Sat. July 30 to Fri. Aug. 5- Essex Junction VT to Ellsworth ME

Posted on August 10, 2016 by deniselg

Saturday- We had a busy day. We left at 8:45 to meet up with the SKP Genies. At 9 we all drove over to the local cemetery to look at gravestones. We were met there by a woman, Maureen, who is the 6th great granddaughter of Abraham Stevens, a Revolutionary War Veteran. Maureen was quick to point out that he was in the War of 1776, which in Vermont is called “The War Against New York”, not the Revolutionary war! He was one of the Green Mountain Boys, who fought the militia of New York , against them stealing the Vermont land. He fought against Ethan and Seth Allen. The Allen’s were evidently land grabbers. Stevens died in 1820 and had donated the land where the cemetery is located.

This was fascinating! Connie and Peter Brandish presented a field trip on how to photograph cemetery markers. The monument had at some time been reset, as it was still standing. It was hard to read the information on this spectacularly engraved headstone when we first arrived.

We watched at Connie clean the headstone. Maureen was awestruck! She could now read the headstone. They were sure that there was more down below the stone and Connie dug down and found that there was a support of concreted that had been added below the stone. That was why it was still standing.

You might note that the grave is not indented. What happens is that people were buried in wooden caskets, the wood deteriorates, and eventually breaks, falling in on the body. Abraham was buried on the top of a hill, where it was less likely that this would occur. Nowadays, we put a cover on to make sure that this does not happen.

As you can see it was very ornate, with a Masonic symbol on the top and writing all around. Next to Abraham was Lucy, his wife. Why you see the light, is that Peter was standing away, shining sun, using a mirror to better see the marker. They do this at every cemetery that they visit.

We moved on to Abraham’s father-in-law named Carr. There were a lot of Stevens and Carrs buried in this cemetery. This was actually the oldest burial site in the cemetery, but his headstone had been replaced at some point in the past.

We learned a lot. The flat gravestones ( which are the markers my parents have) become overgrown with grass and are not a good idea. Many newer cemeteries are going with only having these markers because it is easier to mow the grass.

Also, when purchasing a marker, it is advisable to add a lot of information to it. The mothers maiden name, the kids names, date of birth, date of death, and last name. In the cemetery, we found first names on graves. They were in a plot, that was designated, but what happens if the ‘name marker’ is destroyed or deteriorates. You have the first name, but are no longer able to read the last name. We left and returned to the MH to drop off the gal who was riding with us. We went to lunch at a small deli and purchased subs. We returned home to eat them, then took a short nap.

We left at 4 to return over to Norm and Mary’s rig where we had happy hour with everyone. Then we left and went to dinner at The Essex Café with the group. We had a nice time talking about families and brick walls that we all get to in our Genealogy.

We returned to Norm and Mary’s and sat out talking until later. My phone rang and it was Debbie Abernethy. She wanted to know if we wanted to come over to see their new MH. We did. We were trying to figure out where they were located, when I noticed that they were behind us in their car. Debbie noticed me at the same time! LOL

So we left and went to visit with them until about 9:45. We returned to the rig and went to bed.

Sunday- We left our site at about 9:25 and drove around the Expo to get into the back of the line to dump. We arrived in line at 9:35. We crept forward slowly, and while we were there, we hooked up the car to the MH. We started dumping at 10:35, 1 hour in line! It actually went by quickly, as we read our books while waiting. One of the nice things about a home on wheels!

We left and drove out to I-89 south, heading southeast to New Hampshire. We stopped at the last rest area in Vermont and ate lunch. We continued on to Sandy Beach RV Park in Contoocook NH. We checked in for four nights to rest and catch up with tasks. We arrived at 1:45, as we had taken our time getting here.

On the way in there was a sign that said turn right. When we attempted to, there was this covered bridge. Note that the height is 9’9”. We are 13’. Needless to say, we did not drive through with the motor home.

We continued further on the road and found a different right turn. When going up the hill, we were hit, a hard ‘bang’ on the satellite with a branch. Scared us! Fortunately, the satellite was okay.

