Speedy And Shiny Go North

After last week's shakedown trip, we've moved on to bigger things. We are trying a repeat of our aborted trip to Gaspé, this time accompanied by our friends, Harry and Sally, in their Roadtrek, that Ellen affectionately calls "Shiny".

We got a fairly early start this morning, before 8am, and drove due north...and drove and drove and drove. It was mostly up I-95 through Maine until we got north of Millinocket. We turned onto Maine Route 11 at Sherman, a two-lane road that goes due north to Fort Kent. It is a rather hilly road with enough curves to make it interesting on a motorcycle, but we were in Speedy...and it was raining. Going to Quebec...raining...seems to be a pattern here.

Our intended route is to cross the border at Fort Kent, ME and then continue north trough a short section of New Brunswick to Quebec with a destination stop at the Park du Bic, a Quebec "national" park (they are called provincial parks in all of the other Canadian provinces). We did not get to the border today, opting to stop at Portage Lake.

There is an almost unmarked, town campground at the end of the public road along the lake. We only found a tent (camp site) icon on a map in the Fort Kent tourist guide we picked up at the Maine Welcome Center on I-95. It was not described in the guide, nor in any of the guides or apps we have. There was also a similar icon in the Delorme Maine Gazetteer, also with no description.

We decided to try to find it anyway. It turned out to be a small town-owned park with a public boat ramp, a long drop toilet and several electric-only campsites overlooking Portage Lake. It also has hordes of mosquitoes. It was pouring rain when we arrived,but the mozzies still attacked when I left the van to plug in. The campground is sort of on the honor system. Supposedly, someone will come by in the morning to collect the $15 fee, but if they don't we are supposed to stop by the town hall to pay. Needless to say, we are the only campers here.

Because of the rain and mosquitos, we decided to each have dinner in our own vans, so Ellen and I settled in for our traditional first night travel meal of white bean and chicken chili.

Tomorrow, we should be able to drive the 155 miles from here to Park du Bic.