house called Mount Pleasant which was the home of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Scientists. The building now on the site was formerly the Home for retired Christian Scientist parcticioners and nurses.

I shan’t pass any comment about what I think about Christian Scientists, but any religion, and I do mean any religion, that owns a place like this and reserves it for its personnel when there are billions starving and living in poverty needs to have another good read of the Scriptures, and in particular the bit that says “give all that thous hast to the poor”.


But from here I’ve had a couple of illusions shattered, and another opinion strongly reinforced.

Firstly, I stopped at a place that was selling redundant school buses – dozens of them all about the place, but despite it being 11:00 in the morning, the place was as deserted as the Mary Celeste. Not a soul about at all – no-one to try to sell me a school bus. Normally, whenever you set foot in a shop in the USA you are immediately overwhelmed by sales personnel. Here, when you really do want to find one, there’s no-one about at all.

Secondly, at a caravan sales place, a salesman was summoned to talk to be about jack-leg pickup bed caravans, but on the way over he stopped to talk to someone else for a good five minutes leaving me like piffy on a rock. When he finally came over, even my taunt of “if you’re far too busy to talk to me I’ll come back later” didn’t elicit even a hint of an apology. Yes, the legendary American customer service is really going down the pan.

The other incident relates to the Royal Bank of Scotland, with which I an unfortunate enough to bank. I went into a branch of the Citizen’s Bank of New Hampshire, the North American affiliate of the RBS, to withdraw some cash, and my transaction was declined. This was the final straw in a long line of miserable dealings with what I consider to be the world’s worst bank, and I shall be sorting out this sorry state of affairs when I return.

From there it was a case of driving all the wy across Maine and I arived at Clinton at 16:00, eactly as predicted.

I’ve witnessed a childrens’ pig scramble (which with the present state of affairs in the USA you are not allowed to photograph) and a tractor pull event, and had chips (fries) for tea.

And then I proved that it is completely possible to sleep through a tractor pull event, but not a firework display.

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Friday 27th September 2013 – IN WHICH OUR HERO COVERS SOME GROUND

Yes, I’m never going to get anywhere at the rate at which I’m travelling. Albany is still a good several hundred miles away from Skowhegan and The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav tells me that I can get there by 19:00 tonight if I put my foot down (ha ha).

traffic jam skowhegan norridgewock maineAnd so after a healthy three or four miles I come to a sudden halt in a traffic jam. It’s not a traffic jam really but roadworks, and this sets the pattern for the morning’s route – roadworks everywhere as they prepare the road for the winter. It’s really not my day.

But taking my time to successfully negotiate the chaos I can, in fits and starts, begin to put my foot down every so often and try to cover the road as quickly as possible taking all kinds of circumstances into account, more of which anon.

highway 8 highway 11 highway 27This area is pretty good however if you are the kind of person that suffers from multiple personality disorders though – you can each of you travel along your own road and yet stay together in the same vehicle.

But if any of you think that I am taking the … err … mickey unnecessarily, just ask yourselves why I always hire a seven-seater vehicle when I’m over here. It’s so that each one of mine can have his own seat.

practising warm up Oxford PLains Speedway MaineOther things of course contrive to get in my way, like they do. Seeing a load of campers and hearing a load of noise, I go over to investigate.

I find myself at the Oxford Plains Speedway and it seems that there’s racing, a kind-of mini-Indy500 racing series this weekend, and I have stumbled upon the practise sessions. No spectators admitted, but that’s not the kind of thing that has ever stopped me before, has it?

But only one car spun off the track and there were no multiple pile-ups so it wasn’t all that exciting. But someone watching with me did ask me why there are no successful women Indycar racers. I replied that it’s because they have to keep on stopping to ask for directions.

Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset valley railroad new hampshireThe next thing that interrupts my passage is encountering the Winnipesaukee and Pemigewasset Valley Scenic Railroad at Meredith, and so I stop to see if there are any steam locomotives here. Apparently not – it’s not like Chama, where I was in 2002
 – just old diesel shunters.

