TurtleTooBlog: September 2008

Maine and New Hampshire

Sep 12, 10 miles S of Keene NH, along the Ashuelot River

There is a law of nature that applies to me…something to do with inertia, entropy:
We tend to fill whatever space we have.

We adjust to accommodate however busy or idle we are…it becomes difficult to change.
… it could be a 15’ travel trailer or a 30’ travel trailer, or a terribly demanding job or one that requires little effort, or today’s thoughts of the present or future – we limit ourselves too easily within what we have, when the options are so many.

It is tough to change momentum, perspective…

Being retired for more than 6 months, I still wake up after dreaming of past things that won’t come back, and I wonder where I am – in a time limbo. The past doesn’t matter – we need to continue to look ahead, to prepare. I have no interest in going back and doing more of what I did, and daily I consider wildly divergent paths to take, changing by the minute it seems…from putting a chinese junk sailing rig on a trimaran and exploring to walking the Pacific Crest Trail to installing geothermal heat pumps…and V returns me to basic things, and I realize we need to do something that makes us useful without throwing all our eggs in one basket. Not a job – we have enough money, but something that is of benefit. This blog can be a good thing in that vein, but I have struggled with what it should be, and why…empty musings like these don’t do anybody much good, nor does a chronicle of stuff…and everything lofty has been said better than I can think to imagine.

We’re going to volunteer in a National Park or some such place – there are opportunities, apparently, and we have applied…but no word yet. We’ll redouble efforts…but we don’t want to go home – we want to stay itinerant, and we love living in our little rolling home. I think of getting something bigger…but why? We have plenty of room and all the comforts. A couple of nights ago it cooled to the low 40s, and the propane furnace worked great. All we need now is a better off-grid solarvoltaic system and we’ll go independent...we’re paying about $25/night for all the comforts when I believe we can hide in National Forests for nothing…although there are restrictions on just where and how that may limit the dream of freedom for free.

In the meantime, we’re wandering through interesting areas, taking rails-to-trails bike paths and kayaking rivers and going for walks, pretty much tourist-style…meeting people in campgrounds and along the way…but the more we do it, the less novel it seems…the more the grandeur blurs. Flocks of wild turkeys, clusters of deer, ducks and herons, fish jumping – it is then on to the next sight and experience and I wonder how long this will go on. We have averaged a new location every 4 days or so for a couple of months, and we’d like to settle down in one place for a while…I guess. We skim the surface and go on, but along the way we look at taxes and places for sale…we are loosely committed to 2 years of wandering until we change course, big time.

Every place we go is beautiful, but we need to look south as the leaves start to turn. Morning mountain creek swimming absolution ablutions are becoming a little too sacrificial.

…and we get the urge for goin’
when the summer leaves are turning brown
and the north wind blows and the snow’s a’fallin down
- Gordon Lightfoot? (not that way!)

…yet we’d like to stay as well

Sep 6, White Mountains National Forest, Lincoln NH

Too many days have passed since the last entry almost a month ago…too many to chronicle like a travelogue, “We went here and there”…so here’s what I was thinking today as I was pedaling back from Franconia Notch where I took pictures of where the “Old Man” used to be before the stone formation fell off the cliff back in 2003 – caused serious grieving in NH, I was told… even the state highway signs featured the Old Man.

I hadn’t even known…but see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Mountain

So V was down in Lincoln shopping for a back scratcher and a blanket with a moose on it, and I was pedaling back down from the pass in the mountains through a NH State Park up there in the White Mountains, along a bike path that crosses the Appalachian Trail in the woods, and I was trying to get my arms around trying to “get free”, considering being retired from a job for 6 months now, …away from the daily job toil and the attendant issues of getting enough sleep and getting properly dressed to accomplish my employment responsibilities, getting food etc and being part of the institutional life.

