Friday, September 22, 2023

Our morning started at Moorings Oceanfront Campround in Belfast, Maine. Andi left to go work at a coffee shop in town for a couple of hours while Tory, Aden, and I stayed at the RV to do some school work. Andi returned to the campground around 10:30am, and then we packed up and headed off to our next destination.

Today, we said good-bye to the state of Maine and made our way to New Hampshire. Our plan is to visit the White Mountains of New Hampshire which we’ve heard are just beautiful. It was a 3-hour drive from Belfast, ME to Conway, NH.

Along the way, we passed through Maine’s capital city — Augusta. Although it’s the tenth most populated city in Maine, the city only has 18,000 residents so driving the RV in town wasn’t an issue. We decided to stop at Sam’s Club to pick up a few groceries and have lunch there.

We’ve eaten in restaurants quite a bit on this trip, and every single dining experience is around $80. Andi and I have noticed increased costs for a lot of things on the east coast vs. our hometown in Wisconsin — produce, meat, farmer’s market goods, and entertainment. Our lunch at Sam’s Club today was a welcomed relief! Thirteen dollars for all four of us to eat made this meal our cheapest yet.

Around 2:00pm, we crossed the state border into New Hampshire and reached the city of Conway soon after. The city of Conway was bigger than Andi and I expected. We weren’t sure if we wanted to camp at a private or a federally-run campground, so we decided to drive by a few possible options before making a decision. We parked the RV in a strip mall parking lot and unhooked the Jeep so we could drive that around town.

One of the camping locations we were considering is called Covered Bridge Campground, nestled in the woods near the Kancamagus Scenic Byway — right where we wanted to be during our stay in the White Mountains. The name “Covered Bridge” made us a little nervous though, as our RV is 12 ft tall. Low clearance bridges and power lines are a real watch out in the East; something you never really think about when driving a regular car, truck or SUV. We were positive Covered Bridge Campground would, in fact, have a covered bridge so Andi and I wanted to make sure it was safe to drive the RV there.

It turns out there is an entrance into the campground that accommodates big vehicles, so we would have been able to drive our RV there. All the campsites were pretty wooded though, which meant our Starlink satellite internet wouldn't work there. The forest service road was also in rough condition which isn’t a deal breaker for the RV, but it’s not a very fun ride nonetheless.

We looked at a few more wooded campsites in the area and ultimately decided to camp tonight at a private campground called The Beach Campground. We snagged one of their last available spots for Friday night. Once that was settled, we decided to take the Jeep to see a popular the popular Albany Covered Bridge. The Albany Bridge spans the Swift River and was originally built in 1858. I don’t know seeing a covered bridge in New Hampshire made me so happy, but it did. It just felt so quintessential New England! We drove across the bridge and then got out to read the information signage posted beside the river.

After seeing the bridge, we drove back into the town of Conway to get the RV. There was so much traffic! We were really surprised how busy the town was. It took us about 20 minutes to get back to the parking lot where we left the RV parked. Once there, Andi drove the RV and I followed in the Jeep to The Beach Campground. This place was busy, too. We parked the RV in one of the last remaining spots for the night.

We grilled dinner at our campsite, and then walked over to the campground beach for live music. What a nice thing to offer for campground guests! The four of us sat and listened to the guitarist sing and play for 30 minutes or so before the kids were bored. Andi and I dropped them off at the camper, and then we went for a quick campground walk together.

There was a lot going on at this campground well into the evening hours. In addition to the live music playing, we also heard a lot of fireworks going off until around 10:00pm. I was tired and exhausted after a long week & really just wanted to go to sleep. All four of us put ear plugs in to try drowning out the noise outside. Eventually, we turned on our air conditioning (even though temperatures didn’t warrant it) just to block out the noise.

Tomorrow, we’re planning to explore the White Mountains of New Hampshire.