But I had an interesting encounter nevertheless, something so rare in the USA that it’s worth recording.

I went over to Ye Olde Gifte Shoppe. It was closed but there was someone behind the counter happily twiddling her thumbs – she saw me try the door and eventually came over to open it to talk to me. She wouldn’t let me in, and told me “sorry, we’re closed, I’m just here to wait for the return of a train that’s gone out with a party of tourists feom Indiana – you’ll need to come back tomorrow”

I replied “well, I won’t be here tomorrow”, so she just said “sorry” and closed the door.

Sounds just like Medicine Bow in 2002 doesn’t it?

mascona lake new hampsireSo, hours behind time, as the sun goes down, I encounter Mascona Lake here in New Hampshire.

There’s a big camp site here just on the edge and so this is where I’ll plan to stay the night. The trouble with pressing on farther in the dark is that you never know what you might (or might not) encounter, and what you might miss out on along the way.

In the meantime, to our new reader who sat down the other day and read over 200 pages from start to finish, a big hello. Why not introduce yourself?

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Saturday 21st September 2013 – HERE IN MILLINOCKET …

tractor pull millinocket maine september 21 2013… the weather looked distinctly less-than-promising this morning. Although we had spent the evening sitting out in a gentle warm breeze, watching the stars, something must have happened during the night and it all looked so depressing.

We were however told by the guy in charge of the airport that the day would brighten up, and as the morning wore on and the competitors began to arrive, some of them brought the nice weather with them and by the time the competition got itself under way, we had a bright scorching sunshine

There was nothing else here apart from the tractor pulling – no fairground or showground as at Clinton the other week.

tractor pull millinocket maine september 21 2013
And not that I know very much about tractor pulling, but the track looked to be in far better condition. And so it should have been, considering the effort that had gone into preparing it the morning of the event (it pays to be at places like this early so that you can see exactly what is going on).

Here’s one of our old friends, a grader similar to the thousands that we encountered in 2010 during our marathon drive along the Trans Labrador Highway
 (except that this one has griffers on the back) smoothing to track out ready for the compactors to compress down.

tractor pull millinocket maine september 21 2013. There were several more classes of truck than at Clinton, although nothing like as many entries, and the event was over long before nightfall.

What didn’t help was the number of breakdowns. All kinds of things were going wrong for some of the drivers – clutches disintegrating and the like. On one old truck, the effort to pull the sledge pulled a universal joint clean out of the si=ocket in the centre of the propshaft and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that happen before, although on one of my old taxis many years ago, an out-of-balance propshaft tore the mounting out of the floor of the car.

In the middle of the contest Darren did a demonstration run in “Perdy in the Pink”, and then Hannah had her first effort. And when I find the USB lead to charge up the camcorder (which somehow I seem to have forgotten to bring), I’ll put a video of her run on here. Dad made 341 feet and a bit, and Hannah, putting everything that she had into it, did 337 feet, which is pretty spectacular considering that she’s only just 16.

Her second run though, she was doing even better until the fuel line split and sprayed ethanol all over her and the track at about 50psi. Nevertheless, first place in her class and in the top 10 overall is something to be proud of.

Highlight of the day has to be the guy who came over to me while I was filming and said “How do you manage to stand so close to the tractors and film then with all of the noise that they are making?” to which I replied “what?”.

And we can’t be bothered to go home tonight so we’re sitting here talking, drinking and watching the storm clouds gather. It’s going to be rough tonight.

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Friday 20th September 2013 – AND WE’RE OFF …

darren taylor perdy in the pink tractor maine usa… tractor-pulling again. Just the four of us this time, namely Darren, Hannah, Yours Truly and of course Strawberry Moose. We’re going to a place called Millinocket which is deep inside darkest rural Maine and miles off the beaten track, so I shall be quite at home there.

