Machias Blueberry Festival

[mbbear]

Originally Posted by honda03842

We're at Sunset Point Campground in Harrison, ME. They offer lobsters delivered to your rig. Here's our 3.5 lbs of lobster.

Tonight we're going to here a little music and go to a blueberry play. Pictures attached.

Folks you are KILLING ME!! Sunset/Harrington Harbor is one of my favorite places on earth. Those lobsters look fabulous! I am hoping to leave Wednesday for Orland. I'm disappointed that I will miss you, it would be a huge treat to meet you. I will be visiting old friends. You are right at my favorite stomping grounds. I will stop by the camp ground to meet the owners and check it out for when I have my camper. Have a blast!!

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by Nancy from MI

Norm, can you tell us how much that Lobster cost. My husband is having a hankering!

Cooked Lobster is $9 a pound at the campground bring your own butter and fixings. We had cooked some corn with butter before we left and never got beyond a bowl of corn and a bowl of butter.

They were very good. Usually there's a premium for larger lobsters, here it's a flat rate. We hadn't even asked and got mediums...over 3 pounds worth, fresh and delicious.

[honda03842]

For us the real Maine is the northern counties. Yesterday we drove around looking at houses we almost bought over the years. Like Newfoundland, this is an area where we've driven every road. One house we looked at buying for retirement received an offer the day before we arrived. The owner said to us..."Many a slip from cup to lip". If there had been a slip it would have changed oue lives. Instead we retired to RVing.

Ir's my birthday, Ginny's is in 9 days. She loves this period because I'm now older... she likes sleeping with an older more experienced guy.. go figure.

[honda03842]

Of course Fiberglass RV wished me a happy birthday, however for the first time Google wished me a happy birthday complete with birthday cake and cupcakes.

[Nancy from MI]

Thank you, Norm. That's dirt cheap! Husband Dan hasn't stopped looking at the maps of Maine since I first mentioned Sunset Point to him. He's dreaming! We took a trip to Acadia in 2002, loved it and have wanted to go back ever since.

[Uplander]

That $9.00 per pound lobster price is the same I paid when there in July.
Interesting note on lobster prices...later that same week while staying at another campground (that did not deliver cooked lobster to your site) I was still consuming lobsters! I went to a coastal lobster pound to buy a few. Here in Belfast, Maine the lobster pound was overloaded with customers waiting for their cooked lobsters to be ready for take-out. The price for one 1 1/4 pound cooked lobster was $18.95...I sure missed the deal I got at Sunset Point Campground!

The price of lobster varies from year to year...about 3 years ago lobsters in Maine were selling for about $3.00 per pound! That year the price fell so low due to over supply that many lobstermen stopped fishing as wholesale prices had reached a point that did not even produce enough income to fuel their lobster boats!....good news for lobster loving consumers but bad news for lobstermen who had to make a living!

Happy Camping!

[honda03842]

I notice people are almost continuously concerned about sleeping in a small trailer. Climb over beds? Walk around beds? Creep to the end beds? Narrow beds?

This summer the kids gave us wrist bands that count our daily steps and monitor our sleep, particularly the quality of sleep. We used them at home before we started the trip and in a typical night we would get 3 or so hours of deep sleep during our goal sleep time of 8 hours. That is sleeping in our home queen bed. In our 44" wide Scamp bed Ginny is scoring almost 5 hours of deep sleep.

Sometimes I think it's not the bed but rather what's in your head.

[Linda19]

Oh, those lobsters look great! Maybe someday...have to get a egg camper first!

[honda03842]

Linda,

Are you de-trailered? They allow Airstreams. There was an Airstream the first night. They thought Scamp was out of business, They began my looking at a Bambi 16 and have worked their way up to an International 23... continually needing to get bigger for this or that.

This is a friendly campground, always a lot of tenters, hardly anyone spends more than a week and definitely kayak area.

Yesterday morning we went to a Blueberry pancake breakfast at the church and hopped across the street to the Masons to get a couple of molasses donuts.

At the festival we bought some Rayes Mustard. In Eastport there's a mustard factory where they grind seeds between really old stone wheels. Even if you hate mustard you'll be joyed by the process..they give tours and make all kinds of mustard. We bought some and came home and had a couple of hotdogs,,what kids we are...

[honda03842]

On the Blueberry farm tour we bought a quart of maine wild blueberries ($5). There are a zillion tiny blue berries in a quart so I decided to make almond blueberry pancakes for Ginny. (Almond because we use almond flour.)

They were delicious though we did forget to bring vanilla though yesterday we stopped at the farmer's market and bought some maine maple syrup. The blueberries were literally shoulder to shoulder and were great.

