Prince Edward Island was the last Canadian province/territory for us to visit with our RV. We haven’t visited the territory of Nunavut, but there aren’t any roads to take one there, so that territory may not be in the cards. After visiting Maine last summer, I mentioned that we had now been in all 50 states, although we hadn’t spent at least one night in our RV in all 50. My husband planned this next part of our trip to get a few of those states that we hadn’t camped in before checked off the list. We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing things the next ten days, but we did get five states checked off our list.
So, to begin this tale of our summer travels, let me start where I left off from the last post. We departed Twin Shores RV Campground in Kensington, Prince Edward Island at 8:05 AM ADT on June 26. It was a little windy and cloudy, but the temperature was in the lower 60’s. Not too bad. We drove south to Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island, where we would cross the Confederation Bridge, an 8 mile bridge that links Prince Edward Island to Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. Most of the bridge is 130 feet above the water with one span that is almost 200 feet above water for ship traffic. The bridge will close to traffic if it is too windy, especially high-profile vehicles like semi-trucks and RV’s. Fortunately for us, it wasn’t too windy the day we wanted to cross the bridge. The toll to cross the bridge was $65.00 Canadian, or about $50.00 US. After about 12 minutes on the bridge, we were once again on land. My husband was happy to see land again. 😉
We continued through New Brunswick and crossed into the U.S. at Calais, Maine at 12:35 PM EDT. We were in Canada a total of twenty-four days and enjoyed our time there, but it felt good to be back on U.S. soil. We had another two hour drive to the Cold River Campground in Eddington, Maine, arriving there at 2:40 PM EDT.
Eddington, Maine is about 43 miles from Acadia National Park. We visited Acadia last year and wanted to see it again this year. In fact, we really wanted to camp in the park, but it was not to be this year. However, Cold River Campground was a nice campground and not that far from Acadia, so it all worked out just fine.
We did drive to Acadia the next day, June 27. We parked the truck at Hull’s Cove Visitor Center where we hopped on a bus that would drive us around the Park Loop Road. Hull’s Visitor Center is the place to start any visit to Acadia. Now, I’m not going to write a lot about Acadia National Park itself since I mentioned quite a few things about the park last year. You can click on the following link, Acadia National Park, to read about last year’s visit if you are interested. Since the buses will make stops at specific locations and visitors can get off the bus to see the park up close and personal, we elected to get off the bus at Sand Beach.
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After spending some time at Sand Beach, we hopped on another bus and continued around Park Loop Road. We didn’t get off at any of the other locations, but it sure was fun to see the scenery again. One thing we didn’t do this year that we did last year was have a Maine lobster dinner. We had quite a bit of seafood up in Canada, so we thought we would try something else this year. No matter what we had, it was good.
We had an off day on Wednesday, June 28, and then departed Cold River Campground on Thursday, June 29. Right before we departed, we noticed one of the rear travel trailer tires was low, well, actually it was flat. As my husband changed the tire, we noticed a nail in it. We would get that tire fixed later in the day and the delay in departure wasn’t that long, only about 20 minutes. We left the campground at 11:20 AM EDT. We traveled through Maine and eventually drove to Attleboro, Massachusetts, where we spent the night at a Walmart. We arrived there at 7:45 PM EDT.
The next day, we left Walmart at 7:40 AM EDT. We didn’t have a long drive at all, but it was scenic. We drove to Chepachet, Rhode Island, and found a campsite at George Washington State Campground.
This state campground was a dry campground, no electric/water/or sewer services at the site. However, my husband did get the generators out and ran them for a bit because it was hot and humid. Hot and humid or cold and freezing is when we really appreciate RV camping instead of tent camping. In any event, we walked around the campground and just generally spent a very pleasant day at the campground.
The next morning at 8 AM EDT, July 1, we left George Washington State Campground and drove a short distance to Connecticut. We initially wanted to stay at a state park in Connecticut and, in fact, thought a site was open. However, when we got to the campground, no sites were available. There were a number of commercial campgrounds nearby and we were able to get a site at Charlie Brown Campground in Eastford, Connecticut, arriving there at 9:30 AM EDT. The campground wasn’t decorated with Peanuts characters, but it was a nice family campground pretty full with folks there for the July 4th weekend. We just relaxed and enjoyed the comfort of air conditioning on a very hot and humid day.
At 10 AM EDT on July 2, we departed Charlie Brown Campground and headed for New Jersey. The New Jersey state parks were all closed because the budget hadn’t passed, so we needed to find another place to spend the night. We decided to stay at a Flying J at Carneys Point, New Jersey, arriving there at 4:50 PM EDT. It was another hot and humid day, in the lower 90’s, so we did spend sometime inside the air conditioned restaurant. Actually, after sundown, it did cool off some and we were able to sleep well enough through the night.
We left the Flying J on July 3 at 9:30 AM EDT. We did have reservations for the campground where we would be spending the next three days because it was over the July 4th holiday. However, we didn’t need to leave early because check-in time wasn’t until 1 PM. We drove to Trap Door State Park, located near Laurel, Delaware. When we arrived at the campground, our site wasn’t open yet, so we drove over to the museum on site to wait until we could set up camp. The museum was nice and we also investigated some of the other amenities of the park, such as fishing and boating in Trap Door Pond. The park ranger at the museum told us the fishing was good, so my husband and I decided to get fishing licenses. We had no desire to clean the fish, should we be lucky enough to catch any, but just wanted to spend that quiet time alone with the rod and reel.
Our three days at Trap Pond State Park were great. We did indeed go fishing, but we didn’t catch any fish. I had a fish on the hook and got it to within two feet of the boat when it out-maneuvered me. Gee, outsmarted by a fish. Pretty sad. That was the only true bite for either of us, but oh well, we had fun. The fish bite occurred as we were canoeing around Trap Pond. The pond is interesting in that when you round a bend, you can canoe among the bald cypress trees. That was kind of a neat experience.
We also bought some absolutely delicious sweet corn at a farmer’s vegetable stand which we grilled with our meal. The farmer’s vegetable stand was very close to the entrance of the state park, so really convenient. All in all, our three days here (July 3 – 5) were really enjoyable. We may never get back to Delaware, but we would certainly recommend this state park as a great place to camp.
So, to wrap this all up, we left Prince Edward Island in Canada on June 26 and traveled through New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. We had camped in New Brunswick, Maine, New Hampshire, and New York previously, but not the others, so we accomplished the goal of spending at least one night in those five states. Next, we would be traveling to Virginia to pick up the two oldest grandchildren to enjoy the outdoors in West Virginia.
Tales from the Snail Shell 