From Internet: Settlement began in 1770 at what is now North Bridgton, where a tavern was built.
Stevens Brook is only a mile and a half long, but it provided water power for 12 mill sites. Bridgton developed as an industrial center with sawmills, gristmills , woolen textile mills, a tannery , shoe factory and brick manufacturer. Later, a corn and vegetable packing plant was built, in addition to a foundry, machine shop, shovel handle factory, sash and blind factory, and a coffin shop. By the mid-1800s, the town contained about 3,000 inhabitants. In 1883, the 2-foot gauge railroad opened, and tourists discovered the area. Although the railway closed in 1941, Bridgton remains a popular resort area, with many children's summer camps located along the shores of the beautiful lakes and Shawnee Peak, a ski resort in the winter.
Trivia: Bridgton is the setting for “The Mist”, a novel by Stephen King. Stephen King was born in Maine and has spent most of his life in the State.
Sunday was fine and sunny - after charging the battery on the le mans, we followed Galen and Sharon through the White Mountain National Forest in Hew Hampshire. Stopped at the lookouts; and a beautiful fast flowing river. Stopped in a small town for lunch. Did a loop around and said ‘good-bye’ to Galen and Sharon in Meredith, New Hampshire and we continued via back roads to Laconia, past the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and arrived back at the truck in Kittery before dark. A beautiful day of riding and fun; about 300 kms for the day in the mountains.Monday morning three trucks met us at the truckstop and we all went to deliver at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Very lengthy security check, checked inside and outside the truck and trailer. Had to leave the camera and laptop in a locker before entering.
Website: The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is a US Department of Navy facility that repairs, overhauls, and maintains Navy ships, including nuclear-powered ships and submarines.
Established on 12 June 1800 the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is the oldest continuously-operating shipyard in the United States Navy.
The Naval Prison there was impressive. We delivered at the base of it. (No camera, so could not take a photo.)
Website: In 1905, construction began on a military prison dubbed "The Castle" because of its resemblance to a crenellated castle. It was the principal prison for the Navy and Marine Corps until it closed in 1974.
Others called it "Alcatraz of the East" because no inmate ever successfully escaped. It is on an island and ocean currents deter escapes like “Alcatraz“ in San Francisco.
I looked up “crenellated” - 1. Having battlements 2. Indented; notched:
Possibly where “cranny” as in “nook and cranny” - adapted from “creni”.
Our load was a mobile office and equipment for a construction company to lay new pipe. Another truck had a building and a boat, the other two trucks had pipe.
Not many loads out of the area, we found one in Milford, Connecticut (320 kms/200 miles) and loaded the next morning - one compressor. On our way south we met Jimmy in Pennsylvania at a truckstop mid afternoon and had a meal with him.Delivered the compressor Wednesday morning in Winchester, Virginia. Then up to Pennsylvania and loaded a large JLG aerial work platform going to Stoney Creek, Ontario. One machine took up most of the trailer and its weight put us near our maximum - those machines are heavy!
We had been in contact with Joe and Art (Buffalo trucker friend of Jim’s) and met them both at a Kanona, New York truckstop for dinner Wednesday evening. Joe was heading north and we traveled with him for an hour, Art was heading south. That worked out nice.
Crossed the Canadian border just after 7am Thursday morning at Niagara Falls and delivered the JLG lift to a rental company in Stoney Creek.
The next load was in Huntsville, Ontario, about 300kms north - going to Port Hueneme, north of Los Angeles, California. It was two pieces of polyethylene pipe (total weight 1180 lbs) which was paying for exclusive use of the trailer - we could not put anything else on. 4300kms with hardly any weight. We had to tarp it too! An odd shipment, we did not ask questions - being paid for a full load and very, very light - so good fuel economy all the way!KWH Pipe website: We are one of the world leaders in the production and development of plastic pipe systems. KWH Pipe manufactures and sells plastic pipes made of high density polyethylene (HDPE), for a vast number of applications. KWH Pipe's systems are designed and manufactured to meet the strict climate related requirements in Canada, which makes them suitable for almost any application.
Weather was warm and sunny in the north, though nights were cooler.
We exited Ontario into Michigan, we had a plan for the Labor Day long weekend, and delivery was set up for Wednesday, we had time. The 17th Annual Illinois Moto Guzzi Campout at Lincoln’s New Salem State Park south of Petersburg, Illinois (northwest of Springfield) was on the way.
