Yeehaw! We're in Texas!

Sunset from our front porch

We are in Texas and the hill country is just as beautiful as everyone said it would be.  Growing up in West Virginia, the mountain state, it’s hard not to compare what other people call hills to the ones at home. And no, the hills are not the same here.   Some curvy roads and beautiful vistas, but it’s not West Virginia. 

We are about three miles east of Fredericksburg , population 10,000 give or take.  What a great place!  I’m sure small towns all over the country are envious of its downtown where there are no vacant storefronts and there’s always people milling about.  Many of these people are tourists but the town residents themselves have a great sense of community.  We went to the Christmas parade a week ago and it lasted well over an hour.  

Pyramid on town square.  

A couple of things were done a little differently than we’d seen before.  We thought we may have had the wrong night when we went because an hour before it was scheduled to start there were still vehicles parked along the parade route.  Of course there were – everyone parks their pickup on Main Street early in the morning to have a prime spot to watch from that evening.  The street is four lanes wide with diagonal parking on each side so it makes sense.

Because the street is so wide they did something else we had never seen.  When the parade participants got to the end of the road so to speak, they didn’t stop.  They all made a U-turn and paraded in front of the other side of the street.  Again, different but very practical.  The participants didn’t have to hitch a ride back to their cars at the end of the parade – they marched back.

LBJ Hereford -- initials burned in horn.

We have done some sightseeing while here.  Lyndon B. Johnson’s Texas white house is only 15 miles up the road.  It is still a working ranch with descendants of his prized Herefords being well taken care of.  We went into San Antonio for a day, more to give us a chance to leave Bud at a kennel than to see the sights.  We did stroll along the River Walk and walked to the market square.  We didn’t go through the Alamo but will be doing that at a later date.  Maybe the subject of the next blog update.....

Bar Harbor

Our time in Maine is winding down as fall arrives.  Our RV is under a maple tree that has been dropping the most beautiful red and gold leaves.  It’s kind of cool to be back in the land of deciduous trees after living on the Isle of Palms for so many years.  My song may change next week when the temperatures are supposed to be more “fall like” according to the local weatherman.  “Fall temperatures” in South Carolina does not mean freezing temperatures.

We made the trip to Bar Harbor last weekend.  The town of Bar Harbor was nothing special – kind of like Key West meets New England.  It had all the sightseeing tours, cruise ships, tourist shops and so forth.  It was a nice town to walk around in but a little too touristy for our taste. 

Acadia National Park, however, was absolutely wonderful.  I kept thinking it was like the mountains of West Virginia merged with the Lowcountry of South Carolina, two of the most beautiful places on earth. 

 

There was a steady rain almost the entire time we were there but it couldn’t hide the splendor of the park.  It even created some waterfalls for just that day. 

When we woke up on Monday there were some rays of sunshine peeking through so we hurried back up to the summit of Cadillac Mountain (highest peak on the East Coast) to see what we missed the day before.  Wow!  You could see for miles. 

Bar Harbor from the summit of Cadillac Mountain

Sunday's drive

Dan commented on the drive up that he could see water in the rearview mirror where the day before we could only see fog.

We will be leaving Maine in less than two weeks.  Our next stop on the Grand Adventure is Fredericksburg, TX, about 45 minutes north of San Antonio.  Whenever a campground guest from Texas would check in and I would tell them where we were headed, every single person would say we were going to the most beautiful part of the state.  We can’t wait to see for ourselves.

Family and fun!

Wow!  I didnt' realize it had been over a month since I posted on the blog.  We're still in Maine and having a great time.  What a wonderful week we had last week!  Deb’s parents and her brother’s in-laws came up from Florida for a visit.   We saw some new places and shared some of our favorite places with them.

L-R Deb's dad, mom, Dan, Kathy & Richard (in-laws once removed)



The table was dropped off at one stop too!



We waited all summer so we could take them for a ride on the Casco Bay Lines mailboat run and we were not disappointed.  It was fascinating.  There are many islands off the coast of Portland and many of them are populated with year-round residents.  As we were boarding the ferry, a school bus pulled up and dropped off a busload of students who were going home after a day at school.  There were pallets of goods spread throughout the boat that were off-loaded at various docks.  Construction workers boarded at different stops for a ride back to the mainland.  Dogs were onboard with their owners.  It was a really fun day.

On the weekend we went to a car show in Old Orchard Beach.  Doug’s father-in-law, Richard, is a mechanic so it was like having a personal tour guide.  While everyone can appreciate a nice car, he made it interesting by pointing out differences between models and sharing his knowledge.  Over 200 cars were there and Dan found one that left the assembly line on the day he was born – a really old car.

The weather was perfect.  One thing we gave up when we hit the road was an inside dining area that seats more than two people comfortably.  The weather cooperated and we dined outside each time we cooked our own meals.  The sun left us in the dark but thanks to some citronella candles and a Tiki torch we were able to see what we were eating.  Lobster one night, grilled steaks another and pasta the last night they were here.  Dan cooked breakfast for us all one morning as well.  Lots of fun!

Still having fun!

We have been making the most of our days off and even sneaking in some fun on workdays.  A couple of weeks ago we took the four foreign exchange students working here to a minor league baseball game in Portland.  Try explaining baseball to someone who speaks little English.  There isn’t even a sport to compare it to.  Despite their limited understanding of the game we all had a good time.  If you have ever been to a minor league game you know of all the entertainment between innings and we took them to Walmart to do their weekly shopping before the game so everyone was happy.