Not doing all that after doing it so long still feels like a vacation – I’m not “free” yet. I still expect to be getting back to it soon, not realizing in my bones yet that it won’t happen. It will probably take about a year to heal from the affliction. It isn’t that I miss it, but I am still attached. Maybe it was Tropical Storm Hannah crossing my hometown during the wee hours this morning, back in Wilmington NC and me poring over the internet last night, monitoring it. Learning how to do the weather was a great thing…but V had to tell me to be quiet a week ago when I was telling people at a campground near Bar Harbor ME about how they were going to get Hannah’s rain…telling people on the bus about it, telling anybody who would listen…I still feel a responsibility – it seems worth knowing about and I was the one to tell people, and the responsibility remains…to me, at least. But not working for half pay sure beats working for full pay…

So tonight we’re ensconced in the Aliner trailer at the Country Bumpkins Campground on the bank of the Pemigewasset River, which flowed about 10 miles from the Notch out of Profile Lake right next to what’s left of the Old Man. Outside the rain from the remnants of Hannah is coming down, and that little rocky river must be getting busy, and we’re just a couple of feet above the river without much of a bank…so as the rain continues all night with about 10 miles of basin flowing right next to the trailer, I’m real interested in what it’ll look like in the morning. V hitched the truck to the trailer this afternoon in case we have to make a quick exit tonight. The rain is falling a little further N than was expected…

We’ve been here for 4 days/nights, for the first time in the mountains for an appreciable period…but it isn’t long enough. We have wandered around the area on bike and foot and it sure is pretty watching the leaves thinking about changing as the summer light wanes. A few trees have taken the initiative to transform themselves.

I was down at the US Forest Service facility in town, talking with the pros, and I learned that White Mountains National Forest was acquired by the US less than 100 years ago…and by then the entire area was almost completely cut down at one time or another, leaving very little virgin forest. Over the last 100-150 years, with very little replanting, the forest has made a substantial recovery, but it’ll take another 200-400 years or so before it returns to a “stable” system…it is in the deciduous hardwoods stage and eventually the towering white pine and massive hemlocks will regain preeminence. I was told the hemlocks have been badly whacked by insects, so things will continue to change.

The little truck and trailer are holding up well – we took the scenic Kancamagus Highway (NH112) up over a 3000’ pass without incident after we left Maine, after camping a couple of days on Sebago Lake…we swam and kayaked on the lake – while swimming I thought of a guy who drowned in the lake recently, but the water is clean and clear and not too chilly…certainly not a cause of death. While on the lake we learned a loon's call is actually a gargle- one surfaced right next to the kayak, and each time before it sang its song it grabbed a beakful of water.

The rivers flowing in the mountains have scoured the granite (NH is The Granite State, don’t you know) to look like Henry Moore sculpture, curved and flowing like the water…nature’s art dwarfs human attempts to create.

Yesterday we took a ride over the Notch and on to Saint Johnsbury VT to check out the sights we passed through too quickly as we went E to the Maine coast, and then we drove down the VT/NH state line, the Connecticut River…a busy young and strong flow, and I’d sure like to head toward the headwaters up near Canada…we’ll see – all the lakes and rivers start looking similar and after a while it doesn’t make much sense to see one after another, does it?

…Not unless you’re on a moose quest – we have been on the lookout in the mountain meadows, but mostly during mid-daylight, when they’re laying low. A moose is something to see, and V has seen but one and wants to see more.
I love being in the mountains, but the rivers are a little too painfully cold to enjoy swimming…but they’re great for wading and smelling the freshness. Not much for critters…a few red squirrels and chipmunks, a heron now and then…this is ski country with slashed slopes and big equipment stores, awaiting winter.