Friday afternoon, we left the trailer at a truckstop in Springfield, and bobtailed to New Salem State Historic Site - twenty miles. Florida friends, Tim and Helena Hewitt and Paul (whom we met at the Colorado National Rally in June) were the only people we knew. It was a small rally considering it is close to the Chicago area, 22 people. We had not attended this rally before and it was a new area to explore and new guzzi people to meet.
Jim unloaded the bike Saturday morning and it had a flat front tyre. The valve was leaking, so first trip was into Petersburg to get a new valve.We got a chuckle from the air compressor at the service station: "In freezing weather place air nozzle in tailpipe for 1 minute before depositing coin." To melt any ice in the nozzle. (Note: have to pay for air over here, usually 25 cents up to 75 cents and on a timer.)
After getting organized, we met others at a restaurant for breakfast.
Abraham Lincoln was living in Illinois when he was elected President, so Illinois is known as “The Land of Lincoln”. This area has “Lincoln” silhouettes on different things.
Others rally goers had ridden to the rally and were happy to stay at camp and socialize. Jim and I headed north through small towns - lots of corn and soy bean fields, to the town of Havana on the Illinois River. Havana was notorious as a gambling river town, and it is reported that Al Capone hunted, fished and gambled there.We stopped at a traffic light in Havana and a moto guzzi convert pulled up beside us. He asked where we were going and Jim said, “Looking for an ATM”.
“Follow me!”
Jim Walker lived in Havana and was on his way to the rally. We told him we were going for a ride. He offered to take us on the only twisty roads in the area. He was our tour guide for the next four hours. A Department of Natural Resources /Fisheries Dept employee, he was knowledgeable of the area and gave us a great ride and commentary!
We travelled 225 kms (140 miles) around the Illinois River, Spoon River and wetland areas. A recent flood had changed a few things - a beautiful old bridge had been underwater and badly damaged. Jim Walker took us to a bar on the Illinois River known to locals only, called “High Life”. Built on stilts beside the river, the restaurant/bar was well above most floods. We had lunch there and Jim and I had local fare: I had the “ponyshoe” and Jim had the “horseshoe”. It was two slices of bread with a hamburger patty on each (Jim’s was a patty on each slice, my “pony” was half a patty on each slice), french fries on top, then smothered in melted cheese. NOT at all healthful!, but unusual. Jim Walker took us further south to the next bridge crossing at Beardstown, along the other side of the Illinois River, through a small State Park and back to the campgrounds about 3pm. An excellent and informative ride!("Casey's General Stores" are all over Illinois.)
Jim and I went to the New Salem Historic Village for an hour. It was very, very well set out (admission by donation). Easily could spend a whole day there. We walked through the village main street stores, businesses, homes, and gardens. The village was staffed by volunteers all dressed in clothing from the era and answering questions, etc. We watched and talked to the “cooper” for awhile. Each residence had a fenced vegetable garden, saw a ‘root cellar’ where produce is stored to use through the winter. Living in a log cabin in very cold, snowy winters would have been a trial. They had large fireplaces and huge wood stacks.
Internet: New Salem was founded in 1828 when a grist mill was built on the Sagamon River. Over the first few years the town grew rapidly. After the county seat was relocated in nearby Petersburg, the village began to shrink and by 1840 it was abandoned. (12 years) The Sagamon River was not well-suited for steamboat travel was also a reason for the town’s decline.In 1831 Abraham Lincoln aged 22, arrived by way of a flatboat down the Sagamon River to the village of New Salem and he remained in the village for about six years.
During his stay, Lincoln earned a living as a shopkeeper, soldier in the Black Hawk War, general store owner, postmaster, land surveyor, rail splitter, as well as doing odd jobs around the village.
The village was home to a cooper shop, blacksmith shop, four general stores, a tavern, a grocery, two doctors offices, a shoemaker, a carpenter, a hat maker, a tanner, a schoolhouse/church and several residences. During its short existence, the village was home to anywhere from 20-25 families at a time. It is important to remember that New Salem was not a small farm village, but instead a commercial village full of young businessmen and craftsmen trying to start a new life on the frontier.
