Dampness Rules

It rained most of the night, but we were parked on solid ground. Rising  early, we headed off to Freeport and arrived at LL Bean by around 6:30am. It is a lot quieter in town then.

We normally park in the RV lot on the south side of Main St, but it was chock full of boondocking RVs. We counted six Class Bs including several "stealth" campers (white, no windows, minimal venting on top). There were also a couple of Class As with Toads, a couple of Travel trailers and a Truck camper. We parked on the street. 

LL Bean was pretty empty at 6:30. It has changed a lot since we were here last fall. They are undertaking a major remodeling and about half of the store has been blocked off. The cafe and coffee shops are gone as were the aquarium and trout pond. Most of the departments have been moved around made slightly smaller. This is a project that will run until 2026 and the whole store will be rebuilt from the inside out (all without ever closing). The stand alone Cycling and Kayaking store next door on Main St. will be demolished and turned into green space. They will move into the new main store.

We wandered around in the store for a while and I bought a new waxed rain hat to replace my old waxed rain hat that I forgot to bring. Did I mention that it was still raining?

Since nothing in town except the LL Bean main store and Starbucks were open before 9am, we stopped to grab a coffee and went back to Speedy sit in a comfortable dry space and have Ellen's delicious Cranberry-walnut bread for breakfast. Actually there was a Cafe called the Met which was open, but they were all out of French Toast and their selection of pastries seems mostly empty and yesterday's leftovers...and no lox for their bagels, either. We didn't stay.

After breakfast we made the rounds of our usual shops as they opened up (there was no need to hurry out of town, our campsite for tonight wouldn't be available until 1pm and it was raining), LL Bean Outlet, Patagonia, North Face, the LL Bean Home store, the LL Bean Cycling store and, finally, EMS.

I saw a terrific e-road bike in the cycling store, a carbon fiber bike by Scott, which was lighter than my Trek touring bike. The motor was in the rear hub and the battery was hidden in an almost normal sized down tube—unfortunately, it was $6,900.

Our last stop was EMS, a store we haven't really been in since they closed the Hingham branch. Ellen found a nice short sleeve shirt she liked that was on sale. She asked at the register if she still had any EMS rewards points. Amazingly, she still had $20 in rewards from years ago.

It was then back to Speedy for the drive to the Lake St. George State Park about an hour and a half away. The rain had started to stop by then and the roads were dry by the time we got off I-95 near Gardiner. 

We arrived just before 1pm and found our site. It is at the end of the campground on a loop of nicely widely spaced sites. There main body of the campground is much more packed together. Our site is high; we found a flat spot; and it is not soggy.

We had lunch in Speedy and rested. Ellen went off for a short walk in the afternoon and I napped. We had our first dinner outside and another short walk afterwards.

It is still overcast and quite damp. The humidity is still 87% and it will be high overnight with rain returning tomorrow—ugh!

Here are some photos from today:

Speedy at Lake St. George State Park on a high and dry site. The lake is in the background

Lake St. George.

Campground entrance with somewhat charming old barn.

Cooking dinner. Tortelloni with corn and bacon.

Dinner at the lake.