The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 5

What can we say about Wells, Maine?

Well, it's not a bad place to stay if you have friends and relatives surrounding you in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

And the campground we stayed at – Coastal Woods Campground – was as good a location as you could find to explore the Maine coast while having an incredibly easy on / easy off exit to I-95 about 200 feet away from the campground entrance. Yet, surprisingly, there was no interstate noise to be heard.

Now, there are campgrounds in and around Wells with better amenities, as Coastal Woods' only amenity was a small playground for the kids, but what they lacked in amenities they more than made up for with sterling customer service.

When I made our reservations over the phone, they had only one site available for our 2-week time frame that they were “pretty sure” we could fit into it. The site was listed as being able to take a 38-foot camper / RV, which we took to mean 38 feet with room for the Jeep. When we got there, the site was so narrow that the rear end of our motor home was threaded between two trees in back, with barely enough room for our slides to be extended on the driver's side. Our fire pit was so close to the door of the RV that we would probably peel paint if we tried to have a camp fire!

And the Jeep?

No place to park it beside us, and no place to park it in front of us without crossing the “T” of the RV at the front and having the passenger side stick out into the street about a foot or so in order for the driver to get out of the car!

 

Look at the back of the motor home, and imagine another tree on the other side just as close. Then imagine your fire pit just off-camera on the left . . .

After explaining this to the manager, he apologized but had nothing else for us at the time and length we needed. But within 2 days, he had had another reservation cancel at a much longer and wider site up front, and said we could have it if we wanted it. After one look, we hurriedly packed everything up and switched sites.

Lots of room front to back, lots of room side to side, lots of room for the Jeep, and lots of – apples.

Small, hard, green apples which kept dropping on our site, fortunately NOT on the RV as it was about 3-4 feet away from our spot, but each morning we'd be greeted with a fresh carpet of apples just waiting for Grover to sniff. Every one of them. Because, well – Grover.

But the other great customer service was their local camp maintenance guy, who came by every other day like clockwork to remove the apples so that they didn't attract bees and wasps.

So if you're an RV-er reading this blog and need to stay in the Wells, ME area, you can't do much better than Coastal Woods Campground. Even their rates per week were very reasonable; about $300 per week less than what we used to pay in Kingston, NH a few years ago.

So what did we have to do for 2 weeks in the Wells area? Family and friends, mostly.

I had to meet with my sister-in-law, Debby, so that she could show us where she had my brother's remains moved. The area he was originally in was being vandalized as it was close to the main road (which is a shame as it was the veteran's area of the cemetery), and it was also far away from her own family's grave sites.

Since we were in Wilmington, MA, we had to make the obligatory stop at Simard's Roast Beef for an excellent North Shore-style roast beef sandwich.

 

What can I say? We're suckers for great roast beef sandwiches!

We also had to shop at the Portsmouth, NH Market Basket to pick up certain foods you can't get anywhere else in the country. They make their own store brand of cheese puffs that are better than the national brands, they carry the Kayem Mini Hot dogs we love to use for Pigs-in-a-Blanket, and their store brand Rice Pilaf is actually better than the Near East national brand. We can also get individually-sealed frozen haddock loins in packs.

Barbara has relatives on her mother's side in Ossipee, NH and near Portsmouth, and also in Cape Elizabeth, ME, so visits had to be scheduled with each of them. After 7 years on the road, we were finally able to meet up with her cousin, Patti and her husband Russell where we were close enough to be able to have them back to the RV to show them what full-time living is all about. Russell was suitably impressed with the motor home, and also with Grover.

 

Grover ingratiating himself to new people as only Grover can, by being a lovable pest.

Once the initial meeting was concluded it was time for Grover to settle down with his new friend, Russell

Russell, me and our Starlink panel, plus a better view of the new site.

No trip to New England is complete without a visit to see my best and longest-ever friend and his wife, Rick and Marielle Penney. Fortunately, they were camping about 30 minutes away from us in their 5th-wheel so we were able to see them for an afternoon. Our time ran out before we could see them a second time, however.

We still needed to take in the sights and food that Wells offered, however.

No trip to Wells is complete with getting some delectable treats from Congdon's Doughnuts. It's a Wells institution. So much so that even on rainy days the line extends out the door for people waiting to satisfy their sweet-tooth. Now, are the GREAT donuts? Not really, but they are VERY GOOD donuts. Due to their size, they contain more filling than in your usual Dunkin Donuts, but they also have more dough than most people would probably want to eat. Their blueberry fritters, however, were excellent.

 

Mike's Clam Shack is also a must-see. Their seafood is not up to par with the north shore seafood one might find in Ipswich or Essex, MA, but it was the best seafood we had on the entire trip to New England. So after at least 7 tries at seafood on the trip, we could finally leave the area – or we might have had to drive down to Massachusetts to finally satisfy that particular craving.

We also took a shoreline drive for a few hours, but it was not nearly as satisfying in the Jeep as it was in our previous Mini Cooper convertible. Oh, well, we traded expensive maintenance and fun for practical towing. C'est la vie!

Sadly, we simply ran out of time trying to get with everybody we wanted to visit with, so it will probably be a couple of years before we can see other friends and family again. We still had one more stop to make in Massachusetts before leaving New England on the Great End of Summer Road Trip, but that's a story for another time.