The first site that they assigned us was too un-level for us to park, so they moved us to the one right next to the first one. With some work, we were able to level the MH. We set up, but there are too many trees for us to get satellite. We were able to connect to cable, which is out of Boston. We can only watch the cable on the bedroom TV, a situation that will need to be remedied! We don’t think we will ever go to this park again!

We had thunderstorms. We ate dinner, and watched some recorded TV shows, then some new shows in bed.

Monday- During my morning walk I took this picture of the lake.

We did some work around the MH. I have articles that I need to work on and I tried to do that. Unfortunately, my computer crashed and I was unable to work with it. I called Geek Squad, but the gal could not access my computer because it kept freezing. So I finally gave up. The gal made an appointment for me in Bangor ME for Friday.

After lunch, we went into Concord. We drove into downtown Concord.

We stopped by the Capitol building.

We continued on to the Old North Cemetery to visit the grave of Franklin Pierce.

Then we went to his manse which is closed on Mondays.

We stopped at Walmart and Petsmart, then returned to the MH, and read for awhile. We ate dinner, and watched TV. I tried my computer again and was able to transfer pictures to my external hard drive and to get the Roadrunner Newsletter copied to my scan disk so I can use Bob’s computer to work on the newsletter.

Tuesday- Bob spent a lot of time on the insurance website tracking down the EOB’s. Since we only get mail monthly, we try to keep an eye on what we will owe. He called the hospital, again, because we are keeping close tabs on what is going on with that $222K bill. We are going to have to pay what is left of the deductible. They are still in negotiations with the insurance company, so we still have a zero balance. We ate lunch at home.

It rained during the night and this morning, but the sun came out after lunch. The temps are in the 70”s, but humid!

We had to return some Glucosamine that Karlie refused to eat, so we went back to Petsmart and then to the Market Basket grocery store. We stopped at a Visionworks, to repair my glasses, since the left lens has now popped out three times!

We returned to the MH and after walking the dogs, we cleaned out the inside of the car, cleaning the leather seats, the floor mats and vacuuming.

We settled in, ate dinner and watched TV.

Wednesday- Sunny today, with high to be 84. Still a bit humid, but 59 when I went out for my walk around the park.

I tried my computer again and found that it will work when not on internet. Hmm, interesting. I am able to work on the blog and was able to work on one of the articles. I am down to redoing the questions, in a multiple choice format, so I was able to get some work completed.

Bob worked on setting up the GPS for our trip tomorrow and he cleaned the carpet on the ceiling where we had some stains from some old leaks. No worries about leaks now that we have had the roof re-sealed!

We left at 11:15 to go to Canterbury NH. We drove to Concord, then drove north on I-93 to an exit, then onto Hwy 106. We stopped for lunch at The Eggshell Restaurant where we both had mediocre omelets for lunch. We turned onto Canterbury Rd. and drove 3 miles to the Canterbury Shaker Village.

We parked and went to the Visitor Center. We paid $17 per person for the visit. There was tour starting at 1:00, so we used the restrooms and wandered around the gift shop for about 15 minutes. There was nice items, but very expensive!

The Docent, Gail, rounded us all up, and there were about 15 of us, and we walked across Shaker Road to the Village. Our first stop was at benches in front of the meeting house where Gail told us about the Shakers.

“The museum is dedicated to preserving 200 years of entrepreneurship, innovative design and simple living. The Village is a National Historic Landmark and includes 25 restored original buildings, and four reconstructed buildings. It is located on 624 acres of forests, fields, gardens, nature trails and mill ponds under permanent conservation easement.” (from their flier). Their religion is interesting. They were originally Quaker Shakers from Manchester England. The founder was Ann, who came from Manchester England, who converted 8 followers and came across on a ship in 1772. They moved onto this land and converted others to their simple religion. The actual name of the religion is very long, but it was shortened to Shakers from the shaking that occurs when they dance and get into a state of euphoria. They became brothers and sisters, all of them, the children included, and they were celibate. But that may not have been why they died out. That also had to do with the changes in society.

