Bezabor: (posted from Caribou Public Library on 9/26/05)

(written offline at Lily Bay State Park near Greenville, Maine on 9/22/05) At our campsite for the previous night (off SR 201 near the Quebec border) the temperature dropped from a balmy 59 when we arrived there around 1730 to a decidedly-coolish 34 degrees overnight. We were very comfortable sleeping without heat but we did need to break out the winter sleeping bag for Labashi and I added her comforter to mine. After a blissfully peaceful night, we arose about 0700 and I fired up our Buddy Heater, a small propane heater that uses the little one-pound camper’s cylinders. This was the first time we’ve used it since last winter. That made the van very toasty while we dressed and prepared and ate breakfast. As we pulled out of our campsite a fairly hard rain started and stayed with us to Jackman, where we gassed up ($2.89 per gallon) and got a block of ice and some miscellaneous supplies at the market.

We then headed for Rockwood and Moosehead Lake and saw a moose along the road on the way. The guidebook tells us Moosehead Lake is the largest lake lying entirely within a state east of the Mississippi and it’s a beauty. We went on through the town of Moosehead and on to Greenville. We stopped for lunch at the Inland Fisheries building and talked with a woman who worked there and came over to tell us we had parked on private land but when we said we were just stopping for lunch she relented—and even offered to let us drop off our trash in their dumpster. That latter offer was greatly appreciated--- all the rest areas and of course our freebie campgrounds but also the Natanis Point campground several nights ago have carry-in/carry-out policies…if you brought it in, you need to take it out with you. That doesn’t work very well in our little van.

We went on to Lily Bay State Park campground, arriving around noon. There were no rangers around but we were directed by a sign to fill out an envelope, seal our $13 into it and deposit it into a three-foot-high pipe cemented into the ground. We had spoken yesterday to a conservation officer at The Forks and he told us sometimes we would have to pay ‘the iron ranger’ at some Maine camping facilities. We’ve seen that before in some remote campsites but I don’t remember ever seeing one at a state park. The biggest problem with them is the fact that you need correct change and sure enough we had no fives or tens but did manage to come up with 13 one-dollar bills.

I was thinking we would take it easy the rest of the day but in the last two hours the weather had improved dramatically. The temperature was around 70 degrees and the sun was peeking through. So we took a campsite on the water and went sea-kayaking. That turned out to be a great decision---- we paddled for three hours, exploring all the little inlets along the way. We saw our first common mergansers and followed a group of eight loons who were chatting away with each other. They were highly-social— making many different sounds and diving at the same instant. They even all came back to the surface at the same time.

After supper we went for a walk in the campground at dusk. Another lucky decision. At the boat launch ramp, we saw something making a small wake. At first I thought it was a snake but suddenly it made a loud noise and submerged --- a beaver! Before long we saw the wake again and we followed along walking the edge of the little bay. We could barely see the wake as darkness fell. But he did finally emerge and climbed up onto a log on the bank. I turned on my little pen-light-size mag-lite, hoping to see him and we could indeed see his shape and his reflective eye and Labashi said that she could also see his front teeth. But with the flashlight batteries failing, we decided we’d better head back to the van for the night.