Day 1: Do the Wave!
We departed Bangor only a few minutes behind schedule. They’re doing construction on our street right now and Richard had to physically walk into the road to stop traffic so I could back the RV out of the driveway. Otherwise, we’d still be sitting there. We then drove to Cascade Park to hook up the Suzuki to the RV. We don’t have enough room to do that in the driveway. This is what it looks like from inside when Richard’s hooking up the car for towing.
It used to really bother me when people had to wait for me on the road, especially on the highway when someone wants to go a lot faster than I’m going. But, having an RV has pretty much eliminated that stress from my mind. In the RV, we’re usually only going the speed limit and people that are on my butt, trying to make me go faster, can just wait. I don’t let people push me around on the road anymore. Besides, we’re bigger than they are!
Anyway, we weren’t 30 miles outside of Bangor when an unmarked police car raced past us on the freeway. (Contrary to normal vehicles, I always speed up and get out of the way for ones with flashing lights.) A couple of miles up the road, we saw the unmarked car pulled over and the officer was standing behind his car and pushing his toward the ground, telling all of us to slow down. Other cars were crossing the restricted median to get to our side of the freeway and attempting to merge. Once we got past a bank of trees, we saw why. Some other poor RVer had flipped his rig and it was lying on its side, blocking all lanes of traffic heading north on I-95. There for the grace of God go we! I said a silent prayer for that family…while Richard whipped out the camera to get a shot. You can see that photo here:
A few minutes later, our jack alarm went off. That was the second time it happened on the freeway and we had to find a place to pull off to turn the jacks on, push the “store” button, and then turn them off again. Problem was, the next exit was another 5 miles down the road. So, we had to listen to that incessant DING DING DING DING for 5 whole miles. I turned the radio up really loud but that didn’t help. I pulled off at the exit, quickly found a construction parking lot (easy off and on with no u-turns) and slowed down, but didn’t stop, to see if I could make the alarm turn off without stopping completely. I did and it worked so now we can fix the problem driving down the highway. No more miles and miles of DING DING DING DING!
Richard was working most of the drive but lost his connection on Route 2 around the Maine, New Hampshire border. Then, we could stare at the mountains and ooh and aah together. We even pulled over at one spot because it was so gorgeous!
It was chilly outside and the mountains in the distance at dusk were truly mesmerizing. Every once in awhile, we’d see a tree that is just starting to get its fall colors around the tips of its leaves. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year and I can’t wait until October, when we’ll be heading north through thousands of miles of fall foliage.
Frank and Ali get mortally embarrassed when I wave at other RVers. They insist nobody would wave if I didn’t wave first. Yesterday, I proved them wrong. I hesitated when passing other RVers and many of them waved at me anyway. So, I’m back to waving madly at our fellow campers. And, let me tell you, there are plenty of other women driving RVs, too! RVs aren’t just men’s toys anymore!
We arrived at our campground here on schedule. We’re staying at the Twin Mountain KOA for two nights. Ali, Frank and Max went to their ice cream social and had a great time. It’s nice and woodsy here. The quiet is only interrupted by the occasional truck on the nearby highway.