Saturday, June 02, 2007

The Trip East to pick up the New Baby

We left Wednesday morning for Maine to pick up the new coach. The pickup was packed to the hilt with goodies that we have been accumulating for the new coach and of course we had just a little excitement on our part. We are soooo.... looking forward to enjoying an RVagain....we really miss the traveling and we have all those reservations in place for this fall!

We decided to go through Canada not only to cut off some distance but to see something new. Ontario was great with good roads and with a Tim Horton's every so often to stop and snack. Our trip a year or so ago around Lake Huron was a pleasure with the roads good and we enjoyed going 90 Km/hr and less with time to see the surroundings.....this was more of the same.

The first interesting place we came across was Presque Ile Provincial Park on Lake Ontario which I had seen on the maps and thought it would be a good stopping place for a future trip to the North East. The park far exceeded my expectations with nice beaches and campsites right on the water....we will come back and stop there. Just down the road I just happened to spy a old Grand Trunk Steam Locomotive so I had to stop and hence the picture.
Just East of the Provincial park lies the "Thousand Islands" and the St Lawrence Seaway with ships moving up and down the river amongst these beautiful and quaint houses built on the smallest of islands..all with scenery that never ends.

We stopped the first night in Cornwall, Ontario and then pushed on to Quebec where the roads were in the same category as those in Michigan and I have to add the City of Montreal as one to avoid driving through with a motorhome particularly with the degree of congestion we ran into. The rains of course didn't help.

Crossing into the United States was kind of neat. We had thought we might have trouble as we had brought a lot of the replacement items for the new coach with us although we had receipts with us. The stop at the border was unique...a very nice guard that worked out of a small former gas station asked us all the pertinent questions and checked our passports but we had no troubles. It was a far cry from hundreds of cars an hour to what appeared to be a few every hour....most pleasant! And on top of that around the corner was the "piney woods of Maine" with lakes and views that were fantastic.

The rivers and lakes of Maine reminded us very much of northern Michigan but this was new and unfamiliar and really beautiful. We were even reminded to watch out for the Moose as they are quite active this time year. We even saw some fresh tracks where a group had crossed the road just before us. Maine is also another place we will return to and explore further.

We are in Bangor now and will have the coach soon.