Mooch Docking in Maine

After over 2 months in the Rochester, NY area spending time with our new grandson, we are back on the road once again. Before heading south and west, we wanted to take a quick trip to Maine to visit family and enjoy our original home state. This post covers our first week and a half spent mooch docking (camping for free in a relative’s driveway) at Dan’s sister’s and his cousin’s houses.

Peru, Me

Our route from Holley, NY to Peru, ME took us through Vermont for an overnight stay at a distillery in Vermont as part of Harvest Host. After a tasting of the various products, we both agreed we had to buy a bottle of their maple bourbon. It is as good as it sounds. A quarter mile down the road was a brewery so we walked to it for dinner and a draft or two. The only downside of this stop was the rainy weather.

We arrived at Becky’s (Dan’s sister) in the late afternoon before anyone was home. Their house is on a relatively busy road that sees a lot of heavy trucker traffic as well as commuters getting out of work. To make matters worse, the elementary school is just 1/4 mile down the road. In order to back into the driveway, Dan had to start on the opposite side of the road and if it weren’t for her neighbor across the street, we doubt we would have been able to get in. He came out and volunteered to stop traffic in the street. It took 3 tries but we finally got situated. We will likely stay somewhere else on any future visits.

We had a great time visiting with Dan’s sister and her family. They have a pool, a hot tub, and a new fire pit with gorgeous paving stone patio surrounding the fire pit. We spent many evenings enjoying the fire, consuming a drink or two ,and soaking in the hot tub. Seeing our niece, Rachael, and her husband, Will along with our nephew Lenny, his wife Karri, and their 3 sons was a treat. It wasn’t all fun and games, though.

We spent the better part of 2 days replacing the water intake 4-way valve unit. This part was manufactured by Anderson Brass Co and is prone to leak due to its plastic parts. The Anderson Brass Co. has decided to discontinue the product and provide an all brass replacement. We ordered the brass replacement earlier in the summer and performed the replacement while at Becky’s. In order to complete the job, Dan needed to extend some pex piping and, as a result, we now have the tools to perform any plumbing repairs in our house on wheels.

While visiting the area of Dan’s childhood, we made a couple of trips to Conant Acres, an operating dairy farm run by the family of Dan’s childhood friends, Dennis Conant and Debbie (Conant) Keene. They opened a farm stand this summer to extend their usual offering of the best sweet corn in the area to other vegetables and farm fresh milk, bottled raw from the cow. It was great to catch up with friends Dan went to school with since 2nd grade (Dennis was in Dan’s class and Debbie a year ahead in Becky’s class).

After spending about a week in Peru, just across the Androscoggin River from Dan’s hometown of Dixfield, ME, it was time to move on and visit some more family.

Millinocket, ME

Millinocket, ME is located about 60 miles north of Bangor and sits at the base of Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. There are a lot of lakes in the area and Dan’s cousin, Lenny, owns a gorgeous home on the southern shore of one of those lakes. The drive from Peru to Millinocket takes just over 3 hours and we arrived around 5:30 pm on Friday and commenced the arduous task of backing into Lenny’s driveway. Their place is the first residence on a dirt road and sees its share of traffic. Unlike our experience on route 108 in Peru, the folks here just wanted to stop, get out of their cars and watch the show. Of course, every single one of them knows Lenny like family because that’s how we roll in rural Maine.

The bottom floor of Lenny’s place is a large bar room for entertaining with two sliding glass doors leading to the deck and views of Mt. Katahdin across the waters of South Twin. On Friday evening, several friends of Lenny and his wife Tina stopped by on their way in or out of the dirt road that leads to most camps along this portion of the lake. On Saturday. Lenny’s two brothers, Steve and Joe, along with their dad, Uncle Joe, stopped by. In addition to the Arsenault family, Dan has other cousins in the area. Judy and Jamie from that branch of the family stopped by to visit and check out how their cousin, Danny (yes, they still call him that), is living in retirement. They all were quite impressed with our 5th wheel. Before the weekend was over, we probably gave almost a dozen tours to twice that many people. It was fun to show off our house on wheels.

We can’t thank Lenny and his wife Tina, along with Becky and her husband, Joe for all the hospitality they gave us over the past week and a half. Now, we are back to reality at a campground near Acadia National Park and having to cook our own meals. More on that in our next post.