2017 Kickoff: Cobscook Bay State Park, Maine

Just about 75 miles from our house lies the Canadian border, and a few miles shy of the border is Cobscook Bay State Park. Wow – we have been to some wonderful Maine state parks, as well as those in other states and in Canada, but this one is definitely one of the nicest, most scenic, and best camping spots around – even with the very thick bugs this past week. Like most all Maine state parks, there aren’t hookups for RVs, but there are latrines, water spigots, and a decent (pay?) shower up front – just a quarter bought plenty of hot water. Toss in amazing views, great sunsets, and huge – like seriously gigantic – campsites, and it’s a winner. The park was also a great jumping-off point for several other day hikes and adventures, including a visit to Ray’s Mustard, Shackford Head State Park, Quoddy Head State Park, and the Cutler Public Reserved Lands, including “Bold Coast” hikes on some of the nicest trails we’ve traveled in a while. All in all, this was a perfect kickoff to the camping season.

This great old (closed) cabin was in the campground.

The trailer, in our site (#105)

Testing out the half-umbrella concept.

View from Site 106!

Nice fire pits, and first fire of the season.

Two dogs in the small front bed.

Peeking out at the lean-to on our site.

Raye’s Mustard in Eastport – last mustard mill in the US.

And lunch included some Raye’s, of course.

The trailer needs some work – it’s been seven years since we finished our redo?! – and it needs a paint job, plus we’ve been tweaking some of the interior accoutrements to better fit the way we camp. Adding a second dog to the family meant making a bigger bed for dogs, and losing our dinette – we can still make it up any time, but the default is now bed-mode, not table-mode. But, they loved their new sleeping arrangements and now we don’t have to fit three or four bodies in the one small bed!

2016 trips: just a few, but they were great!

This camping season was a weird one. We got a late start because of some monster renovations at our house. And in July, we camped in a tent (boo hoo!) because we were at a group site for a friend’s party that didn’t allow trailers. It was great, though and was the first camping trip with our new dog (a second beagle).

Next we went to the Adirondacks, but I was on crutches, having busted a leg. Camping on crutches is no picnic, but was far easier in the Scotty than it would have been in the tent. K got to do some hiking with the dogs and a friend, and it really was gorgeous! Must go back when I can actually walk. We stayed at Wilmington Notch State Park, near Lake Placid. Great state park campground!

On the road – happy to be towing!

Dogs showing off the trailer in NY

Bisbee checks out the view.

Dogs hiking!

There was even an old Airstream in the campground!

This beauty (with CA plates) drove by while I was sitting in Lake Placid!

This past weekend, we got to try out a brand new national park campground near home, at Acadia National Park. Schoodic Woods was built and opened just a year ago, and wow, what a gorgeous place to camp! It has sparkling new restrooms, great big sites (many with electrical), an amphitheater with outdoor movie screen and audio, and a great set of biking and hiking trails. Must visit again – it’s definitely the nicest campground we’ve been to. Even with a rainy day, we had a great time!

Picnic tables were new and ADA compliant. Dog approved!

One of the hiking areas. Great fall color!

The dogs have taken over the dining room – we made it into a bed, put a waterproof sheet on it, and it fits them great. Sad to lose use of the table, but no way all four of us are fitting on the ‘big’ bed!

Example site – large and really nice!

The vistors’ center – a nice lodge with great landscaping.

We forgot to take a picture of the Scotty at our site! This was on the way out.

Log-style visitors’ center – had a nice, crackling fire on this cool weekend.

Our camping season is over (but sometimes we winter camp!), so we will be winterizing the Scotty soon. Next year, it needs some repainting – we made a big list and look forward to getting it spiffed up in spring for more trips in 2017.

First trip of 2015 – MA, VT, NH…go!

Since the Scotty is pretty much done (just maintenance now!), this will become more of a travel blog. This past week, we headed out for the first trip of the year. A quick stop in Mass. to see S’s family, then off to a work trip in Vermont (Montpelier), where we camped just outside town at Meadowcrest Campground. Small, tidy, and convenient to the city, it was a perfect spot for a couple of nights. But, we were pretty keen to get somewhere more remote as soon as the meeting was over, so we took the long, scenic route through New Hampshire on the way back, headed for the White Mountains. And hit the jackpot, at Crawford Notch State Park/Dry River Campground. It helped that it was a Thursday night – we had our pick of sites and only saw one other guy the whole time we were there. No cell reception/email as an added bonus! What an incredibly gorgeous spot – we’re planning to go back when we have more time to hike. It seems like the perfect point of departure.

On the road – great to be traveling again!

Frankie chilling in Vermont.

Our Foodshed at the Skinny Pancake, a great crepe place in Montpelier

And we just had to get cheese! We’d never been to the Cabot factory. Yum!

Then off to NH, where we stayed at Dry River State Park.

Our kind of place – it was fantastic. Set up camp while Frank watched.

Dinner – from our Vermont travels.

Supervisor.

The view from a scenic overlook/trailhead a couple of minutes away.

Love this wooden map of the view.

We hiked down a little gorge.

Found great flora.

And views.

And of course, trees!

Across the road, one of many, many flumes. Hiked up this one a bit.

And here are the boys.

Then we checked out the pond near the headwaters of the Saco River.

Back in Maine, and happily flapping.

What I came up with…

So here’s the little front window awning. $10 of outdoor fabric from the fabric store, edge binding made from leftover outdoor fabric in aqua, and some cord to tie it on. (Still need to trim the cord). Enough glamp for our woods Scotty!

It’s definitely bright!

Close up: really simple design.

