Wandering around Maine

We'll visit some more friends meet some relatives from UK, and enjoy the journey.

Our last couple of weeks in Maine are completely unplanned, we're kind of killing time until Barbara's brother comes over in October. This has led to a couple of very nice “Finds” such as the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse, the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland and a pretty campground in Newport Maine that we picked because it was cheap and fairly close to a Country Fair we saw advertised.

We stumbled across the lighthouse completely by chance. I saw boats in the harbor through some trees and turned off to take pictures. Barbara noticed a sign for the lighthouse on the little side road we'd stopped on. We drove into a little park and saw way out on a long breakwater the light and keepers house. It was a really long breakwater, ¾ of a mile each way we later discovered. No vehicle access and all big fairly uneven blocks of granite mined locally back in 1881.

Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse

So we got exercise and some nice pictures of the light and passing sailboats.

A good day for sailing

Our next chance event came because we had TV to watch!

For us that can be a big event. We gave up cable TV and all the subscription channels about a year before we left San Diego on our adventure. We both agreed that there was nothing worth watching on network TV and despite having 200 channels we usually just watched PBS! We found that we could get broadcast TV (Over The Air or OTA for short) on a cheap plastic antenna from COSTCO. We threw away all the boxes, dishes and junk that came with satellite TV and hit the road.

Which has been pretty good for us, we carry DVD's for when we can't get an OTA signal and dive into charity shops every chance we get to restock them and trade in the old ones.

Anyhoo, we haven't had a decent signal in a while but when we moved to Rockland we could get about 5 channels and could catch up on PBS shows we like. Then up up came a blurb about a Country Fair in Unity Maine not far from where we were. We found a cheap campground using our favorite app “RV Parky” for $30 a night in a nice park on a lake. It was so nice we decided to stay to the end of the month.

Perfect reflections on the lake

Our Grand Kids would love this playground

Which finally gets us to the Country Fair!

Super folk music and fiddle music at the fair

Presented by MOFG or more properly the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners it is an all Organic event held outside Unity. The place looked small but every time we turned a corner we found more and more things. We had a really nice time listening to folk music, enjoyed organic hot dogs and fries. Wandered all the usual Country Fair stuff like the craft contests, garden show, vendor area, food court, then when we intended to leave we stumbled on the livestock area.

Other State and County Fairs we've been to have these areas but usually they are where people bring livestock to be judged in a show-ring. This one was different as they had displays of working horses and a first for us Oxen teams! 

We extended our stay by another hour or so just watching those and wandering the stables.

The big draught horses reminded me of growing up in Birkenhead. When I was little my dad delivered bread door to door with a big black horse. He'd stop at home for lunch and the horse would wait outside. He used his massive hooves to kick holes in the roadway. We always seemed to have our own private pothole outside!

All in all a very nice day out, and the weather stayed nice until we got back to the rig. Then the Autumn arrived with a bang, the temperatures dropped and the rain came down.

Clearly it's getting time to head south soon.