Carriage House / Stable

View from patio where we ate lunch

Interior of the stable cafe (these are the horse stalls)

View from the garden

Castle in the Clouds

No storms last night. A couple of sprinkles is all. We decided to explore around the area today. Planned on driving around Lake Winnipesaukee which is a huge lake—largest in New Hampshire and fifth largest in the US—according to a local. Saw a sign for Castle in the Clouds and decided to check it out. What a beautiful place! Was built by a guy named Plant who owned a bunch of shoe factories. Completed in 1914, he hired 1000 Italian stone masons out of Boston to do the stone work. He figured one stone mason could lay three stones a day. They were quarried on the property and cut into a five-sided shape—that’s why they could only do three a day. This place is built on top of a mountain. You drive up a winding road past beautiful waterfalls, spectacular vistas and come to the carriage house/stable. This beautiful building has been turned into a café. We had lunch there. Great food at a reasonable price and fantastic views of Lake Winnipesaukee. I had haddock rolled in Ritz cracker crumbs and baked in a lemon butter garlic sauce and a side salad of greens, dried cranberries, walnuts and cheese, and a large wedge of corn bread. Delicious! Mike had a great looking roast beef sandwich. From the carriage house you are taken to the castle by trolley. It’s a self-guided tour and you could wander around at your leisure. After touring the castle we continued our drive around Lake Winnipesaukee. One quaint town after another—and lots of other pristine little lakes. Stopped for ice cream at a place near the campground and then back home. Played cards in the screen room for a while. A beautiful, breezy evening. A perfect day—mid-80s.

Fri, Aug 3

It’s HOT. We’ve been having trouble getting onto the Internet with our air card. Not sure if it is MSN or the air card. Started with MSN this morning. Called tech support and spent about 2 hours on the phone with them (some guy from India). That didn’t work, so called AT&T and finally got some help. He couldn’t figure out why the air card doesn’t want to work. It all seemed to start when I downloaded an update for the aircard—probably because AT&T bought Cingular. He set up some dial-up network to use. It is very slow though. Will have to call him back tomorrow when it’s cooler. It’s now 88 in the camper as I type. This must be a cruel joke since we were both bitching about the cool weather we were having on the Maine coast. Now that we have NO hook-ups it has to get hot. In the truck while we were going out to eat (no more cooking) it was between 98 and 100! It’s supposed to cool down tomorrow, thunder storms tonight—probably severe. Jeeze...

Thu, Aug 2

Beautiful, sunny morning. Decided to have a kick-back day today. Had a fire in the morning. Then sat around reading. Really comfortable outside, but inside the camper it went up to 88. Had to make salads for dinner and was not fun. Found out it went up to 96 degrees today. Put the screen room up over the picnic table and ate dinner out there. At night it does cool down, and we can turn on our exhaust fans in the living area and the bedroom and it sucks the hot air out and brings cool air in. Comfortable sleeping... so far.

Our "facilities"--primitive but clean and good smelling

Our buddy

Our Campsite

Wed, Aug 1

Another beautiful morning. Feels like it will be a warm one. Took the computer over to the rec hall to get on the Internet. I was successful, Mike wasn’t. Back to our site and started closing things up so we could leave. Left there about 11:45 and arrived at our campground—White Ledge NF Campground—at about 2:00 after stopping for lunch. When we pulled in the temperature was about 89. Our campground is really pretty and our solar panels will get full sun. It’s in the White Mountains and they’re visible all around us. The Lakes Region in Maine which we just left is really pretty. We passed one pretty lake after another on the drive over here. Our current campsite is great and we have a couple of chipmunks which I’ve been feeding peanuts. They are so cute. After we put the peanuts away, one of them climbed into my lap looking for them. Love it!

Tue, Jul 31

A beautiful, sunny day. We’re right next to the laundry, so I figured I could get that done while Mike was in the shower. However, Mike got talking to the people next to us and one of the washers I chose took forever to fill. So, by the time I got that done and Mike got finished talking it was noon. Then decided I’d better get a new vacuum cleaner since the one I have in the camper doesn’t work any more. Wanted a smaller one anyway. So, in to Windham we go. Bought everything we needed at Walmart. Got lunch and stopped at a picnic area by the lake and ate. Back to the campground and stopped at the rec room to do some computer work. That’s always fun when there’s a bunch of kids in there and about 6 video games going plus the air hockey game, which is the loudest of them all. That was the extent of our fun day. Tomorrow we leave for the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 30 days with no hook-ups. Should be fun.

Mon, Jul 30

A little cloudy today. Walked down to the little beach on this lake. Small, but they have a swim dock anchored a little way out. Decided to get some groceries, but instead of going back the way we came (through Windam which has everything) we headed north and there wasn’t much. Pretty drive tho. In the little town of Casco, Long Lake and Sebago Lake meet—joined by a little canal with a raising bridge. Neat little town but very touristy-- although we’re thinking of going back there and going on a cruise on Sebago Lake. Brought the groceries home and put away and did nothing the rest of the day. Bought sub sandwiches after grocery shopping and ate them, so didn’t much feel like dinner.

Sun, Jul 29

Left Acadia this morning at around 10:00. Real pretty drive from Bar Harbor to Bangor. Arrived at the Sebago Lake area and were set up by 3:30. Stopped and had breakfast at a truck stop outside of Bangor. Had a very unusual breakfast—scrambled eggs, polish sausage and baked beans instead of potatoes. Oh, and raisin bread toast. Very different. They also have molasses bread here which is really good. The Sebago Lake area is beautiful. Can’t wait to go down by the lake. It’s surrounded by mountains. We’re outside of Raymond, ME, away from the touristy area on Crescent Lake. Really pretty area. We may even go swimming. It does feel warm here. Maybe we’re acclimating to the cooler climate? We’re back on full hook-ups for three days before we go into New Hamshire and no hook-ups for a month. Had to come into the rec room at the campground to get on the Internet though. We have hardly any signal here—at least on AT&T. My Verizon phone has a good signal. Unfortunately, our air card is AT&T. So, I guess we’ll veg out on TV, do some laundry and relax a little before continuing on.