Awning thoughts

We don’t want a standard awning for the Scotty – a little too cute for the Six-Gun (though every time I see one, I really like them!). We are going to make a small simple awning for the front window/rock guard to see how it looks – just a small bit of fabric, so it’s worth a try.

I also found this great tutorial – will have to see if we eventually want to go this far…

http://thismontanalife.com/make-your-own-awning-step-by-step/

Or, another idea is this simple one:

This one is awesome as well:

http://littlevintagetrailer.com/2012/05/small-awning-for-your-vintage-trailer/

Or, back to our experiments with a shade sail…

…hmmm….

2013 Spring Fling kicks off the season

Last weekend was SSCE’s Spring Fling at Salisbury Beach State Reservation in Mass. We loved last fall’s Hoot & Howl, so we went back for more. There were tons of trailers there – I think the count was something like 30+. It was a great weekend! Here’s some eye candy…didn’t take as many photos as usual, and none of our camper. That’s OK – we forgot the hubcaps at home after K buffed them up anyways. Doh!

One of the Shastas – perfectly coordinated avocado appliances! Gorgeous.

Shasta again – beautiful styling with vintage table settings.

The maiden voyage of the Cavalier Chateau! Complete with vintage trailer apron.

This little gem had wonderful plaid exterior fixin’s.

And of course, the beach itself!

2013 camping season kickoff!

Wow, we did a terrible job posting about last year’s very busy camping season! Probably because it was very busy – a number of work trips were combined with camping and we were everywhere! We were at Camden Hills State Park, Lamoine State Park, Lake St. George State Park, Poland Spring,  Acadia National Park in Maine, plus Salisbury SP in Mass and Pillsbury SP in NH, among other locations. We should get some photos from the travelogue up here soon. All that camping time helped us really simplify our trailer organization, and finalize a few changes.

And it’s time to start the 2013 season! We are headed to the Spring Fling at Salisbury Beach SP in Mass again. Hopefully THIS time the puppy won’t injure his foot, making us leave really early (it was minor, he is perfectly fine).

So we’re hastily prepping to head out, amid busy work schedules and other chaos. A new addition to the Scotty is this fab vintage apron made by K’s mom from vintage trailer fabric – love it! I think it will make great rally wear.

Retro apron for churning out canapes!

I bought K this retro antenna for his birthday, since his favorite part of camping is listening to the radio and relaxing. But inside the tin can, the reception is terrible! We just mounted it, and it looks great!

Exterior: antenna, mounted. Nice!

On the interior, there were 2 places where we needed to drill through to mount the antenna. The top one will be where the radio hooks in, so we used a little steel cup around it (it is recessed, since the antenna mount was a little too short to reach through). The bottom one we chose to hide – I put a small circle of wood veneer over it and we painted it to blend in with the wall. Since a pillow normally sits here, hopefully it won’t be noticeable at all. We made a big mess, and need to finish cleanup before the rally this weekend! Eek!

Interior: antenna mounting. And mess below, still need to finish cleaning!

More soon from the Spring Fling!

Hoot & Howl!

We went to the 2012 Hoot & Howl campout at Salisbury Beach. We’re not ready to say it’s our last campout of the year, especially since we had an abbreviated stay. It was awesome! I think there were 40+ vintage trailers! A few photos:

All in a row

Our little cream puff

A lovely 1967 (if I recall).

Frankie, ready to roll in the morning! He loves sleeping in the camper bed with us (what a treat!)

Fantastic Frolic – obviously a period piece! The shag rug is outstanding.

Nice little pink Shasta.

Four legs

Thanks to my Dad, who has never looked back after getting his first set of jacks, we now have four lovely little Atwood swing-down jacks on the Ole Six-Gun Scotty. They are pretty awesome – we thought we wanted to go lightweight with the aluminum pyramid stands forever, but these really are super.

Nicely welded by KJ

All four jacks down

As a bonus, having the jacks attached to the frame allowed us to re-organize our storage and get rid of 2 milk crates full of setup ‘stuff’ that have been riding on the floor every trip. We got a handy-dandy pull out drawer that fits in the cargo area, and all of the setup stuff fits perfectly now. We will test this all out later in the week at a nearby state park. Can’t wait!

New storage!

 

 

Finding our way in the dark

I found a neat porch light (it’s vintage, and I actually think it was probably a marker light) on Ebay last year. It was much more affordable than the lovely Bargmann-type porch lights which cost an arm and a leg – though don’t get me wrong, I definitely drool over them when they rarely come up for auction.

Here’s what it looks like mounted on the trailer – finally, today we got around to getting it installed, and managed to cover some bad old bondo smears with it:

Porch light next to the door.

Lovely little Chicago light.

The difficulty with the light is that we didn’t want to run any more wiring. We didn’t want to mess with the skin, or mess up any of the existing wiring. So we have been spending the year thinking about how to make a light happen with no power.

Enter LED flashlight – I bought this one actually to put on the dog at night. (Don’t worry – his harness reflects light so he’s not lost without it).

We driled a hole in the trailer just a touch smaller than the light’s fattest diameter, and made sure the flashlight’s end pokes through the reflector of the exterior vintage light (which, by the way, is all sealed on with butyl tape). Then you just push the flashlight into the hole and voila! there’s light out there! This little flashlight has 5 LEDs and is pretty darn bright. Just turn on & off by pushing the rubbery button on the inside. We trimmed it out with a flange left over from some plumbing in the house. The light pulls right out of the hole and hangs up to stow for traveling.

Interior view, before trim ring.

And all trimmed out.

Close-up. Simple little light with a clean pushbutton design – and no wires!