We've met a lot of people who treat Machias like many people treat FL, the reverse of escaping the winter. We met two authors from Alabama yesterday who come here every summer. Coastal property is relatively inexpensive and plentiful with reasonably sized homes, you know the kind most of us grew up in, ones with no hide outs except the barn.

[nathanj04011]

Man! All this talk of blueberries, wonderful campgrounds and festivals makes me want to visit Maine....oh, right. I was just told I've lived here almost my entire life. Funny thing is, I never heard of Sunset Point, or the blueberry festival or such till Norm's post. I guess we have been too busy trying to camp OUT of the state. Primarily in NH...The only places north or east of Portland we have camped is Lily Bay SP, Camden Hill SP and the Bar Harbor Campground.

I guess it's always the case where a person takes what they have for granted, while other people seem to appreciate so much more. Maybe when we get our new trailer next summer, we will have to explore more of the Great State of Maine...

[Linda19]

Hi Norm,No, I'm not de-trailered but its hard to get my husband to go as much as I would like to go! So, i thought if I had a lightweight fiberglass trailer I could go on my own, mostly in MN, WI and nearby places. I also love to ride bike and he doesn't like it like I do. I am a teacher and so am off in the summer but my husband is still working.
The Blueberry fest sounds wonderful! Last year we picked organic blueberries at a farm near Bayfield ,WI in August. That is a beautiful place to visit, especiially the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. We used to camp there every summer for a week. I would love to see that mustard ground too, love mustard. I'm getting hungry...


Linda

[KC Cate]

Perfect evening!

[honda03842]

Linda and Nathan,

There's no doubt that working can kill you, at least exhaust you. I was a fanatical worker once we hit the road not so fanatical. One issue I often see is the difference between partners relating to travel. Ginny and I talked about it a little on the way home and how we have managed it.

As to local travel particularly Maine travel, we considered retiring to Northern Maine and made offers on a couple of houses and looked at many more. Northern Maine is a little like Newfoundland. It can be a very quiet. We have the Maine Delorme book and have driven down practically every coastal road. Actually my son and I were looking at property along the coast again last night. Since it's relatively economically depressed prices are quite reasonable.

As to working, a number of members have suggested that I should write a book. One member went a little further and suggested a title: Musing on the Road. AS well she suggest that I develop a habit of writing every day. Today is day 1. I get up at 5"30 AM and make the coffee, followed by my exercises and then I sit down to write. Her suggestion was 15 minutes a day as a start. Today I wrote for a comfortable 2,193 words
before day interrupted my writing. It was fun and a nice way to express one self, 'talking to a mysterious listener'.

Thanks to all the people who suggested it, Ginny does all the time and particularly for a title, that I found a'Musing'.

There's always something new around the corner.

[honda03842]

Originally Posted by nathanj04011

Man! All this talk of blueberries, wonderful campgrounds and festivals makes me want to visit Maine....oh, right. I was just told I've lived here almost my entire life. Funny thing is, I never heard of Sunset Point, or the blueberry festival or such till Norm's post. I guess we have been too busy trying to camp OUT of the state. Primarily in NH...The only places north or east of Portland we have camped is Lily Bay SP, Camden Hill SP and the Bar Harbor Campground.

I guess it's always the case where a person takes what they have for granted, while other people seem to appreciate so much more. Maybe when we get our new trailer next summer, we will have to explore more of the Great State of Maine...

Nathan, There are at least two Maines. SOmeone said to me that southern Maine is the Disney Maine. SInce we have a place in FL I don't know if I'd equate it to Disney but it is dramatically different from Northern Maine. I much prefer the north.

Florida is like that. Few people know our FL. We're the Florida of cattle, oranges and wild hogs. Our town abounds with dirt roads. It's nothing like tourist Florida. I seriously doubt we'd ever live in tourist FL.

I suppose I'm a country boy and Ginny is just happy to sit nearby and relax with a book and the tides.

You will not be disappointed it you visit the blueberry festival. Be sure to go to the nightly performance. We were amazed by the number of people who were from 'away'. Who spend the summer there like people spend the winter in FL. No where near the same quantity, but people seeking the quiet, the recharging that way back Maine can provide.

It took me two decades to get Ginny to the Festival, on the way home she told me we're going next year.

If you get their and camp at Sunset Point be sure to order the Lobster, and to go to a rather 'not looking to good' Scovils Mill Side dining on Route 1 in Harrington center (?) and order the seafood platter. We've done it twice, each time splitting one and at the same time feeling we need a third person, just too much good fried food. Remember it's OK to sin once in a while.

Safe Travels Nathan