Maine-ly Meh

Deb got wind of another quilt show earlier in the year so we booked a stay in Augusta Maine so she could check it out. The drive up to Green Valley Campground was rather long - about 4 hours altogether - so we were pretty tired when we finally got there. The Waze GPS app on the iphone took us for another crazy route again. It wound us around some back roads to get to the campsite - taking us about 5 miles out of our way to get there. I'm really going to have to double check routes and not just blindly rely on the GPS to get us wherever we are going like I'm want to do.

When we got to the campground, we were less than impressed. It's hard to put your finger on it but it just seemed a little run-down, and cramped. We had a pretty nice site actually - compared to the others that we saw. The only trouble was that it had a pretty good slope to it.

One problem with the jacks is that the front jacks are pretty much on the ground when they swing down. There's really no way to put anything under them to give them more extension. The result is that if the site is sloped forward too much, they aren't able to raise the front of the rig enough to level it out. Well, this site had just enough of a slope that I could not get the front end up enough to get us level. After jockeying the rig around for about 10 minutes, I finally gave up and pulled in frontwards. This, of course, puts everything on the wrong side but, since we had to head to the quilt show the next morning, we said "screw it" and just lived with it.

The entertainment that night was a DJ playing music and a huge bonfire with about three people around.

Next day, we unhooked and headed into Augusta to find the quilt show. It was a good distance from the campground so rather than return and then go back to get Deb, Skip and I found a place to park and I took a nap.

I evidently slept better than i thought because I missed Deb calling me telling me she was done and to come pick her up... She ended up having to wait for about 30 minutes. Sorry Deb!

We headed back to the campground and this time, I had the bright idea to back in but run the front wheels on some blocks and then put some additional blocks under the front jacks. This gave me enough lift get the front end high enough to get the rig level. Should have thought of this the day before...

One problem with having to break camp to "go somewhere" is that we end up not putting up the porch tent thing so we never really "settle in" to the camp site. This, coupled with the run-down feeling of the place made us just not really enjoy the stay very much. We did get a kick out of some of the signs and "backwoods Maine"-isms that we found throughout the campground.

Another issue with the site was the sewer hookup. As you can see, the pipe was well up off the ground and, in fact, was just about as high as my dump valve. Since, my hose has to drop down below the compartment, it seemed like I was not going to be able to dump. I could just envision pulling the valve and having the dump hose simply fill up with gunk and not being able to get it to flow down the drain.

Luckily, I was able to pull off the riser pipe and get enough drop so that the eff, fluented - so to speak.

This was the first time I used my new 90 degree connection to get the hose to go out the port in the bottom of the compartment and I was hoping it would work well. Unfortunately, the connection to the hose leaked as well as the hose itself. I'm really confused about this. I spent some money on this setup and it is supposed to be the best. Strange.

When Sunday came around, we were pretty much ready to go so we packed up and headed home. I don't think we'll be going back to Green Valley Campground.