(90 years later) During the Great Depression the village was rebuilt on foundations of the original village and is presently a historic park, called Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, featuring buildings, mostly log cabins and costumed interpreters, representing the era of Lincoln's residency. Twenty-two of the buildings are reconstructed; one log cabin, the Onstot Cooper Shop, is original, although it had been previously moved by Henry Onstot to Petersburg in 1840. In 1922, it was returned to New Salem on what archeologists believe was its original foundation.
Something I learned - when people moved, they dismantled their log cabins and took them. It was less time consuming and less effort than cutting down more trees, split and notch them with an axe. A mixture of mud, horse hair and straw filled the gaps between the logs. Decay and insect infestations is the reason few log cabins exist today.
(Abraham Lincoln moved to Springfield where he began his lawyer career and entered politics. Springfield is the capital of Illinois.)
The rally was not ‘formal’, it is called the ‘bring your own everything’ rally. Because we don’t carry cooking utensils and food, we intended going into town for dinner, but the local people had enough hot dogs, fixings and salad for everyone. We had a nice evening around the campfire.After dinner we loaded the bike on the truck. Most people there had not met us before, that provided the entertainment for a while!
There was a terrific storm that night! So pleased we were in the truck and not a tent! The thunder actually shook the truck several times, and the thunder, lightning, wind and rain kept us awake for a couple of hours. We left the campground very early and the lights reflected a lake of water where the tents were!
We called Tim and Helena later and they said their air mattress floated. A few others had water in their tents, but not too much mess.
We had a laugh a few days later exchanging stories on the Moto Guzzi Internet forum. After the wild storm, when the truck started up early the couple camped nearest the truck thought it was a tornado!
An easy trip to Southern California with our light load. We stopped at a truckstop in Joplin, Missouri and lunched with Daytona Beach/trucker/friend, Bob Stanton. Had not seen him for over a year, so a quick catch up. He was headed east.
We delivered at the Naval Base in Port Hueneme early Wednesday morning, 9 September. We discovered that the two pieces of pipe were to be shipped to the Raytheon Polar Services Company in Antarctica.
As the primary support contractor for the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), Raytheon is committed to supporting the program’s goals, total quality management practices and operations in a safe, environmentally conscious manner. Raytheon provides a broad range of services in Antarctica from providing facilities, engineering, maintenance, and construction support to power and water production and fuel operations.
That explains the water pipe! The value of the pipe was $1200, freight to California was $5000, transportation to Antarctica ?? That will be expensive plastic pipe when it gets there. At least now we know why it came from Canada - it is manufactured for the extreme cold climate, so it should hold up in Antarctica. (Thought - how do they keep water from freezing in plastic pipe at -50 degrees F???. From the website I quoted above “water production“. - snow and ice must be “produced” (melted) and piped into buildings????)
We spent a few hours at a truck stop looking for another load. Freight off the west coast is at very low rates. After missing out on a few decent loads, we were preparing to spend the rest of the day and night at the truckstop. We prefer to wait for a decent paying load rather than haul something that barely covers cost of fuel.
At 2pm a load was posted on the internet and Jim was the first caller on it. It paid good and would get us back to the east coast. 120 kms south to Los Angeles to load a JLG aerial work platform at a rental centre. The same model JLG we took into Ontario last week.
Leaving LA in rush hour traffic with two accidents on the highway, we spent two hours barely moving. We were travelling with the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.Website: A “Weinermobile” is an automobile shaped like a hot dog on a bun that is used to promote and advertise Oscar Mayer products. There are seven Weinermobiles in existence with each assigned a part of the country. It has evolved from the original 1936 vehicle.
Jim noticed a few bolts missing on the trailer last week, Thursday morning he saw two more broken off. It was where the left rear wheel of the JLG was, the trailer was sagging there. The JLG weighs 45,000 lbs, so there is a lot of weight on the four wheels, on four points on the trailer. He had the jack on the pavement and jacked the whole lot up to line up the holes. When he got the electric drill out of the storage box to drill out the broken bolts, he discovered the tin of black paint to touch up the rust on the trailer had rubbed through and leaked all over. The paint is expensive and he didn’t want to waste it, so he decided to wire brush the rust spots and paint the steel sections on the trailer. The job got bigger and he spent four hours in a parking lot, in the Arizona sun ...
