We were only 150 miles away from Watkins Glen this morning so we managed to get here by 1:30 or so – we took our sweet time because… “the journey is the destination”. The forecast was for rain tonight and then lots more rain tomorrow and the next day so we decided to go to see the Watkins Glen Gorge today while the weather was good and then tour the Corning plant and museum tomorrow.

We really got lucky with our lack of planning and scheduling again (serendipity is fun) because our visit falls right between Labor Day and the final Watkins Glen International race of the season on Saturday, September 8th. This huge state park campground with over 300 camp sites will be full beginning on Thursday but we’ll be gone by then.

When we checked into the Watkins Glen State Park campground the ranger there told us that rain would not interfere with touring the gorge because you can always walk under the wall overhangs and stay dry. We took her advice and headed for the gorge right away. We actually did have light rain during most of our hike but hardly got wet at all without even trying to stay dry.

We walked up the Gorge Trail – about 1.5 miles and 800 steps to climb – and then back down the Indian Trail. I could not stop taking photos. Around every bend in the trail was more awesome scenery. The cloudy and rainy day lighting is perfect for photography so I got lots of good ones. The trail was wet but sneakers were fine, especially compared to some of the fancy footwear of the many Labor Day tourists. There were lots of tour buses and most of the tourists were from other countries – hardly any Americans.

GMC content: our exhaust manifolds are leaking again. I have a suspicion that some sort of physical disturbance is what caused it this time and the last time. I thought I was having success with the Remflex exhaust manifold gaskets but they have failed on me twice. The first time they failed I am thinking that the installation of two new mufflers disturbed them – cutting, pulling, welding, etc. – and they failed about 800 miles later. This time I am thinking that the road in and out of my sister’s house in Maine was so bad that I dragged the bottom of the coach – the mufflers and exhaust pipes are very low – on the ground. The manifold gaskets have both failed now in the less than 300 miles since we left there. I will buy and install a third set and give the Remflex gaskets one more try. After that headers might be in order.

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We have been visiting family almost continuously for more than 3 weeks and getting back on the road and heading towards home is feeling pretty good but a little bittersweet. My boyhood home in Ludlow is up for sale and this will likely be the last time I am to visit it. We moved into that house in 1953 when I was 9 years old and my parents lived there until my mother passed away last March – almost 60 years.

Our plans are to next visit our friends in Milwaukee on our way to the GMC Western States rally in Springville, Utah on September 23rd. We left Ludlow this morning after my reunion brunch and made it to the Susquehanna Trail RV park in Oneonta, NY. It was a nice day – low 80’s and dry. Tomorrow we plan to go to Watkins Glen Gorge State Park in the finger lakes region of New York. There is hiking and sightseeing there and about 20 miles away there is the Corning Glass factory and museum. We plan to spend a couple of nights there and decompress a little – visiting can be stressful for all concerned.

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Besides visiting my sister and brother in Ludlow we timed our visit to match up with my 50th high school reunion on Saturday evening for dinner and Sunday morning for brunch. I graduated from Ludlow High School in 1962. Our class had about 100 members and 48 of us attended this reunion thanks to the efforts of a few hard-working individuals. We had a great time and could hardly sleep with my face muscles tingling from smiling so much.

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I was born in Springfield, Mass. but spent most of my early life in Ludlow, Mass. My sister DuAnne and her husband Dick live in the house that we lived in from about 1952 until I went away to college. They moved there to care for Mom who passed away last year. They are moving to a ‘new’ house nearby and have the old family home up for sale so this will (hopefully) be our last visit to that house. My brother Leonard (Len) lives a few miles away in Brimfield, Mass. I have been coming back to Ludlow every year for at least the last 30 or so to visit family and every year they throw out the red carpet and spend lots of time with me and Carol and this year is no exception.

Besides family, food is a big attraction for me here. The seafood in New England and Massachusetts especially is some of the best in the world. My favorites are clams – the same Ipswich clams that I had in Maine. They are great steamed or fried and, because they are not always available, we sometimes have to travel a little to get them.

Last night – Thursday – we had to drive quite a way but they were delicious. On the way to get dinner the family showed us the horrendous tornado damage that occurred last summer in a 36-mile path from Springfield to the Brimfield, Mass. area. Much of the area is heavily forrested but the tornado changed all of that. A sometimes half-mile wide path of trees was completely destroyed like a giant vehicle had driven through the woods. Lots of houses were destroyed too. Miraculously only 3 people were killed. This is an area where tornados are unheard of and storm shelters are non-existent.

On our way home we stopped for ice cream and a little fun.

Today, Friday, I plan to do a little GMC work – passenger side exhaust manifold bolt apparently need tightening. I think that sides exhaust pipe may have been hit on the way out of my sisters house in Maine. Here driveway/road is not a place to take a GMC.

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On Monday, Davin spent most of the day with us and then headed back to Massachusetts to work with his consulting customers. We needed some groceries and other stuff so we went to Rockland for the grocery store and the drug store but first we had to take a walk along the waterfront in Rockland – more awesome views. On the way back home we stopped at a roadside seafood stand for some fried clams. It used to be that you could stop by any of these stands – and there were a lot of them – and just buy a half-pint of fried clams but no more. We had to pay almost full price for a clam dinner to just get the clams and they were not cheap but they were delicious.

