Spring has sprung ... or as we say it in Maine - Mud Season is here! We enjoyed early spring as we drove north from Florida and the Gulf Coast a few weeks ago. The redbud and the dogwood were in bloom in a few spots and you could even view a little new green growth on a few trees. Back in Maine -- the snow piles in my yard finally melted last week and the hardwood trees are just now starting to bud ... but we are getting there ... slowly.
We did have a few warm days last weekend and probably the warmest Easter Day in Maine ever! We took advantage of the warm days and finished cleaning WTT inside and out. She is now ready to place in her storage lot for awhile. We also managed to get a start on the mud season yardwork. Peggy got all the oak tree limb blowdown picked up a few days ago and I raked the road sand from the first few feet of the lawn back into the street. It's always a timing issue to get that done right before the town road sweeper comes by --- and another sure sign of mud season.
As I mentioned earlier, we had a great Easter weekend weatherwise. It was so nice - the little ones (Sophie and Taylor) - and some bigger ones - had a fun Easter Egg Hunt outside.
As is typical during mud season - the few warm days were
immediately followed by grey, damp, cloudy days with highs back in the 40s. Looking at the bright side ... at least those snow piles are gone!
With Peggy's help ... I did get last winter's restoration project up from the basement and running again. Anybody want a completely restored 1977 Jawa Babetta? 25 mph, 130 mpg, and no special drivers license required. Nothing like late 70s Soviet Czechoslovakian technology.
It's a good thing that project is done since I also picked up a new project. How about a 1977 Cimatti City Bike? This one certainly isn't as good looking as the JAWA but I already have it running and all the lights, horn, etc. are working! This one has that classic Italian design. Perhaps we can work a package deal for a his/her moped experience!
So that's what we have been doing. Dealing with mud season and playing with grandkids and mopeds.
"Maine - The Way Life Should Be."
Yes, I know, I have been quite delinquent in updating my blog and I am sure you all think I lost all my fuel money at the Mohegan Sun Casino and couldn't make the last 230 miles to home.
Not to worry. We did make it to the Mohegan Sun on Sunday after driving the gauntlet including the NJ Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, the Tappan Zee Bridge, then over to I-95 just north of NYC and up into Connecticut. Not a fun drive at all but it wasn't too bad considering it was on a Sunday. We pulled into the large parking lot designated for RVs around 2:30 PM, found a spot that was fairly level, and got WTT set up for the night. As required, we called Security and they came to give us an overnight parking permit. Easy process - no muss - no fuss.
Since this was our first "dry camping" experience with WTT I was interested to find out how the electrical system would deal with a significant amount of time without "shore power." The weather was pretty nice when we arrived so heat was not an immediate problem. With our power needs being provided by the on-board batteries the only thing we really had to do was turn on the propane heat source to the hot water heater (one push button). We were pretty tired from our drive so we decided not to actually visit the casino.
We spent our afternoon resting, reading, and watching a little TV and Peggy cleaned and cooked some of those gulf shrimp we picked up back in Alabama - yum yum. I ran the generator for a couple of hours before bedtime to ensure the batteries were fully charged and then we turned in for the night. The outside temp did get down to around 40 degrees and the propane furnace ran on and off all night keeping the inside temp around 68 degrees while we were even toastier in bed with the heated mattress pad on all night!. When I got up around 7 AM the batteries were only down to about 12.3 volts. Actually a bit better than I expected! I started the generator again to recharge the batteries as we got moving, finished our morning routine and got back on the road heading north around 9 AM.
We finished our trip back to Maine arriving back home around 3 PM. And then the fun begins. Start hauling all the stuff inside that we hauled outside last January! We got enough of that done in a couple of hours and then we were welcomed home by our daughter Stacy and granddaughter Taylor. It was great to see them!
So -- we have now been home for a couple of days and more of our "stuff" has been unloaded. The weather has been cold, rainy, and raw since we arrived and we really haven't been motivated to get out there much! But we will -- once it warms up a bit! Meanwhile we have been re-acclimating to being home and taking care of all those things that need our attention now that we are home.
So what about those Trip Statistics! Well here ya go ...
We were gone 83 days on this trip. As always ... glad to leave but glad to be back (once the snow melts I'll be gladder!).
WTT ran great the entire trip and averaged 9.6 mpg of diesel fuel. With the average price of diesel around $2.50 our Price Per Mile remained steady at 26 cents per mile.
Speaking of miles - WTT added 4,243 miles to her odometer on this trip and now reads 10,757 miles. Since she had about 1,700 miles on her when new - these Maineiacs have added right around 9,000 miles in the last 12 months. That's right --- we purchased WTT 1 year ago next week!
We stayed in 19 different locations on this trip ... but only 6 places we haven't overnighted in the past.
Probably the scariest statistic is the cost for tolls. Tolls are a fact of life here in the northeast but can really be excessive if you take the wrong route. For instance ... on our trip south we paid $17.56 in tolls. On our way north we paid $86.50! Yikes. Even worse -- our first toll was in Maryland on the north side of Baltimore .. so all that money was spent in the last 500 or so miles! It's pretty sad when a motorhome towing a toad across a bridge costs $20!
So ... now that we are back it's time to get back in the Maine groove. Time to watch the flowers and grandkids grow. Time to get back into some cycle projects.
Yep .. it's time.