The storage boxes have to be emptied and taken off to complete the rust touch up job - but that will require two men and a full day. (Salted roads in winter create a lot of rust on equipment, then we store the truck and trailer in Florida salt air for several months - it needs regular care.)
An easy trip across country, Interstate 10 all the way. Very warm in California and Arizona, then steady rain in New Mexico and west Texas which cooled the air nicely.
We stopped the truck 4pm Saturday at a truckstop in Lafayette, Louisiana. 230 kms (120 miles) from our delivery for Monday morning. It was raining but the weather report for Sunday was for “scattered thunderstorms”
We unloaded the motorbike in the morning between rain showers. Put our wet weather suits on, and headed south. Within ten minutes the thunder, lightning and torrential rain started and continued for hours.
Our first destination was Avery Island and the Tabasco Tour.
Avery Island is an unusual ‘island’, land surrounded by swamps and marshes.Website: Avery Island is one of five salt dome islands rising above the flat Louisiana Gulf coast. These islands formed over the eons when alluvial sediment covered a vast plain of salt left behind by an ancient saltwater ocean. Surrounded by the swamps and marshes of south Louisiana, Avery Island stands the highest at 163 feet above mean sea level.
A $1 toll to cross the bridge onto Avery Island. Bridge length was about 10 metres and the water was running just under the bridge.
The home of world-famous TABASCO® Sauce, Avery Island, Louisiana, a mysteriously beautiful place where the pepper fields grow, the factory hums, and the McIlhennys and their employees continue to live and work much as they have for generations.
All TABASCO® Sauce is made here. There's a short film on TABASCO® history and a guided tour of our bottling and packaging operations.
We were quite wet when we arrived, there was water on the roads and we had been hit continuously in all directions, we decided to bring the better rain gear with us in the future!
The Tabasco tour was entertaining and interesting. It was free and all participants received three tiny bottles of different flavours of Tabasco sauce.
The original sauce is mashed peppers, fermented three years in white oak barrels with Avery Island salt, then vinegar added and liquefied. Then bottled.
After the tour we did the sampling - many Tabasco products available and very tasty! Corn chips and pretzels to try all the jams, sauces, mustards, etc. There is a chili base and samples of chili made with it, also Tabasco soft drink was very good! And Tabasco ice cream was awesome!For lunch we ate hot links (sausage), very spicy - and watched the rain pour down. The lady in the mobile kitchen mentioned that it would not be long before the water is over the bridge and that is the only way to get off the island. After eating we made a dash and put our wet raingear on again and crossed the bridge out of there.
Next was to visit the small town of Rayne about 80 kms away, the rain did not let up for another hour. Jim stopped twice under shelter because there was deep water on the road and the dousing from other traffic was dangerous and visibility was very limited.
Around 2pm the rain let up and cleared until late evening.
Rayne, Louisiana is nicknamed the "Frog Capital of the World", as well as the "Louisiana City of Murals".
In a small town in the middle of Louisiana's Cajun prairie, a stone's throw from New Orleans, is a town called Rayne, where frogs have gained iconographic stature. Frogs and Rayne have a relatively long history that dates back to the 1880s, when a gourmet chef started selling juicy, delectable bullfrogs to New Orleans restaurants. Word of Rayne's frog delicacies spread like wildfire, and soon attracted the Weill Brothers from France, who started a lucrative business exporting frogs to restaurants. For years, world-renowned restaurants like Sardi's in New York boasted of offering frog legs from Rayne, Louisiana.The Annual Frog Festival is in mid November each year, with events all through the year, like the Mr/Miss Tadpole competition in August. We missed the Frog Derby, it was the previous weekend - an event where the women in town dressed frogs up in jockey uniforms and raced them.
Took some photos of the frog statues and lots of frog murals, and a ‘frog crossing’ sign. Many trees and poles have frogs painted on them as well.
And then there's the Cemetery, listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! as the only known U.S. cemetery facing north-south.
Rayne's St. Joseph's Catholic Church was relocated and a cemetery was laid-out to the south of the church. Bucking Christian tradition, the graveyard began with the graves placed in a north-south position rather than the traditional east-west position (the east metaphorically representing the beginning of life with the rising of the sun and the west metaphorically representing the ending of life with the setting of the sun). Perhaps the gravedigger did not have a compass.Perhaps the priest did not oversee the work of a laborer. People come from around the world to see the only cemetery in the Judeo-Christian world that faces north-south rather than east-west.
