July 22 thru July 28, 2007 Range Pond Campground, Poland, Maine
The drive here was a short one less than 200 miles. This part of Maine is hilly but no mountains. The campground is similar to many we have been in with mostly long term residents. These, however, live here in the summer and go south for the winter and the campground closes for the winter months. Right now there are lots of kids here as they are celebrating Christmas in July.

We think there must be several children here with grandparents. They do have lots of activities for kids and a good size swimming pool. We are just a short distance from Lewiston, Me and a little less than an hour from Portland.

Monday
Lewiston is a city with an interesting history. Lewiston was incorporated in 1795 and by the 1860s, three massive textile mills had risen along Lewiston’s upper canal to take advantage of the areas abundant hydropower. They were manufacturing cotton fabric into sheets, bedspread and other cotton sheeting products , wool, and rubber coated fabrics. Also it had a foundary for making parts to repair machinery in the mills. A sudden demand for factory workers caused mill owners to look north to recruit French-Canadian laborers. As a result, Lewiston's population nearly doubled within a decade. These immigrants sought a spiritual leader of their own and in 1871 a French Catholic parish, St. Peter’s, was established. Within a decade, the Dominican order from France began staffing the parish, now called St. Peter and St. Paul. As the congregation continued to grow, the original church was deemed inadequate and plans began by the turn of the century for a grand French style cathedral church. The original church was demolished and 1895 and work on the lower portion of the new church began in 1905. They managed to get the basement finished so the congregation could meet there in 1906 but it took many years for completion. Between 1906 and 1938 devoutly Catholic parents, grandparents and other ancestors labored, toiled and donated their hard earned nickels and dimes to erect this imposing monument to their faith. The resulting church, named a minor basilica in 2004, became the largest parish in the state, larger than some entire dioceses in other parts of the country. Text by Donat Boisvert. http://www.lachance.org/lewiston/church/church.html The stained glass windows were installed in 1948.

Starting in the late 1950s, lower production costs elsewhere led to the closure of many of Lewiston's textile mills, which were the city's economic base and once produced a quarter of American textiles Many of the old mill buildings are still standing empty and in disrepair. Lewiston has 50 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and many others with historical significants.

Tuesday
We drove to Portland today to the Visitors Center to find out what there is to do and see in this city. Portland was settled by the English in 1632 as a fishing and trading center. It was originally called Machigonne by the natives who lived there. Portland’s metro population today is 425,000, almost ¼ of the states total population. We found there is much to learn about Portland and we have decided to go back to Portland on Thursday and take the city trolley tour and the harbor tour. We had a nice lunch, a delicious grilled haddock sandwich with cole slaw, walked around the city and then made our way home. If you ever come to Maine be prepared for highways that are like a maize. There are a gazillion of them and they run every which way. It is even hard to follow with the gps.

Thursday
Portland’s city tour is rated #1 in the US according to info on the web. The lady bus driver never stopped giving us facts and telling us stories the whole 90 minutes we were on the bus. In fact, so much information we could not keep up with it. Portland has an ice free natural deep water harbor so they can do business on the bay all year long.


The city is in the process of building a 17 acre accommodation for 3 cruise ships, hotel, restaurants and shopping for tourists visiting Maine. It is out near one of the upscale historic housing areas on East Prominade where many historic homes were built in the 19th century.

This watch tower, called the Portland Observatory, was built in the 1800’s as a means of seeing ships from as far away as 30 miles. There are 3 flag poles atop the tower and the watchman would raise the flag of the ship coming in so that the family could meet them at the dock to help them unload their ships. Today visitors can tour a museum focusing on the history of the tower and climb to the top for a spectacular view of the city and the harbor.

The city of Portland has had much tragedy over the years. In 1675 the community was destroyed by the Native American tribe, Wampanoag. It was rebuilt to be destroyed yet again several years later by the same tribe. In 1775 the community was bombarded during the Revolutionary War by the Royal Navy. They came ashore and burned the buildings that were not destroyed by the bombardment. Again they rebuilt the city. Then The Great Fire of July 4, 1866 ignited during a celebration. It destroyed most of the commercial buildings, ½ of the churches and hundreds of homes. More than 10,000 people were left homeless.

