August 5-6, 2017 Meetup at Mattawamkeag Wilderness Park in Maine

[Heather 1]

Kayaking with Karen and Chuck

[Merlin]

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip east this summer! From Michigan we went up the St. Lawrence River in Ontario and Quebec, then spent a week on the Quebec and New Brunswick coasts, hop-scotching through 3 national parks. Forillon was spectacular for the cliffs and birds, Kouchibougauc was amazing for the bicycle riding and birds, and Fundy was wonderful for the tides and hiking. Our new folding bikes served us well in several places we stayed. It was great fun to meet Paul for an afternoon at Shediac, NB. After the meetup in Maine, a leisurely trip back through the White Mountains and the Adirondacks and camping on Lake Erie ended the adventure. We'll have lots of long-term memories of the interesting things we did and saw on the trip. We laughed out loud at the 17% grades on the roads in the Gaspe, we were wary of the big lobster until Paul assured us it was concrete, we had trouble with our blood pressure in the 2 hours of sitting in traffic around Toronto, we marveled at the grace of the sea birds on the cliffs along the coast, we camped on the shore of both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario (lifetime desires of mine), we noted the really great asphalt roads of New Brunswick and wondered why in the world Michigan is still building roads out of concrete, we learned that 300 miles in the eastern states is a lot farther than 300 miles in the western states, we learned again (double tuition paid on this one) that truck stops are horrible places for RVs, we found out that Quebec is actually France, just in a different place on the globe, and we marveled at how great people are everywhere when you smile, wear a floppy hat, and pull a camper.

After leaving New Brunswick, we went west to Mattawamkeag, Maine for the meetup. We found four other well-set-up Camplites and 8 wonderful folks. Good food and good people are a stellar combination and we had both for 2 days.

However, my wife and I voted our camping experience there as one of the worst we've had with our camper. We were not mentally or physically prepared for the 7.5 miles of super dusty/rough road going in and everything was a filthy mess when we arrived. The office was closed in the middle of the afternoon because the attendant was in town when we arrived, so we had a confusing time finding a site, having lost our reserved site "on the river" to a local resident camper. A person who knew something about the campground found us a site with electric and water but it was on a steep hill and tricky to set up. It was also on the main track into the campground, so the dust continued the entire time we were there. We will be cleaning dust out of the camper and TV for a long time. The worst of it was the campers in the site across the road who were constantly cussing at their small children. We really couldn't be outside at our site listening to that and wished we had our kayaks with us to escape to the river. We were very happy to leave that site.

One very odd thing happened at the campsite. In the middle of the night (3:00A), I noticed the little Mr. Beams battery-operated motion sensing LED light we put on the wall in the camper bathroom turning on by itself. It ran the length of its internal electronic timer (about 30 seconds) and turned off, only to turn on again about a minute later. I got up to check it out, thinking it was defective and figured I'd replace it at trip's end. I then noticed all of the battery operated motion sensing lights we put in the camper cabinets (6 in all) were turning on and off by themselves at the same time! I could see their glow through the Azdel and door cracks. I'm an empirical Ph.D. scientist, so I wouldn't buy any theories about ghosts/hauntings, but it sure was weird to have all those lights going on by themselves. It stopped after maybe a half hour and hasn't happened before or since. They've been in the camper for 2 years and are independent of the camper electrical system. What sort of external signal was setting off those little battery LED lights at Mattawamkeag in the middle of the night?

On the plus side, we really enjoyed the local color at the park picnic on Saturday but the food didn't match Joan and David's ribs on Friday night. Ymmm......Two evenings of campfire conversations with LL owners were highlights.....see photos below.

First is David heating Joan's ribs while Chuck watches 
Second is the table of wonderful food with Gregg and Joan 
Third is Chuck, Karen, Jan, and Heather getting full
Fourth is the 2 Joans 
And last is Joan, Joan, Gregg, and Ross along with the campsite boss, Abby 

[Chappy133]

Those ribs were very good. I had seconds.