But a crisis at the local truck stop (not the big one where we stopped last time). My fries turned up, well, sort-of okay but my beans had bacon in them despite me specifying “just beans – no cheese and no bacon or anything else”. Apparently a simple request like that is beyond the capacity of some trukstop waitresses in the USA. “However did this lot become the new master race?”, as I have asked myself before.

Today started off early as it was Inspection Day at Zoe’s salon. A couple of last-minute tasks needed to be carried out and so Yours Truly was roped in. This little desk with two shelves that we bought (was $60, when we first saw it, it was reduced to $40 and when Zoe bought it it was further reduced to $20) is an absolute bargain and does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and more besides.

Then I went off to Tim Horton’s to give two people the shock of their lives. There they were sitting at a table next to me quietly nattering away, and then I caught the “long Jaaaa”. “Jullie komen uit Nederlands?” I asked them, and then we had a very interesting 10-minute conversation in Dutch. Probably the last thing that they were expecting in a coffee bar in a small town in rural New Brunswick.

The rest of the day was spent running errands. They are short-handed in the tyre depot again and deliveries were piling up and so with Zoe as navigator (her salon passed its inspection and as soon as Darren finishes welding the sills on her car she’ll be in business) we went off around Bath, Florenceville and Bristol with a pile of parcels and envelopes. And of course the bank. I don’t know if I mentioned last time the fun that I had trying to get US dollars out of US cash machines with my Canadian bank card, and so I went to the bank and took out some USA cash.

Now I’m sitting at the side of a deserted runway in rural Maine watching the stars and the full moon, and waiting for things to happen.

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Saturday 7th September 2013 – JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

perdy in the pink hannah taylor tractor pull clinton maine usa saturday 7th september 2013 … we’ll start with a video. I’ve not done this before so if it doesn’t work then don’t worry – I’ll sort it out.
While Hannah snaked pretty heavily down the track, you have to remember –
1) Hannah is just 16
2) this is her first year
3) we were having a torrential downpour
4) the track was rubbish
5) she got off the starting line (which was more than a couple of competitors did)
6) she got farther down the field than many people who have been pulling since before she was born.
7) her performance won her some folding stuff, which is always the most importand yardstick by which to mesure everything of course.

fairground clinton maine usa tractor pull 7th september 2013As for the town of Clinton itself, it’s a stereotype of the typical American one-horse town in the rural backwoods. Tattoos spelt wrongly, beer everywhere, hamburgers and hotdogs with fries and extra relish, and while the Liver Birds on the Liver Building in Liverpool used to flap their wings when a virgin walked past, here they would flap their wings when someone walked past who was not obese.

Even the fairground rides, such as they were, had, in prominent display, “in the interests of safety, large persons may be refused a ride”. How this lot became the Master Race these days I really have no idea.

The Americans use the word “thick” a lot to describe people. In USA slang, that means “fat” of course but in British slang to call someone “thick” means to call them “stupid” or “ignorant”. So here in the USA it quite possibly means the ame.

So apart from preparing the tractor, watching the racing and then repairing the broken fuel line, that was it. We went to bed.

It may not seem as if we did a lot today but I can’t think of 5 minutes where there was nothing at all going on.

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Friday 6th September 2013 – I HAD AN “AT HOME DAY” TODAY

The only difference being that I wasn’t of course at my home but at Rachel’s. I slept for at least part of the night with a cat curled up next to me, something that brought beck memories of course, and after breakfast (and the typical frantic hunt for keys) Zoe and I went off to do a few things.

We went too look at my little kingdom up on the USA border, and then went to see someone to chat to him about Ford Rangers. The Bank in Florenceville was the next port of call but I couldn’t get done there what I needed to do, so we headed to Woodstock. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong of course and Zoe took me to see her new salon. Now that she’s a qualified and licensed aesthetician after her year ot college in Miramichi she’s planning on opening her own little business and has rented two small rooms. They will be ideal for a newcomer to the business once she sorts herself out.

