… in my rather overpriced motel.
It trades heavily on its superb view of Mount Jefferson just across the road, but today I couldn’t even have my money’s worth of that, because of the hanging clouds that we were having (it IS just like home, isn’t it?).
We’d had rain during the night – not much of it but enough to generate this weather phenomenon, and so there I was. But at least there was a coffee machine in my room and I could have a good shower and change my clothes. And I had had a good night’s sleep too. So much so that I’d been on my travels again.
I’d been doing something in some kind of home. Firstly we’d been off somewhere to check on an abandoned house and in there we ound amongst other things a lively ginger kitten. It took straight to me and so I brought it back with me to thins home place.
Back here I had to prepare a bath for some residents but was interrupted as my father (whatever was he doing there) needed to use the bathroom. And then he couldn’t find any toilet paper so I had to hunt around for that.
Another one of my jobs was to water the motorcycles that were growing in pots. You had to start off by using heated water and then continue using tap water when the heated water ran out.
Meantime, this ginger kitten had gone missing in the house and no-one knew where it was.
But talking of being on my travels again, I didn’t go very far before I was sidetracked.
You all know what this is because you’ve seen one of these before. It’s a Nash Metropolitan, made by Austin (and called the Austin Metropolitan in the UK) and was the first car sold by an American manufacturer to be made 100% outside the USA.
It’s either e series 3 or a 4 (you can tell by the chrome stripe) and it’s fitted with the BMC Series B engine. 20,000 genuine miles from new on the original engine, this baby.
And as I said a few days ago, what went wrong with the British motor industry with in the 1950s and 1960s they were selling cars to half the world, and 20 years later, they couldn’t even sell cars in their own country?
And that’s not all either. How about taking this home in the hand luggage?
It’s a Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria sedan, fitted with a Fordamatic gearbox and it has the most magnificent interior that I have ever seen on a car.
This has to be one of the most beautiful vehicles that I have ever seen, and I’m in love with it. It sums up the 1960s USA completely for me. I didn’t enquire as to whether it was for sale, or ask the price because it would certainly be far, far outside my pocket.
I didn’t move on far – just to the town of Gorham.
There’s a mainline railway here, which might be the famous Montreal – Portland line, built before icebreakers could keep Montreal’s harbour free of ice in winter, so that Montreal’s commerce could have a winter outlet.
The passenger service here has long-gone, but the good inhabitants of the city have recruited a collection of locomotives and rolling stock, including this Baldwin 0-6-0 which dates to 1911 and which worked previously in a factory in Massachusetts.
It had a restoration in 1990, so we are proudly told, but this restoration seemed to be the usual North American restoration of slapping everything all over with black bituminous paint to hide the rust and hoping that no-one will notice.
You can see what I mean by looking here at the framework of the tender. The wood has just totally rotted away here to leave absolutely nothing at all and this is just completely dreadful.
On good authority I am told “The steam locomotive was built as New England Gas and Coke n°4, the company later became Eastern Gas and Fuel, and ran in Everett, Mass adjacent to Boston from 1911 to the 40s. It was significantly rebuilt during its life to what you see now and for a while was part of the Steamtown USA collection. Allegedly the tender is from B&M mogul 1435. It was sold off when the collection moved to Scranton and has remained in Gorham ever since. As built, it very closely resembled Baldwin #26 at Steamtown”
And thanks to Alden Burns for the info
And just look at this diesel power car. You can see even from here that several of the metal panels have been replaced with wood and the wood has rotted away just as much as the metal has. There’s notmuch of either left.
Now I have seen some dreadful attempts at preservation here in North America, but I do have to say that here in Gorham is the worst that I have ever encountered. The kind of stuff that is on display here brings shame upon its owners. It really is appalling.
And so from here I set off once more, continuing my route eastwards, missing out on Berlin and Peru but passing by Mexico and into Maine, and occasionally having a few more attacks of the Jimmy Ruffins.
At a certain moment I was passing very close to the watershed between the Atlantic and the St Lawrence basins, and there was the most astonishing view from a peak on the ridge.
It’s a shame that the weather wasn’t better to enable all of you to enjoy the view because, like most views from the camera, it was much more magnificent than it looks on the photo. It wascompletely spellbinding.
I wasn’t alone here either. A couple of German tourists were here too and I ended up having quite a chat with them for a while.
It reached 18:00 – time for me to call it a day and so I started to look for a place to park. And at 18:02 I found te perfect place – a little hardstanding behind a hedge right by the river. And had I had my bed in Strider organised, that’s where I would be now. But you can’t stop at spots like this with a tent.
There was a camp site further along the route but he didn’t take tents. However, he did point me in the direction of a free wilderness camp site about half an hour down the road and I eventually found it.
It’s extremely primitive, to say the least, but it’s free, which is what I need after my motel last night. There’s a nice spot in the corner by the stream and that’s where I’ll be staying tonight.
“That’s quite enough of that” – ed. 