After that most all of the commercial buildings were rebuilt with brick and took on a Victorian appearance. Many huge Victorian homes were built on the west side of the city known as the West Prominade. The Customs building was built of granite on the outside and marble on the inside, with no wood at all.

This home was built for Ruggles Morse and his family between 1858 and 1860. It now is a National Historic Monument and is said to be the only complete Victorian Mansion in the US. The contents were left in the home and preserved through the years until it was purchased by a local educator who recognized its importance and opened it as a museum in 1941. More information with interior pictures at http://www.victoriamansion.org/hist.html Be sure to take the online tour. After seeing photos on this web site we wish we had taken the tour.

Next we crossed over the bay to Cape Elizabeth, where starting in 1941, 3700 women known as “Rosie the Riviter” built hundreds of cargo ships helping to win WW II. These women built one ship every 52 days. Also there is Portland Lighthead Lighthouse, built in 1789. It was the first lighthouse to be built in Maine. Maine has 63 lighthouses. It has 3500 miles of shore line do to the many arms and bays. Other statistics we found interesting: it has 6000 lakes and ponds and 17 million acres of forests.

We had time for lunch and shopping in the historic district before boarding the ship for the harbor cruise. We decided to eat at DiMillo’s, the only floating restaurant on the east coast. The boat is a converted car ferry that was purchased by the DiMillo family in 1980. A few years prior to this Mr DiMillo purchased the dilapidated Long Wharf and soon converted it into boat slips. There are now 120 slips at this wharf in the main part of historic Portland. We ordered a large salad and a grilled haddock sandwich. It was quite delicious. We had never eaten haddock and really like it. After lunch we walked through Exchange Street in the historic area where business dealings took place years ago. It is now filled with shops of all kinds.

In the afternoon we boarded the boat for a 90 minute tour narrated by the ships Captain. There are numerous Islands within Casco Bay, most of them are inhabited but none of them have bridges to them. Therefore everyone has to rely on private boats or ferries for transportation back and forth from Portland. Several of them have the remains of fortresses which protected the Port of Portland during various wars. There were also three Ports protecting the Port.

On Little Diamond houses were built for tourism and when they found tourists were not interested in going to a secluded island for a vacation the builders decided to add a Casino. It worked. People flocked there and even bought up the properties but they did not want all these tourists on their island so they closed down the casino and now it is a club house for the island families.

The lighthouse Ram Island Ledge is on a very small piece of land, Ram Island, in the Casco Bay. The lighthouse keeper would have to row out to the lighthouse and stay there till he was replaced by another keeper. If the weather was bad he might be there for a month or more. Just after WW II electricity was brought in from Portland eliminating the need for the keeper.

On our way back into the Port of Portland we saw 2 extremely large ships and were told they are crude oil tankers. The Port of Portland is the largest oil port on the east coast. The two tankers docked there on this day were foreign tankers but the oil could have come from anywhere. The oil brought to Portland is piped through a pipeline to Canada. It takes several days to pump the oil out of the tanker and precautions are taken against oil spills while the ships are docked.

Many companies set lobster traps in the Casco Bay. Each company has a specific color of buoy attached to their lobster traps and fly the same specific colors on their lobster boats. This pretty much eliminates poaching and the fines are steep if caught. We saw several boats out checking their traps. These are often husband and wife working together to bring in the catch.

Pee wee sailors were out in full force on this day. They are young children who are learning to be sailors. They sail a tiny boat just their size while they learn.

This was a great tour, a great day and we learned a lot.

July 19 thru 21, 2007 3 Ponds Campground Brentwood, New Hampshire
As we travel north the countryside gets more beautiful. It is lush green and hilly. Our campground is again quite unusual. It is mostly full of retired people who live here in the summer only but leave there RV homes here over the winter. I suppose many of them go south for the winter. Most of their homes and yards are very nicely landscaped. The campground actually does have 3 ponds on it. We drove into Haverhill today to see where we need to be in order to catch a train to Boston tomorrow. It is about ½ hour away. This old town has a number of very old buildings, churches and homes too.