We were still quite wet - we found a restaurant with an outside patio because we knew if we were in air conditioning we would soon be cold. Found ‘Picante’s’ Mexican Restaurant in Lafayette, we had dinner and a few drinks.
Up early Monday morning and delivered the JLG lift to a rental company near New Orleans. Then over to Mobile, Alabama and loaded two new buoys.
Easy trip north to South Weymouth, Massachusetts (south of Boston) to deliver the buoys to the US Coast Guard on Thursday, 17 September. The compound was acres of old rusty buoys - all sizes and shapes, and a large workshop where they are reconditioned.That afternoon we loaded galvanized pipe in Palmer, Massachusetts and delivered to three Department of Transport sites in New York State and ended up in Buffalo.
Our friends from Australia, Dave and Linda and their friends, Nikki and Jules had left Buffalo on 7 September and driven from Buffalo to Maine, to New York City and back to Buffalo.
Saturday night we all went to North Java Inn, the country bar that Michele’s parents own. We had very tasty dinners and stayed for the show - Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash impersonators. We had the long table at the very front, so were much involved. Everyone singing along. A fun evening. The locals were friendly and inclusive - everyone had a good time. Definitely NOT on the tourist trail!
Sunday was the first home game for the Buffalo Bills against Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jim and I went with Joe and Michele and met Dave, Linda Nikki and Jules in the parking lot for their first tailgate party.
Joe and Michele had all the gear for tailgating - grill, table, hot dogs, sausage, chips, dip, beer, wine, etc! Great food and lots of fun and laughs. Linda, Nikki, Michele and I had a look in the Field House and took some photos.
The game started at 4pm. It had sold out weeks ago. We didn’t know until Thursday when we got a load to Buffalo. Jim called at the right time requesting tickets as the Buccaneers had just released a few rows, so we got six seats together.Joe and Michele originally were not going to the game, but they got tickets on the day, but not near us.
The Ralph Wilson Stadium accommodates approx 80,000 fans! Rowdy and enthusiastic fans! The game ended just on dark - Buffalo Bills won 33 to 20. Awesome game!
There was more tailgating while we waited for the parking lot mass exit to ease. More hot dogs, sausage, beer, wine, etc. And fun and laughs!
We can only get a weak (or no) phone and internet signal at Joe and Michele’s, so on Monday went to the truckstop in Buffalo to organise the next load.
Loaded Tuesday morning, 22 September in Erie, Pennsylvania, just one crate with a wheel motor for Houston, Texas.
Delivered Thursday morning at the Port of Houston, final destination will be China.
Scheduled to load the next morning north of Houston.
We spent the afternoon and evening at a truckstop not far from the pick up. Jim was wandering around the trailer and almost stepped on a Texan snake! Jim did a fast back peddle and was definitely shaken up, the snake was equally startled by Jim! It was large, dark brown/black and had yellow lips. We checked on-line and decided it was a non-venomous Eastern Hognose.
Website: Hognose snakes have a turned up snout, reminiscent of a pigs nose (hence the name, "hognose"). Hognose snakes eat mostly frogs and toads and are generally found near wet areas (where frogs and toads usually live). Hognoses, sometimes referred to as "spreading adders", are harmless, yet often mistaken for a venomous snake because when threatened they can flatten their necks and puff them out also hiss and vibrate their tails which sounds very much like the rattle of a rattlesnake. If the danger persists and his bold display fails to intimidate the attacker, the hognose will then play dead by rolling over onto his back and even let his tongue hang out of his mouth to convince you that he is truly dead.
Jim did not stay long enough to see if it felt “threatened” by him! Sounds like it was an interesting snake! A snake "playing dead" does not seem like a good defense to me - just seems easier for a bird to get it and eat it...???Friday we ended up waiting until 5.30pm when we were finally loaded. Sections of poles for electrical towers destined for a Florida Power Station "Progress Energy" - delivering on Monday in Brooksville, three hours drive from Daytona Beach.
****** Words of Wisdom from a 17 year old with a new license (Katelyn):
“The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.”
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