Resuming the plan to hit the northernmost state on the east coast and zig-zag our way down to Florida, we got on the thruway in New York State and headed out 90 to Albany. Drive drive drive. Then we hit Vermont, a hidden patch of green in the summer, all the reds and golds of nature in the fall. The highway we were on just barely qualified for the title, verging on private, barely paved driveway for some stretches. The result was an entirely mobile experience of Vermont as quaint and gorgeous and unaffected by the Information Age....or even the Industrial Age for that matter. We spent the night overlooking a deciduous forest of rolling hills, with a nearby stream gurgling a lullaby. It seemed to sing louder over the occasional highway noises, resentful of the fact that an engine would dare to compete for the sound stage in Vermont.
The view from above.
We hit New Hampshire at the top of the state and cruised through for only a handful of miles before Maine's borders arrived. The landscape in northern New Hampshire was just as green and untamed as Vermont, and we wondered aloud why it was deemed the Granite State.
Can you see the granite?
In Maine we searched out a highway that had been paved in the last 20 years, because although the air shocks on the truck worked wonders, they couldn't work miracles and our bums and backs would quickly approach breaking point if we had to travel any more broken roads. Destination: Atlantic. When the new sight of the Atlantic Ocean came into view, we rejoiced and headed slowly up the coast looking for a good spot to activate. We traveled the northern loop into Arcadia National Park, then meandered up into the outcrop coastline point of Jonesport. The coast was so foreign to us, Californians through. We were used to consistent coastlines, which started in Mexico and traveled straight up to Oregon, excepting a few large bays in the journey. The Maine coast is a totally different beast. She seems to have an affection for running east-west coastlines, and so the entire seaboard is a series of craggy, confused inlets that can't make up their mind. It's gorgeous, great for sailing, great for lobsters, hard for the land-locked to find a place to access the ocean.
We found a spot that looked perfect, though. It was a little dirt parking lot, of sorts, right next to the water of an inlet on the north side. There was a long accessible beach, and the wind was blowing sideshore. Brant got out the weather radio and sat outside on the trailer fender to listen for a bit before we got into the toys.
An old cadillac pulled into the lot with us, and an older gentlemen rolled down the window in the back seat while three ladies got out of the car and walked out towards the water.
"How long have you owned this?" he asked Brant, seeming friendly.
"Oh, I just got the trailer a few months ago." Brant began, used to the question, and figuring the man was perhaps interested in purchasing a trailer himself. But the man interrupted him.
"The land," he said gruffly. "How long have you owned the land."
Brant hesitated, thinking for a moment that the man had said "Lance," meaning the camper. But the intonation of his question indicated differently.
"I've never owned the land."
"Well, why the Hell do you think you can park on it, then?"
The conversation proceeded, with Brant explaining that he hadn't seen any No Parking signs, and the parcel looked like it was a beach access parking area. The man quipped back and forth, cutting him off, making brass statements to the effect of "you need a sign to tell you not to park?" and Brant explaining that with such a piece of land that was always how it worked where he was from. The guy continued to tell him off, and Brant apologized and said we'd leave immediately. Some people can't deal with misunderstandings. So we trekked on, figuring we just weren't meant to get in the water there, and sad for a man with so much bitterness in his manner. We hoped he wasn't a core sample of all Mainers, for if that was the case the state would be very unfriendly to us indeed.
In Jonesport we stopped by some young locals and asked if they knew of any beaches, areas with clear ocean access where we could windsurf. From the cab of his white pickup, one of the guys told us he knew of a spot he thought would work great.
"My old man windsurfs there all the time. We've even got pictures of him out there with his sail when there's snow all over the ground."
Brant's eyes widened. This was way more than we expected...someone who was nice and helpful and actually knew someone who windsurfed! "You are very valuable to us," he told the kid in the pickup.
Happy to help, the kid gave us directions to the spot. "Go down 187 here about eight miles. You'll see a Oulette Construction sign on the left, with a little house. Just past that is a dirt road on the right, and you go down that road to the beach." He assured us that we could turn around at the bottom, even with our big rig, and said that we could probably even camp down there if we wanted to. Apparently it was a big sand bar, and we just had to watch for the tide.
Stoked and confident that we would soon be in another bit of paradise, we headed down the road per his directions. We scoured the sides of the road with our eyes, looking for the right clues. We saw the contractor's sign. We saw the house on the right. We saw a dirt road just past that. We turned and headed down it.
Brant stopped the truck. We looked at each other. We swore the pickup guy must have been high. Or that this was where the local conspiracy sent all out-of-towners to get rid of them quickly.
Getting in too deep.
Had the road been wet, we would have been stuck already. It was so narrow that the trailer tires rode up on the sides of the furrowed road. The first curve was nearly 90-degrees to the right, directly under a low-hanging tree. A few yards past that point we stopped and walked ahead to prevent a feable call to AAA.
The road wound down to the water for about 1/4 mile, and as it went the furrows got deeper, the road got narrower, and the potholes became crater pits. Just before the end of the road, the tire furrows were over a foot deeper than the surface of the road. And then the kicker: at the water's edge, there was no beach, no sandbar, and an area that a VW would have had difficulty turning around in.
The last turn to freedom.
We devised a plan to escape: we'd have to drive down the road a bit further from where we had stopped, drive up onto a flat, vegetation carpeted spot off the road to turn around, then head away from this evil place. The plan was put into action, and luckily it succeeded. But the photos don't even begin to do it justice. After that short jaunt, our motorcycle had nearly put a hole in the wall, the 3/4" plywood frame that held the camper jacks to the wall of the trailer had ripped in two, and the kayak nearly jumped off the roof. Not to mention the state of the refrigerator.
At the top of the road, we saw a couple peering out at us through binoculars from the second story balcony of their little house next to the road. We stopped to ask them if they knew where we had gone wrong. Walking towards them from the truck, the lady suddenly started screaming! We froze.
"Those are blueberries and yoUR NOT SUPPOSED TO WALK ON THEM!!!!!" Her voice crescendoed to Fortisimo in the span of 2.3 seconds.
So, like statues in a field of premature blueberries that looked like poisonous weeds to the stupid Californians, we hollered our plight to the couple on the balcony and, rather than shoot us for blueberry molestation, they kindly told us we had the wrong dirt road. We had figured that much. They suggested an alternate dirt road, and the lady amended her earlier outburst by claiming they weren't her blueberries, but blueberries were really big in Maine. So we tip-toed out of the patch, feeling like vegan murderers, thanked them for their help, climbed back into the truck and made a pact to survey all possibly shifty situations on foot in the future.
Since the sun was abandoning us and we were afraid that our bad luck would continue, we gave up exploration for the guidebook, and Lonely Planet led us right. We headed to the only campground listed in the area, and upon arrival were greeted by Danny Tucker, a portly old gentleman whose generous heart shone in his eyes. He invited us to stay in a site around the corner, made sure we were happy with it, and gave us a little down low on the area. He told us where to get lobster cheap (across the way), how the tide worked (regularly), when the wind blew (whenever it wanted to). Assuring us we'd stay for more than a night cause everybody does, we bid him good night and set up camp.
The truth was, this spot was amazing. We had a full ocean view out our window, just steps from the water at high tide. Beal's Island sat across the water way, and the open Atlantic stretched from the horizon all the way to Europe unfettered. Not bad for twelve bucks.
We were treated that night to a fantastical storm which raged with huge drops of rain and booming thunder for most of the dark hours. For storms, the camper is an amplifier, and you cannot be more intimate with a thunderstorm without getting wet. It was wonderful, and we welcomed the weather into our oceanfront palace. Things were looking up.