We had a fantastic surprise the next day as one of our “Youth Kids” and his family stopped by to say hello.  We have known Andy Neipp, his parents and his siblings since Dan’s retirement and our return to Charleston.  He was up this way with his wife Christy and their daughter, Hadley.  We were working so the visit was much too short but it was great.

Last weekend our Workamping friends Fred and Sue came up from New Hampshire for the afternoon and showed us around Portland, their former home.  They took us to places only the locals know about (I’m sure we will be making a return trip to Tony’s Donuts) as well as showing us some of the most beautiful views of the area.  It was another beautiful weather day and we had a great time.

Today we went to Bath, a town that has been building ships for four hundred years according to our tour guide.  It is the home of the Maine Maritime museum as well as Bath Iron Works, the shipyard where Zack’s ship, the USS Nitze, was built.  We visited both and enjoyed every minute of it.  While Dan had been in shipyards while serving in the Navy, neither of us had seen ships being built from the beginning before.  It was fascinating.  The museum was located on the grounds of a former shipbuilding yard where wooden ships were built.  Many of the old buildings remain and had displays of the tools and equipment used in construction of the ships.

Until the next time!

Summer is here!

The weather has changed and Maine is beautiful!  The campground we are working at is in its peak season so we have been working 40 hours per week.  It can be tiring but it is a lot of fun and we are meeting some really interesting people from all over the country.  We are enjoying our days off and are seeing as much as we can. 

We took the train to Boston in June and went to Fenway Park to see a baseball game.  It was everything Dan was hoping it would be.  The owners have done a wonderful job of keeping the traditional ever present but modernizing where necessary.  There is not a bad seat in the house. 

Doug and his family came to visit for a few days and we all had fun.  We went with them to Kennebunkport, a little coastal town that looks like a postcard of Maine.  It also happens to be the location of Walker’s Point, the summer home of George and Barbara Bush.  They weren’t in at the time so we weren’t able to say hello but we did drive by and take some pictures.

This past Monday we went to the White Mountain National Park in New Hampshire.  It was a wonderful day.  We spent all day there driving around, stopping to take pictures now and then , enjoyed a picnic lunch and took Buddy on a hike through the woods.  He had a great time even if we didn’t see any moose. 

Buddy has been enjoying Maine as much as we have.  He loves guarding us from the chipmunks and squirrels that surround our trailer.  Everyone he meets tells him how cute he is and he loves going to the dog park to chase the ball.  Life is good when you are a Nesbitt dog.

Rain, rain go away!

The bikes keep falling over because the ground is so soft

The weather is much different in New England than it is in the Lowcountry of South Carolina or Lower Alabama.  It rains here – a lot.  We had some of what my grandpa used to call “gully washers” in Alabama, but it would rain hard and then be done with it.  Pretty much the same scenario in Charleston.  We would have four inches of standing water on some of our streets but the next day it would be dry.   But when it rains up here it can go on for days.  It started raining at 8:00 yesterday morning and really hasn’t stopped since.  The weather man just said we have had 6.5 inches of rain with this system.  Everyone keeps saying it has been unusually wet this spring but I think they are telling us that so we won’t pack up and leave.  It has rained for at least two days out of seven every week we have been here.

But when the sky clears it can be breathtaking.  On one clear day we went to Portland Head Light, one of Maine’s many lighthouses that dot the coast.  It was a beautiful day – we even enjoyed a picnic. 

On another day off we drove inland a little to Sebago Lake (if you said se-bah-go you were wrong, it is se-bay-go).  We enjoyed another picnic on a very pretty day.  Many people were swimming in the lake but without even sticking a toe in I can tell you it would have been much too cold for me.

This week we will mark off an item on Dan’s bucket list – a visit to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play.  The Weather Channel is giving a 40% chance for showers.  Cross your fingers for us.

Hello Maine!

We made it!  We arrived in Maine on the 26^th of April – a day later than we had hoped.  Being true southerners now we delayed our trip a day because of snow in the mountains of West Virginia.

After we left Alabama we spent a month in Florida with Deb’s mom and dad, helping with projects and preparing for a huge yard sale.  While there we made a trip to Winter Park to see Dan’s nephew and a trip to Titusville to visit with one of his cousins.  We had a great time catching up with them. 

From there it was on to South Carolina for a month of doctor and dental appointments and seeing our kids and grandpups.  It was wonderful to attend services at our home church and to get together with our friends in “the hood”. 

We left South Carolina after Dan’s last doctor appointment and headed to Raleigh to finish a bathroom remodeling project Zack started before he left for a seven month deployment.  We removed the linoleum flooring and replaced it with tile and we removed tile from the walls and replaced it with wainscoting.  Dan also replaced a window that the only way you could close it was to go outside and push it shut while someone locked it from inside.  We didn’t get it completely finished but it’s much further along than it was.



Ray and Mary Jo Piaskowski and their son Will



After saying goodbye to Sarah, Kolo and Hooch, we headed to Virginia.  We spent a few days there visiting some dear friends in Stafford we hadn’t seen for many years.  They are the reason we are in Maine now.  We came here 27 years ago for their wedding and decided we didn’t get to see nearly enough of this beautiful state.  We were also able to visit some friends who live in Front Royal.



Dan sharing USS Alabama stories with neice and nephews



Our next stop was in West (by gosh) Virginia, our home state.  We visited with family and friends for several days – the highlight being able to see our great niece and nephews.  They are adorable.

We finally made it to Maine after almost three months on the road – subject of the next blog installment!