Friday
We got on the train about 9:00 am and it is an hour ride to the train depot which is right down town. The Freedom Trail is a marked path through historical Boston. It is about 2 ½ miles and then a walk back to the station so we should have a good day. We first walked across a bridge over to the Charleston Navy Shipyard where the USS Constitution and the Cassin Young naval destroyer are docked and on display to tour. A walk through the shipyard gives an overview of the complex operations of a shipyard. The first ship built by the Charleston Shipyard was in 1814, the USS Independence.


We were able to see one of the dry docks used many years ago. This stone and metal structure was completed in 1833. It made the repair of large Naval ships faster, easier and safer. The first ship to ever dry dock here was USS Constitution. The picture we took of the Constitution is not very good so we have included a picture of it with sails unfurled taken from the museum. It is hard to believe such a beautiful ship could be built to fight in a war.

Other historic and advertised sites on the Freedom Trail include: Copps Hill Burying Ground, dating back to 1660 where many blacks who worked in the shipyards are interred.

Old North Church, built in 1723, is Boston’s oldest church.

Faneuil Hall, originally built in 1742 sits on the original site of old town dock. Market stalls on the 1st floor serve shoppers much as they did in Paul Revere’s day.
Boston Common, the oldest public park in the US.

Massachusetts State House, designed by Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and Charles Bulfinch, was built in 1795.

Statue of Paul Revere. We also saw the Granary Burying Grounds where he is buried and his home, the oldest in downtown Boston, built in 1680. He and his family lived in it from 1770 to 1800. It is now a museum.

Sunday July 15 through July 18, 2007 Scusset Beach State Park, Sagamore Beach, MA

We traveled a short distance today through southern Rhode Island on our way to Massachusetts where we will spend some time in the Boston area and Cape Cod. Our campground is right on the beach as well as a canal that runs between Cape Cod Bay on the east and Buzzard Bay on the west. Along that canal is a walking path about 6.5 miles long. It is a great place to walk and enjoy the water and the cool breezes. The beaches here are not as nice as in Florida and along the gulf coast. The sand is not fine, nor is it white and there are no sea shells. It is hard to walk in so we only went there one time. We have been so busy site seeing lately that we need a break. We really did very little on Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday
We each got a hair cut in the morning and in the afternoon we drove to Plymouth and through the historic area there. Plymouth Plantation is an area very much like Williamsburg, VA. We decided since we had seen the history there we would not go to Plymouth Plantation. We did drive down to the shore where we got a picture of the Mayflower replica. At that time of day there were no parking places so we did not have the chance to walk around the area. Gene let me out and I quickly ran out to take the picture. Also got a picture of boats anchored there in Plymouth Bay, one of my favorite pictures which I am now using as a desktop for the computer. In the evening we met with an old friend of Gene’s from his child hood days. We had dinner with Dave and his wife, Ellen as the guys reminisced about the fun they had as youngsters. We had a great time and we hope to meet up with them again some day.

Wednesday
Today it looks very much like rain but we decided to go to Cape Cod anyway. The temperatures are just great. Our first stop there was in Sandwich, a small town that was recommended to us as having beautiful historic homes and buildings. We parked our car and walked along the streets. It is a beautiful area.

Cape Cod has 3 main highways. One runs along the northern coast, one along the southern coast and the main highway and the quickest and most direct route is through the center running east to west. It is sort of a feeder road and then roads run off of it to the small towns all along the coast. We decided to use the main highway to get over to the National Seashore which is a National Park that runs up the arm of the east coast of Cape Cod. Then when we return we will use the southern route and go through Hyannis Port and other towns along the way. We stopped at the Visitors Center when we first got into the National Seashore Park to get a guide so that we would know where the best places to visit are. We went to the Nauset Lighthouse Beach. The beach parking lot was almost full even though fog had moved in and it looked like it could rain any minute. However, we did get a nice picture of the Nauset Lighthouse. Also about a block away hiding in the trees now was 3 more non-functioning lighthouses that surely must have been out in the open at one time.

