Hard to believe that a state so enraptured us that we have stayed for more than three weeks, but such is the effect of Maine, at least in the summer!

The Distance: 578 miles, three quarters of which occurred in the first week of the month as we followed a circuitous and backtracking route from Newport to Cape Cod and back to Connecticut before pushing north to Maine.  Once there we only moved about about 165 miles between our various campgrounds.  This month saw a significant reduction in our mileage from May, but we expect next month to be a bit more aggressive.  Our 2016 total is 3631 miles.

The Places:  Seven stops in June, mostly in Maine.  Upon leaving Newport we sprinted east to Cape Cod, stopping at Campers Haven in Dennisport for three days.  We then backtracked west to Chamberlain Lake Campground in Woodstock Connecticut, picking up Maria and KayKay from NYC to take north with us.  We arrived in Poland Spring, Maine for Junior and Kaytarra’s wedding and all of the associated family gatherings, staying for ten days.  We followed that with our first ever Walmart parking lot overnighter before moving closer to the coast and Blueberry Pond Campground in Powland.  Rosie flew back to Florida while I stayed at Meadowbrook Camping Area in Phippsburg, close to Bath.  Finally we headed north to Mt Desert Narrows Resort near Acadia National Park for the last three days of the month.

We had full or partial hook ups for 29 day, and dry camped/parking lot camped for one.  We stayed the entire month in private RV campgrounds except for the single night at Walmart.  Contrast that with last month when we didn’t spend a single night in a private park.  We do try to vary things up.

The Budget:   We totally busted the budget this month, ending up a whopping 31% over. Four new tires and a battery for Loki accounted for nearly 2/3 of that, but when you get together with family, especially for a wedding and birthday celebration, there tends to be a bit more extravagant spending.  Though we tried to crack down in the latter half of the month, it simply was not enough to overcome the first two weeks.  My consumption of $60 worth of lobstah certainly didn’t help!

Though we took advantage of Passport-America discounts for 20 of the nights and a weekly partial discount for 7, we still ended up with an average nightly cost of nearly $26.  We had but a single free night drycamping; we may have to try a few more big box parking lots next month.  For the year we are roughly 3% over budget.  Let the crack down begin in earnest!

The Drama:  Loki gave us some problems coming back from NYC, developing a significant vibration which turned out to be the rapidly deteriorating tires, probably due to age and over inflation.

The Improvements:  We have now replaced seven of the ten tires between Serenity and Loki, and the other three on the motorhome need it sooner rather than later.  We also have a new starter battery for Loki, the old one finally giving up the ghost during the trip from Connecticut to Maine, no longer able to hold a charge after we nursed it along for a month.

All of our monthly reports, as well as our first full year report, 2015 in Review, are linked below.

2016 Reports:

• January Report
• February Report
• March Report
• April Report
• May Report

2015 in Review

• January Report
• February Report
• March Report
• April Report
• May Report
• June Report
• July Report
• August Report
• September Report
• October Report
• November Report
• December Report