Before moving inland to Sebago Lake we were so lucky to spend more than 2 weeks on the Maine coast, mainly on fairly remote Swan’s Island, decompressing at my great big sis’ Betsy’s and her SIGNOT (significant other) Leona’s (she calls it decomposing) paradisiacal home overlooking Burntcoat Harbor. Leona’s family has lived there since forever, and Betsy must have been there 20 years now. Leona’s mother is 98 and going strong across the street, and here sister and brother are down the road. Nephews, grandkids, friends etc are around – really friendly and helpful, many involved in lobstering…the waters along the Maine coast are a fireworks display of color…all decorated like for Xmas by lobster pot buoys all over the place, and every morning except Sunday starting around 4AM the lobster boats in the harbor would go out checking the pots, returning mid afternoon or so. It has been a slow year for lobsters, with prices down due to Canadians flooding the market and not that many getting caught – the thinking is they’re out in the 50’s…fathoms, or around 300 feet down, off the coast. I thought with all those pots out there the lobsters didn’t stand a chance, but ME and especially Swans Is have strict harvesting rules…and talking with Leona’s nephew Leonard, he told me that a camera on a lobster trap showed hundreds of lobsters crawling around on the bottom and in and out of the traps, so they is no shortage! However, there is a shortage of mackerel and sardines and herring – years ago they abounded along the coast and lobsters were just another thing to harvest…and back then sea urchins would also clutter the traps...but the urchins are about gone. They’d string nets along the shore and catch lots of fish, but that doesn’t happen any more – the fish are all but gone. Not too long ago there were attempts to farm-raise salmon, but concern that farm-raising compromised the wild salmon stock put an end to that, and a few floating pens are used for other purposes…
Leona stays on the island and attends to family matters, and Betsy sells sailboats down by the seashore on Mt Desert Island, home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. She drives one car to the Swan’s Is ferry, walks onto the first boat in the morning for a 45 minute ferry ride, and then gets in her Mt Desert Is car and drives to Hinkley Boat Works, maker of super-fine sail and motor boats, picks up provisions and returns home on the last boat of the day. Betsy and Leona maintain about 10 personal lobster traps and V and I ate well as we watched bald eagles and herons and black wing gulls cruising among the spruce trees along the shore. Bouldery shoreline seaweed fields swaying underwater in high tide were exposed by 12’ low tide range…clear water temperature in the 50s, and 10 year old Granddaughter Mia hounded me into going swimming with her many times…one cold water-tough kid that also loved being pushed on a swing and anything else…we stacked firewood, pruned an apple tree and cut some grass and stayed pretty busy. V and I spend a few days in the kayak, camping on Marshall Is and Pond Is as we covered about 35 miles circling Swan’s Island.
Fog has been thick this year along the coast, they say…along with lots of rain and people wondered if there would even be a summer…and V and I were awoke camping in a thick fog that didn’t break until afternoon, giving us enough time to get back to Burntcoat Harbor. We came upon a couple of dozen harbor seals on a low tide reef, and they evacuated at our approach, bobbing all around us and watching us pass. Porpoise showed up here and there…
Big wood charter schooners, cruise ships and private pleasure sailboats wander all summer along the coast, anchoring in the island harbors at night…sometimes catching lines and tearing lobster pots off the bottom, causing some conflict.
Bar Harbor in summer is a big tourist draw with Acadia National Park right there, and there is a free propane-burning bus shuttle service where hourly busses run different routes all over Mt Desert Island, where there are hiking trails and campgrounds and little towns…and people don’t drive so much as a result – really a great thing for the crowded island – V and I put our bikes on the bus bike carriers and went to the old Rockefeller-designed carriage trails and went all over the place. After we left Swan’s Is we spent a few more at a campground on Mt Desert Is until we felt ready to head inland, and now the mountains are our reward.
V is very happy, she tells me, and she is hell-bent for leather to keep doing this for some time to come. I keep looking at sailboats on the internet…but I also look at travel trailers, tents, and anything else that takes over my thinking at the moment. All things considered, I think we’re about optimizing our options and I can’t think of anything better to do. We talked with some sailboat folks, and we’d rather be mostly on land and sometimes on water than mostly on water and sometimes on land. Campground are real nice, especially after Labor Day when the crowds are gone…we have been alone in the deep woods, and here along the rising river it is beautiful to see, watching the crystal clear flow, and to hear.
Folding bikes are a terrific thing for their convenience, fitting easily in the back of our little Mitsubisi truck. We got ours from downtube.com, but I admire one from Giant and many from Dahon. The Downtubes are well-appointed and a little less expensive ($400), but have served us beautifully. I had one problem with a broken component, but it was promptly replaced under warranty. Little-wheeled folding bikes have a lower center of gravity, turn easier, are more stable, and go just as fast. In these expensive fuel times, they are great to have and we have gotten many comments and questions.

So now we don’t know where to go – search further for moose where there is wireless internet service, head for the North Woods away from everything, or start wandering south?

So maybe freedom is in the trying to be free and is never achieved...just like anything else.