Sept 8th to 10th - Bangor, Maine

Sept 8th - Mon - to Bangor, Maine
We had a lovely, sunny day for driving to Maine. We had no problems at the border crossing so Terry’s worrying was all for nothing. The usual questions about how much money we had on us, what fruits & veggies we had, what we were bringing back from Canada and how much alcohol but no questions about meat.
We had planned (with Terry & Judy) to camp at Calais which is just across the border but we were there so early that we called them and said how about continuing on to Bangor. They were agreeable so I picked a PA park and away we went. The landscape has changed to lots of forests with larger trees. We are staying at The Pumpkin Patch which is a few miles out of Bangor and is a great park. Very clean, organized and quiet with the best wifi & cable TV that we have had for ages.
We were set up with the lawn chairs out by the time Terry & Judy finished checking in. They set up and then we all enjoyed the opportunity to sit out in the sun and use the barbeque for dinner.
We filled up with diesel just out of Bangor - $4.24 a gallon as opposed to the $5.30 we have been paying.

Sept 9th - Tues - Bangor
Good thing we enjoyed the sun yesterday as it started raining again last night. We went to a couple of tire shops to get quotes on tires for the 5th wheel. A couple of tires had worn unevenly and badly when we had the suspension problem earlier this year so we decided to get all new tires. This meant coming back, packing everything up, sitting at the tire shop for an hour and then setting up again. Just as we backed in, it started to pour. Terry was wearing shorts and thought he should put on long pants but I suggested he might as well get wet and then change clothes. And get wet he did! We thought about going to Terry & Judy’s to wait for the rain to let up but who knew how long that would take.
Of course, there was a lull in the rain right after Terry came in and we had a bowl of soup. Then we all went shopping. Drove through downtown Bangor on the way - it is a very pretty, quite large town with the Penobscot River running through the town.. By the time we finished going to several stores and trying to fit all our groceries inside the truck in case it rained, it was time to head back and unload. A short happy hour, individual dinner plans and early to bed. We are still adjusting to the time zone change - now 3 hours ahead of BC and WA.

Sept 10th - Wed - Bangor
Planned on going to Acadia National Park today and picked a good day to do it - sunny and breezy. Terry H. had driving duties today and their GPS looked after us again.
Acadia Ntl Park is on the ocean and has a beautiful coastline. We detoured first to Bar Harbor which is a lovely, touristy, “summer people” town built on hills around a harbor (the town name is a clue!). We found a parking spot and wandered up and back down several blocks of shops. By this time, we were wanting a picnic spot for lunch. A picnic area on the map was on the side of the road away from the ocean and in the trees so we took our lunches out to some rocks on the beach side instead. What a magnificent view to enjoy our picnic.
We continued driving around the loop road that is a narrow, two lane road but is one-way for most of the way so is comfortable driving. We took a road to the Cadillac Mountain summit. This was narrow, windy and single lane each way which was only a problem when a bus coming down used more than his half of the road on a curve - got all our adrenalin going! The views from the road and from the viewpoints on the top were wonderful. It was very windy and cool on top so we didn’t stay too long.
It took a little longer getting back than we figured as we were in a long, slow line of traffic for quite a ways out of Ellsworth - rush hour? We each started dinner, got together for a drink, had separate dinners and then I made dessert for all of us. We spent time planning our next destinations.