Mon, August 1 – Thurs, Aug 4

We had planned generally on the pace of this trip slowing down once we got to Maine. First of all there are relatively few factories to tour, festivals are only on the weekends, and I can only report on so many beautiful kayaking trips. When we left the logging festival on Sat. we stopped at a nice little park right on Mooselookmeguntic Lake, one of the larger lakes in the region. This park was recently acquired by the Rangely land trust as part of a package with 100 acres of shoreline next door. The plan was for the Trust to create a wildlife refuge with their acquisition. Some people said however, the campground has been a campground, and it will be good for the town to have a place for travelers to stay. Let’s improve it! Wow what a thought!! They put at least a hundred thousand dollars into renovations, leveling sites, adding power and water, and installing a state of the art bathroom, laundry, shower complex.

We managed to snag a waterfront  site there for Monday-Thursday nights.

Here Jet really got her water wings. She is one of the most contrary Labs we’ve ever seen. She needs to be persuaded to eat, she is very timid about the water, and she barks at ducks. There was plenty of the latter two for her to deal with here. 

 It was here that Jet finally got in water over her head. Liz had her on the leash, and she siad that when she realized she was swimming she just started paddling around her in circles, and smiling!

We continued to Kayak, slept late, read books, and had a very relaxing time here.  We were facing south, but the sunsets were pretty good over the lake.

Thurs July 28-Sun 31

  

We were headed generally towards the town of Rangeley for their Logging festival on the weekend. We could not find a campsite close to town, so we opted for a little fishing campground on Aziscohos Lake.  We shoehorned ourselves into a small site. This was a fisherman’s campground, and the fishing was apparently good.

The Kayaking was good as well, and we worked that in. Needless to say there, were loons, and other wildlife.

Jet had a great time, suddenly deciding that the little wavelets that were coming in deserved a good barking. She jumped and splashed and played, and barked, and generally had a great time.

Friday night we went over to the logging festival, where we learned a lot about the logging techniques used in the early days, and to some extent still practiced today. Today Maine produces primarily White Spruce for pulp, and structural lumber. There is a growing industry taking ~20 year old birch and using a trailerable, self contained, machine, producing firewood for the pre packed fireplace market.  Imagine a machine taking raw logs in one end, and spitting out tightly wrapped packages of wood with Stop and Shop labels on them coming out he other.

Saturday we went to the Logging Parade, and what a parade of LARGE equipment it was. I  would love to show you all the lovely picture I took of this parade, but alas they were lost to the computer gods.

Unfortunately, we had absolutely no internet nor cell phone connection  in our Campground. I was told that there was a spot I could travel to, approx 3 miles away, and If I stood in the right place, and the moon and the sun were properly aligned, I could get a connection. There is very little hope of getting a data connection on cell service up here. I did occasionally use the library. I had been putting off doing a “very important upgrade” in my computer during this whole period.  My computer crashed while I was working on the blog and the pictures, and I had to do a restart. When I did, the everything on the picture card directory was lost.

Sooo all of my pictures of the parade, and the loggers competition went into the ether. I will tell you that the small community of Rangeley goes all out for this. The people were great, the parade had a great sense of humor about it, and they gave out tons of candy!

The competition was fun too. Having never been to one, it was very educational, and interesting. There is a real science to wielding an axe with the maximum efficiency, and cutting wood with a chain saw. Just observing these guys, I learned enough to save myself some time in the woods.

July 26 and 27

We arrived a few minutes early for the Conway scenic Railroad to go through their museum. As you might expect there were a few “train buffs” already there looking at the exhibits from the days when Conway was a vacation destination. I  gave  the rolling stock a close examination.  This group does a great job with their restoration. They apparently operate  a shop, and do a lot of their work themselves. The cars were all in top-notch shape, and there were a lot of them. 

We started up to Crawford notch, and the scenery was beautiful.   

The guide told us stories of old trips and people who inhabited the mountains. 

 

She was a character herself, and she made a lot of jokes at the expense of the conductor, here talking with the engineer at the top.

We opted for the 1:30 lunch so when we got  to Crawford, we switched cars and sat in a beautifully restored dining car. It was a more than pleasant trip, and was a great last day in New Hampshire.

The 27^th was a travel day and we decided to go to the Rangeley Lakes region of Maine. We travelled along the gorgeous Androscoggin river. This last day in New Hampshire pointed out  ot us again one of the things we like about this state. Their road construction and maintenance is great. We found that without exception,  the best secondary and tertiary roads we travelled in NE, were in New Hampshire by far.