283 Miles

Day 277
Bar Harbor ME- Montpelier VT

That's how far we had to drive to make it from Bar Harbor Maine to our first destination. The trip is coming to a close and I packed in a heap of stuff to see the last couple of weeks. Our goal is to make it home before it gets hot. Straying from our well planned itinerary, we opted for 3 nights of boondocking to get from the eastern Maine seashore to Buffalo New York. It will be almost 800 miles by the time we go the long way round to see a couple of things and avoid the toll roads. We roll out of Bar Harbor at an excruciatingly early 0830 and point Penny West. Only a few miles are on interstate and the rest will be through two lane twisty mountain roads.  Less than 50 miles into our trip I pull over to pee and see a steep approach into a gas station. I turn to Katie and say out loud " I hope that doesn't hit the hitch". With nothing felt we motor on for another 100 or so miles. Time to get out and stretch our legs and the dogs. What do my eyes spot? A severed electrical cord from Penny to Shirley. Looks like that hitch hit after all.

The tool bag comes out and I rummage through for my electrical gear. This simple repair is possible because of my traveling tool kit selection. Always solder and use heat shrink tube on connections. Little plastic crimp connections are for amateurs. 

With the repair completed we are back underway. The roads get worse. Vermont's highway 2 is riddled with potholes, cracks, missing road edges, and spirals over hills like a roller coaster. The last two hours of the drive is a tense trip. At the end of the yellow brick road is your local friendly Wal-Mart. Overnight parking is allowed unless a local municipality says otherwise. It's late in the day. I'm tired. Katie is ready to sit back and relax too. Unfortunately this will be our only chance to see the capitol building of Vermont. Sigh. I'll go unhook Shirley.

Random building across the street

Montpelier is a tiny town of less than 8,000 people. You read that right. Those are the correct number of zeros in the total people who call this capitol city home. The downtown area is nice and clean. A few hipster stores and cafes dot the streets. Leave that area and the perception changes. We see homeless people on quite a few corners begging for change. Back at Wal-Mart the view remains the same. The parking lot and lawn edges are full of trash. There are at least 3 cars that I can see in the back lot with us that will be spending the night. These cars aren't traveling, they are being lived in. It's getting dark and we are both looking forward to doing nothing for an hour or two. We'll be sleeping with the door locked tonight. This is the glorious life of living on the road.