They took in lots of people, including orphans from Boston, who were then allowed to leave, or to join the group when they turned 18. The others that they took in they called “Winter Shakers”. They were homeless who asked to join. They would stay for the winter and then leave. The Shakers knew this, but felt it was charitable to accept these people.

The Shakers were innovators and entrepreneurs. They developed good crops and then sold the seeds to farmers across the country. They were the first to put seeds in the little packets. The also invented clothes pins. In their laundry, and they did laundry for 200 people, they put in a dumb waiter to take the clothes upstairs. They used a steam engine to power their washing machine. Below is the hospital.

Above is the meeting house. Below is the dormitory. On the right were the ‘sisters’ and on the left were the ‘brothers’.

In the tower on the top was a bell, cast by Revere and Sons of Boston. ( Yes, that Revere of Boston). Below is the garden and the wood shed. They used 500 cords of wood each winter for the 250 people who lived here.

Above was their store. I was not allowed to take pictures inside any of the buildings. We visited the laundry, which was a very busy place, as they did laundry for so many people. The people were assigned monthly to chores, so that they did not get too bored with one job, and were able to do many jobs. WE also visited the school where there was a video running of one of the children, now 92 years old, who is still living. She talked about live at the compound.

We returned to the MH, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Thursday- Travel day. We left at almost 10 to travel southeast on I-86 to I-93 south. We turned east on Hwy. 101 to Portsmouth, and moved onto I-95 north. At the last NH toll, I pulled up into the toll booth and the gal at the booth told me that the lady in front of us had seen our license plate. She said that since we were from South Dakota, that the lady in front said “welcome to New Hampshire” and had paid our $5 toll! Wow, paying it forward! That has never happened to us before! How nice!!!!

We traveled north on I-95. It was very busy right into Maine.

We stopped at the rest area/welcome center and picked up brochures. We changed drivers and continued north. We had decided to stop in Oakland, just south of Waterville for those awesome lobster rolls we had before. So we each ate a bar for lunch, and Bob also had an apple.

We went north of Waterville to leave the MH at a truck stop. We disconnected the car and ran the 5 miles back to Oakland. We went to the Corner Store and purchased two small lobster rolls, if you can call these small! $12 each and they are worth every penny!

We returned to the MH and ate them. We continued the last 86 miles to the RV park, via Hwy. 1A out of Bangor. Wow, was construction awful when we arrived in Ellsworth. The town was torn up. We arrived at the Patton Pond RV park to find that they were closed. There was a box with info for us. We still owe $11, but the rest was paid for. So we went to our site. It is totally un-level. We would have immediately returned to the office and requested another site, if they had been open.

So we worked on getting the MH as level as we could. We have the wheels up on blocks and the jacks on blocks. We got it level, but it is rocky. So we are going to the office the first thing in the morning to change sites. The other issue is that the sewer connection is uphill, so we cannot connect to sewer. Water does not run up hill!!!

We settled in and walked the dogs. We ate dinner and watched Satellite TV as we are able to get the satellite in this spot.

Friday- We were at the office when they opened at 8 AM. We requested to change sites. During our morning walk, we had chosen three different sites we felt would work, so we requested any one of them. They moved us to site 514, which it turns out is a Thousand Trails site. Huh? We are paying $20 per night, through Encore, to stay in a Thousand Trails site, that we could stay in for free? Patton Pond is not on our list of RV parks. I called Thousand Trails, and found that they are not in our plan, only in some limited older plans. Oh well, $20 per night for FHU 50 amp, is pretty good!

We quickly moved the MH to the new site, set up and left to drive to Bangor to Best Buy, as I had a 10:15 appt. for the computer repair. My thought was that the issue was from my downloading Microsoft One Drive or Google Photos. They had to run diagnostics, so it would take 5-7 days. We had to leave the computer.

We went to lunch at a nice diner type restaurant called Dysart’s. We had a very nice, inexpensive lunch.

After lunch we went downtown to visit the Paul Bunyan statue.

It was located downtown at the Civic Center. We were lucky to be able to get a picture, as the State Fair is going on behind this building. Below is a mural. We have seen this design on lots of post cards over the years in various gift shops.