Exploding Tires And Strange Birds

Today we went for a ride on the carriage roads. Since we're leaving Maine on Tuesday today's ride was going to be our last. We had gone about 5 miles when we heard a loud "pooft" sound. A quick check showed that Ross's rear bike tube had blown. Luckily we carry a spare tube and tools for just such an emergency. While working on the tire a fairly large bird came out of the woods and walked right up to us! It showed no fear at all. Karen even fed it a blueberry. It tried to sit on one of our bike helmets but fell off. Then it hopped up on the front tire of Ross's bike and just sat there for while. It was obviously used to humans. After changing the tube and pumping it up we started putting away the tools. Then we heard a very loud "BANG" that had us thinking that maybe someone was bird hunting for our friend. But it was that darn rear tire again. This time both the tube and the tire had blown! Fortunately we were near the Duck Brook bridge so we walked there and Ross rode Karen's bike the 1 1/2 miles or so back to the Xterra. In Bar Harbor we had a new tire and tube put on the wheel. The bike shop guy guessed that the tube had been pinched while being installed and blew out under the air pressure taking the tire with it.

Bird on the front tire of Ross's bike.

Time For A Change

For the last few years we've been coming to Maine for the summer. We've enjoyed our time here but last year we began thinking that it might be time for a change. This summer cemented our thinking. The lousy weather we've had probably influenced our thinking but basically we've come to the conclusion that it's just time for a change for us.

So what's that mean? We spent a lot of time over the last year or so really thinking and talking about what we'd like to do next. We still love spending winters in Mesa, AZ but we have no desire to spend summers there. We miss seeing and exploring new places so by the middle of this summer we had decided to get a small camper and tow vehicle so we could spend summers traveling around. We could also use that rig to take some shorter trips during the winter too.

Once the decision to change had been made the rest was pretty easy. We started looking around for a tow vehicle and ended up with a new 2008 Nissan Xterra. It's tow rating is 5000 lbs. which is what we were looking for. Given that SUV's aren't very popular right now (now there's an understatement!) the pricing on the Xterra was great! There weren't exactly giving them away but we bought ours for less than 3 and 4 year old ones are being advertised for sale. And needless to say the dealer was very eager to get their hands on our Toyota Corolla so we got top dollar for that too. It wasn't exactly an even trade but it didn't cost us very much at all.

Once we had a tow vehicle the next step was to find a trailer. After a lot of research we decided that the right trailer for us was a Casita. You can check them out by clicking here. Our current trailer is a 25' 5th wheel and the Casita we wanted was a 17' trailer. We've made an art of living in small spaces over the years! We kept looking for a good used one and finally found a 2005 17' Spirit Deluxe model on eBay. We won the auction and took a trip to Long Island to see it and conclude the deal. The seller, Mike, turned out to be a really nice guy! It was a real pleasure to meet and get to know him. It didn't make any sense to drag the Casita all the way back to Maine and then just turn around and head back in a couple weeks so Mike graciously agreed to keep the trailer in his driveway for us until we came back to pick it up right after Labor Day.

So now we're getting things ready to leave Maine, get our 5th wheel sold and get things arranged to pick up our Casita. So many new things to learn about like sway bars, weight distribution hitches, etc. Stay tuned for more updates!

	Our new 2008 Nissan Xterra.
	Our new 2005 Casita 17' Spirit Deluxe.

Whale Watch

In July we went on a whale watch out of Bar Harbor. The usual cost is over $50 per person but they have a deal for people who work on MDI. If there are any seats left you get to go for free. Free is good! The Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. is a customer of West Marine so I asked one the the guys which is their slowest day. He surprised me by saying it was Saturday. Turns out that Saturday is a transition day when the current week's tourists are leaving and next week's tourists are just arriving. So we took the free bus to Bar Harbor and got on a free whale watch.

We saw 3 humpback whales and Ross got some pretty good pictures (see below). It's COLD out there and the day was pretty hazy but we got good views of the whales. It was fun! And did we mention that it was free?

Blueberry Time in Maine!

It's peak blueberry time here in Maine! Wild blueberries grow pretty much everywhere around here. There's a small patch right here in the campground and a 5 minute walk brings you to a large field with lots of the plants. Our favorite picking area is along one of the carriage roads where we like to ride our bikes. This time of the year the blueberries there are large, sweet and plentiful. Yum!

	Blueberry plant.
	Half an hour of picking yielded 1 1/2 liters of blueberries on a recent bike ride.

Oh Oh - Cute Cat Picture!

Jake's latest hangout.