{"id":10370,"date":"2021-08-13T22:26:56","date_gmt":"2021-08-14T02:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/?p=10370"},"modified":"2022-01-20T19:01:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T00:01:25","slug":"ts7-hop-2-saco-me-to-hermon-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/13\/ts7-hop-2-saco-me-to-hermon-me\/","title":{"rendered":"TS7 Hop 2 – Saco ME to Hermon ME"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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TS7 Hop 2<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

135 miles via US 1, I-295 (through Portland), I-95, ME 69 and US 2. Cumulative tow miles: 279. Truck miles: 141. Cumulative truck miles: 285. The extra truck miles were due to refueling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was another (thankfully!) uneventful hop. The weather was nice and so were the roads. I arrived before 1pm and got set up, figured out that there was nothing to do with regard to the RV rally (the annual Escapees Chapter 3 Lobsterfest Rally) so I decided that this was the time to go find my brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background: my younger brother, who I always viewed as a happy-go-lucky guy, dropped off the face of the earth nearly 5 years ago. No one had heard a word from him. I was worried that he might be dead. But my stepson – Jett’s son – is a private investigator and he gave me an address in Ellsworth ME where I could likely find him. So my secondary goal for these few days in Hermon was to drive the 35 miles to Ellsworth and see if he was really living there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that was my intent at 2:30pm on Thursday. But I started the truck, backed up about 20 feet and… the truck died. Engine quit. Couldn’t restart it. I did a quick search for a local diesel repair shop, they agreed to take the truck if I could get it to them, found a towing service, they came out and took my truck away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The truck, disabled again<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Once again my truck was in for repairs. Not a great start to the TS7. I was pretty convinced that the fuel pump had failed. I played a mental game with myself, trying to guess if it would be over or under $500. More importantly, I was trying to figure the odds on whether I was going to have to rebook all of my stops to Madison WI. I was pretty sure I would. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had an uncomfortable night of sleep. And it wasn’t due to the heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at 8:30am I called the truck shop to confirm that my truck had arrived. It had. I asked if they had had a chance to look at it. They informed me that the problem was fixed. A bubble in the fuel filter. Cost: $40. They delivered the truck to me, free of charge. I was thrilled and gave the guy who bled the bubble a $20 tip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I figured a trip to Ellsworth would be a great road test (about 75 miles, round trip). So off I went. I found the address, knocked on the door and… it was answered by my brother. Who was, against all odds, happy to see me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Me and my brother<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A great day all around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My one-night stay in Saco was at the Saco\/Old Orchard Beach KOA<\/a>. I didn’t do much there except set up, sleep and go out in the morning for fuel. It seemed like a nice campground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lobster and clams tomorrow. I am looking forward to that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

135 miles via US 1, I-295 (through Portland), I-95, ME 69 and US 2. Cumulative tow miles: 279. Truck miles: 141. Cumulative truck miles: 285. The extra truck miles were due to refueling. This was another (thankfully!) uneventful hop. The weather was nice and so were the roads. I arrived before 1pm and got set … Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47,49,4,27,99],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-me","category-places","category-rv-living","category-ts7"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VniU-2Hg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10370"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10856,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10370\/revisions\/10856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourwanderyears.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}