The Distance:  A conservative 142 miles as we moved twice along coastal Maine towards our one month stop in Bar Harbor.  This respite from long drives helped defer some of the otherwise steep costs we entailed while in Maine.  Our 2018 travel distance is up to 3,684 miles.  July will see a big increase in the mileage as we explore Canada, though there it will be totally different since we will be travelling in kilometers vice miles.

The Places:   Just three places this month: Blueberry Pond (one of our most relaxing stops in 2016) then less than an hour coastward to Meadowbrook Camping Area for a week (another one from 2016 that was even better this trip,) and finally our stopping point for the rest of June at Mt Desert Narrows Resort, outside Bar Harbor. 

The Budget:  Ah well, as we noted last post, we started June way over budget, struggled for more than two weeks to get back on track, only to give ourselves a break and enjoy the last week of the month enjoying Maine as we had intended.  The end result: 3.6% over budget, almost the exact amount we were under in May.  This result came despite the lack of any gas purchases for Serenity and one moderately successful market. 

Too windy to light Rosemarie’s birthday Reeces Cup on Sand Beach, Arcadia National Park

Bottom line: we went hog wild the very first day of the month, continued to splurge during the rest of that week, and experienced one of our highest nightly campground fees in Bar Harbor.  Yes, even short of the peak season rates, and including the moderate monthly discount (which also eliminated the $4 per day resort fee) our full hook up site with partial bay view came out to just under $47 a day, all in.  Though we really like Mt Desert Narrows, we have resolved that during our next trip to Maine, whenever that may occur (2020, cough cough) we will spread things out a bit, taking advantage of Passport America rates and alternative camping in the region.

The Drama and the Improvements:   Back in February I pulled out the bedroom sofa and built a work bench for Rosemarie out of reclaimed hurricane damaged boat decks and hulls.  The problem is that the desk is in a slide out section of the RV which has a 2″ elevated floor, and her work chair barely fits on the platform.

Rose made this giant flower on her Cricut machine, which rests on her work bench, which I built, so basically: I made this flower.

This month I finally got around to putting in a floor extension with a big section of plywood.  It’s rough and crude looking, but serves the purpose until we get around to installing some sort of floor covering.  We also repaired and improved most of the jewelry display racks in preparation for our Moose Lodge market event.  This was promptly followed by hours of restowage of our internal and external storage compartments since, for the next six weeks, we would have no markets at all.

January Monthly Report

February Monthly Report

March Monthly Report

April Monthly Report

May Monthly Report

And here are our 2017, 2016, and 2015 annual summaries which include monthly report links.