Joyce & Wiley's Great Adventure

5/22/06 (Monday): What an idyllic day we had! It’s cool, but very sunny here in southern Maine. We started the day with some great French toast—Wiley put a little nutmeg and cinnamon in the coating, and it was very good. I cleaned house while Wiley did a little map work. Then we packed a lunch and headed for LL Bean, about 25-30 miles north of here.

LL Bean was pretty neat. There were 3 separate stores (with another one under construction and due to open next weekend). We went in the hunting and fishing store first. Wiley needed some fishing line and bait. There was a trout pond with live trout right in the store. Then we headed over to the main store, where Wiley wanted to get some shorts and some hiking boots, and I needed a rain jacket and some tennis shoes. The shorts were on sale for $15, so we bought two pairs, but we couldn’t find hiking boots in his size. I found a jacket I liked for $55. Then I had the bright idea of checking out the children’s department. Don’t laugh, but Wiley and I both have small feet, and I can sometimes wear children’s clothing, and it’s often less expensive. We lucked out and found some great hiking boots for Wiley which were $30 cheaper than the adult ones (and there were no adult ones in his size). I found almost the same jacket as the ladies size I’d picked out, and it was $20 less. I also found some lightweight shoes (they’re called summer sneakers) that I really like. They’re not only light weight, but they breathe, so they feel nice and cool. We also looked at the LL Bean outlet, but it was all winter stuff. They did have some neat kayaks at greatly reduced prices because they were “blems.” We’re seriously considering buying a couple of kayaks when we get up there, but we’ve decided we’ll rent first to make sure we like kayaking, and then we’ll look for used kayaks. We can always come back to LL Bean if we can’t find a good used one. It’s only about 85 miles from Camden.

After we ate our picnic lunch, we headed down the coast on a couple of back roads to get some lighthouse pictures. Hunting for lighthouses is a great way to explore the coast, which is just breathtaking here. We went to Portland light first. It’s in a county park that also has the remains of Fort Williams, a WWI and WWII fort. We were surprised that we could see three lighthouses and another, older looking, fort (which we later learned was Ft. Georges). We walked the beach and looked at some tidal pools. The beach looked like huge slabs of petrified wood. It’s actually ancient sand from the bottom of the sea that was compressed as the continents collided and then shifted and heaved up and cracked as the continents drifted apart again. The tidal pools looked like little aquariums, with a variety of green plants and small fish and shellfish.

Next we went to a lobster shack near a lighthouse that’s on private land. We had coffee and dessert sitting on the patio on a cliff about 85 feet above the sea. We walked down this rocky beach, too, and looked at some more tidal pools. I’ll bet our flatlander legs are going to be feeling this tomorrow!

We headed back to camp, but couldn’t resist stopping to walk on the beach near the campground—what a contrast! It’s 7 miles of flat, sandy beach. Everywhere we’ve been, though, there are rocky islands right off shore. It looks like it would be really fun to kayak out to them.

It’s 6:30 now, and Wiley’s gone fishing. I have some potatoes and eggs cooking to make potato salad with. We bought some Portuguese sausage at the grocery a few days ago, and I’ll grill them to go with the potato salad for dinner. Life is good!

Here’s the next to the last update on our expenses:

Total spent to date - $2,194.15

Gas - $708.61

Groceries - $212.97

Tolls, Parking, Public Transportation - $66.40

Snacks - $19.29

Camping Fees - $546.41

Admission Fees - $182.89

Camper/Vehicle Repairs/Improvements - $274.09

Laundry - $12.75

Entertainment/Gifts - $40.87

Restaurant Meals - $129.87

We’ve been averaging 10.5 mpg, which is pretty good. Of course, that’s some driving without the camper. Our best mpg was 16.4, and our worst was 8.79.

We’re $94.15 over our budgeted amount of $2100, and we have 3 days to go. But that’s not too bad, considering that we bought a number of items for the camper (like a battery operated tire pump—which came in really handy!), and that gasoline and campground fees (unavoidable) were higher than we anticipated. We wanted to make sure that we saw and did everything that we wanted to do, and we have. It’s been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We’re also saving money for a trip to Norway in 2008, so we’ll just dip into that to make up the difference. I think we did a pretty good job of estimating (and controlling) our expenses. It’s been very enlightening to keep track of everything we spend. I recommend it to everyone (for at least a month). We didn’t really try to control our spending (we’re naturally pretty frugal), but we were conscious of it because we were recording it. Our big weakness is eating out—especially when we’re traveling and see all these great places with food we don’t normally get to eat and neat atmosphere. We indulged ourselves a couple of times, but not nearly as much as we’d have liked.