Tuesday morning it was raining. I love sitting on the porch watching the rain fall – reminds me of being a kid in Massachusetts. After lots of coffee and some breakfast we headed out for Rockland again. More food was needed. This time we went to a farm stand and a local fish market. We bought fresh corn on the cob, tomatoes, potatoes and haddock for dinner. Diane cooked us some great baked fish and potatoes and we ate lots of real fresh tomatoes – not those plastic ones you get in the grocery store.

Tomorrow it is off to Ludlow, Massachusetts to see my other sister DuAnne and her husband Dick and my Brother Len and his wife Joanne. We will be staying at Dick and DuAnne’s house – the house I grew up in – but still in our GMC. My brother Len is a home builder and remodeler – his web site is www.snug-a-bug.com. He is always pretty busy but we enjoy having some good New England seafood together in the evening so I hope to see him at least a couple of nights.

We will be leaving tomorrow morning and I decided to not reinstall the air dam until we are out of this very narrow driveway that may have taken out the old one. I’ll put the new one on when we get to Ludlow.

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Since we visited here two years ago on our last cross-country trip we have talked about how much we enjoyed our time in Maine. We are pretty relaxed and Diane and Davin are entertaining us more than we expected but yesterday and today we pretty much took the day off. We got some chores done, I cooked some Mexican for them last night – pretty good despite the lack of choice on the Mexican sauces at the grocery store. Today we took a ride – the scenic route – to the local used book store, the Lobster Lane Book Shop. The place is amazing. The aisles are so narrow that they are mostly single-file. Every spot, including the floor and the rafters are packed with books. They are all in great condition, sorted into general subject categories ,and are almost all $2 or less each.

My chore this morning was to reconstruct my air dam/spoiler under the GMC’s radiator. Somewhere between Vermont state park and our arrival here my air dam/spoiler hit the ground and bent backwards. I remember hearing it hit a couple of times but, since the spoiler was mostly flexible 18-wheeler mudflap material I thought nothing of it. Once we parked at Diane and Davin’s I noticed the damage. At first I was just going to remove it until I could figure out a better design but then I realized that it is part of the seminar I am scheduled to do at the GMC Western States rally on our way home so I have to fix it.

Today Davin gave me some light 1 1/4″ galvanized angle iron and I cut and drilled it to fit the bottom of the radiator and the mudflap material from the old air dam. We went to the hardware store to get some new screws and nuts so I will work on installing it all tomorrow. Stay tuned – hopefully, I can remember to take photos.

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Last time we were here we visited Acadia National Park and Cadillac Mountain and could see Bar Harbor but didn’t actually get there. Whenever I would tell people that we visited Maine they would mention Bar Harbor and ask if I had been so we had to go there. I would classify Bar Harbor as a sort of Carmel of Maine. Not a lot of art galleries compared to Carmel but lots of ice cream and other food. Bar Harbor has a 1-mile walking path that goes right along the edge of the water. It is supported by the city but is on private property and there are some very nice houses along the way.

On the way home we drove to the top of Mount Battie which provides sights like those you get from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia NP but of Camden instead of Bar Harbor.

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Davin, my sister Diane’s husband, arrived last night from his consulting job in Massachusetts. First order of business on visits to the East Coast for me is to have some unobtanium sea food. Ipswich clams are very limited in their geographic distribution. They seem to occur in New England only but are the best kind of clams for steaming and frying. I had not had any steamed Ipswich clams during my visits for the last two years. I had concentrated on fried clams – much better than those clam strips that you usually get when you talk about fried clams. These are known in New England as fried ‘whole belly’ clams because the whole clam is fried as a single piece – delicious. I plan to have some of those soon but today we got some fresh from the guy who gathers them locally and they were very good.

After eating our fill of clams we took a ride on Davin’s boat. Davin and I put the boat in at a ramp about a half-mile down the river and then picked up Carol and Diane at the dock in front of the house. We motored down to Friendship Harbor and saw some amazing scenery on the trip.

Later we had some freshly caught lobsters for dinner – forgot to take pictures of them but you know what lobsters look like.

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Today I went down by the river in front of Diane and Davin’s home in Maine. The house faces the Meduncook River about a mile from where it flows into the Muscongus Bay. It was low tide this morning so I walked down to the river to shoot a couple of photos to show you where we are. Later I will try to get some at high tide too.

Today’s agenda was to be low key so we decided to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay where Diane and Davin are members. We spent a couple of hours walking around and had a nice lunch when we were done.

On our way back home we stopped and looked around at Friendship Harbor and shot a few more photos.

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Our first full day in Maine demanded a little sightseeing. The nearest sizable town to the north is Camden. We did not get there on our last visit two years ago and we needed some stuff – cold weather clothing (relatively cold that is), and some odds and ends – so we headed for the Reny’s store there. We walked and drove around, had lunch, and shopped a little – we are not shoppers. I took photos to show those of you who have not been to Maine or even to the Northeast what you are missing (in the summer). Enjoy.

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