Shortly after getting back onto the main highway and heading up north to the top of the Cape we got into a traffic jam that continued on for miles and quite some time. We were planning to eat our lunch at a restaurant there and to see some of the other lighthouses and beaches. It started raining and since we were getting no where due to the traffic we pulled off to have lunch at a little restaurant along the way. Food was fair and the service was fair. We found out there was a very serious accident that had stopped all traffic and it was still backed up when we left so we just went the other way. We did take the lower road to drive through the towns along the south coast and to see Hyannis. We saw some other lighthouses but could only get a picture of Chatham Lighthouse. It was rush hour when we got to Hyannis Port and we got in another traffic jam. We actually turned away from the traffic and made it back to the main road and headed home. It rained on us most of the way home. This was not a real good day.

July 12 thru 14, 2007 Campers World, Jewett City, CT
Today we are on the road again. As we leave and head north we are in heavily populated areas for miles and miles. We took a route on Garden State Parkway which we thought would not be so busy…not so.... as long as we were in populated areas. But finally we got to areas that were beautiful and serene.

We are heading for Jewett City, CT. It is inland a short distance from Long Island Sound. We will visit there the next couple of days.

Friday
Groton Ct is where the Submarine Base New London is located. The first nuclear powered submarine is on display there as well as a Naval Submarine Museum. We spent some time there in the museum and enjoyed touring the submarine This picture is taken of the Control Room and a sailor is looking into the periscope.

The submarines they build today are much, much bigger than the one we toured. In this picture the larger ring represents the diameter of the USS Ohio which is 42 feet in diameter with a length of 560 feet. This nuclear submarine was commissioned in 1981. The small ring represents the USS Holland which was the first submarine the USA had It was purchased from Holland in 1900. Its diameter was only 10.5 feet and length was 54 feet. Web sites for these two submarines are: http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/subsbeforenuc/early/holland.html for the Holland and http://www.navybuddies.com/ssbn/ssbn726.htm for the Ohio.

From there we traveled on east to Mystic, CT. It is an old historical area with ties to the seas. A maritime museum there tells the story of this area. It is quite busy with tourists who come to the museum, Mystic Seaport, and who shop in the quaint little shops along main street. There are many beautiful old homes in the area. Right down town on the main street is a very unusual draw bridge and on east in the town of Stonington we saw Old Lighthouse, built in 1823. Originally it had a 30 foot stone tower which supported a lantern containing ten oil lamps and parabolic reflectors. Its beacon was visible 12 miles at sea. Mystic Seaport, which is the largest maritime museum in the world, did not seem to appeal to us much so we decided not to go there.

Saturday
We intended to go to New London today but while we were on the way we called my brother, who lived in this area when he was in the Navy, to ask him if there was some things we should do or see in the area. He said there was not much to do in New London but he really recommended we go to Mystic Seaport Museum. That is where we decided not to go yesterday but now have changed our minds. So we are on our way back to Mystic and to the Mystic Seaport Museum. It is home to 4 National Historic Landmark vessels. They also have a preservation shipyard where skilled shipyard workers use traditional tools and techniques to preserve the collection of historic wooden vessels. The ship they were rebuilding, the Roann, is the last of this kind of vessel to be fishing in New England. It is a side-trawler, built in 1947 and typical of a family-owned boat. There also is also a 19th century re-created seafaring village with authentic buildings and furnishings. Included are buildings describing harvesting of oysters, lobster, clams and salmon. A demonstration of rope making, hoop and cooperage and other crafts related to maritime living. Then of course there are period homes and commercial businesses. The best part was being able to go on board these ships and learn about life on the sea.

The L. A. Dunton, 1921, is a fishing schooner. The fisherman went out in dories (small boats) two to a boat to catch fish in nets. They were fishing for cod and flounder mainly. They would fish for half a day, split and gut the fish and then go back to the ship. Once on the ship the fish were salted down and stacked, several tons in each hold. Once ashore the fish were pressed to drain excess water, then laid out to dry into stiff slabs that were packed, shipped and sold to American and European customers.

The Joseph Conrad, 1882, served as a training ship for more than a century for boys planning careers at sea. For 1/2 of this time it sailed the Baltic Sea carrying 80 cadets during 6 month training cruises. Those cadets who passed the training were then inducted into the British Royal Navy. The ship, though it no longer leaves the dock, today still provides training for boys and girls 12 to 16 receiving training in rowing, sailing, seamanship and maritime life. The living areas aboard this ship are compact as can be seen from this picture.