We ran quite a few errands for her while we were there and after lunch it was back to the Bank where a few (but by no means all) things were sorted out. I went on to the Great Satan to sort out my entry permit and then back to Rachel’s where we loaded everything up for the weekend.

This led to the immortal conversation
Hannah “Will 2 packs of water be enough for us for the weekend?”
Yours Truly “How much beer do we have?”
Hannah “two 36-packs”
Yours Truly “why do we need water then?”
Yes, I’m fast becoming a redneck, aren’t I?

Rachel came with me in the Dodge on the long drive to southern Maine and the highlight of the journey had to be eating chips (or “fries”) in Dysart’s, a typical American truckstop and a team of cheerleaders coming in. A scrawny, scraggy lot, it has to be said but cheerleaders all the same. No, you can’t make up a story like that and I wish that I had taken a camera into the truckstop to prove it.

The pulling track at Clinton, Maine, is cold and wet.

But so what? So am I.

But at least I’ll feel better in the morning.

Hopefully.

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Wednesday 21st September 2011 – I’VE BEEN …

… in the USA today. But it was not without difficulty.

At Smugglers Road or whatever it’s called, they don’t issue entry permits, so I had to come all the way back to Centreville – so much for the shortcut.

And at Centreville, a tiny border guard had a real panic attack when I followed him into his office – accusing me on “invading his personal space” which is great coming from someone who earns his living searching people’s luggage. And the credit card machine to pay for my permit, so I had to leave my passport and credit card as hostage until I came back.

wind turbine bridgewater maine usaFirst stop was at the petrol station on the corner of US 1 at Bridgewater, Maine. And this looks quite impressive, doesn’t it? A lovely big wind turbine right by the convenience store here.

And as for fuel, it’s $3:89 per gallon, not all that much cheaper than that place near Fredericton – Keswick or some such name

mars hill windfarm maine usaThis is my next-door neighbour – the Mars Hill Windfarm. There are 28 wind turbines here, built by one of my former employers, and each one has a theoretical capability of producing 1.5 megawatts.

Totally impressive beasts they are, and I am proud to have them as my neighbours. But to find them from the USA side of the border wasn’t all that easy, surprise as it might seem. They had me running around a bit.

From here, I went into Presque Ile and the Lowe’s D-i-Y shop. And this is where I made a sad discovery. Ryobi tools are only sold by Home Depot, and the nearest Home Depot is 3 hours away in Bangor.

cooks florists presque ile maine usaOn the way out of Presque Ile, I noticed this sign outside the local florists, and so I had to stop to take a photograph of it. Sad as it might be to see this sign, I’m relieved that at least it’s not just the UK that is suffering from a lack of basic literacy skills.

Still, I don’t suppose that I should be too catty about their sign should I?

double eagle II transatlantic balloon flight launch site presque ile maine usaThis was one of the things that I had come over to the USA to see. It’s the site of the take-off of Double Eagle II, the balloon that made the first successful transatlantic balloon crossing (the fourteenth official attempt), and the site is only a short drive from Presque Ile.

It left here on August 11 1978 with a crew of 3 and crossed the Irish coast on the evening of 16th August, and finally came to earth in northern France the next day

mg midget bridgewater maine usaFrom here I went back to the border but I ended up being sidetracked once again.

This old MG is sitting on someone’s lawn on the back road to the border and so I was obliged to take a photo of it, poor thing. I can’t think why anyone would leave it here like this, given the value that a car likie this would have either as a restoration project or as parts.

But if it stays here much longer, there won’t be any of it left to do anything with.

Finally back at the border, I picked up my passport and credit card so I could then go back to Rachel’s. But that wasn’t easy either as the guy on the Canadian side of the border was also really grouchy and grumpy.

I just don’t know where they dig these people up.

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