WEDNESDAY 20 July
Revelry was at 0600 this morning. No bugle, just sunshine. I worked on photos and the blog while enjoying my morning coffee. We left our Keurig coffee maker at home and brought our electric kettle for this trip to cut down on storage and waste. We have a single cup pour-over coffee filter holder and have been enjoying Gevalia coffee, both regular and decaf. The coffee is good, but the whole process has been more labor intensive, and taken more time, than we thought it would. We also have instant (freeze-dried) coffee and will be using that more going forward.
The wind died down a bit overnight, but ramped back up this morning, blowing 20 MPH out of the W to SW. It was a beautiful day, with partly cloudy skies, but the wind continued unabated all day. Breakfast was toasted bagels with vegan butter and spreadable vegan cream cheese, a fairly common breakfast for us.
We did not have much planned for today other than a visit to the Masstown Market and the Creamery, across the street. It was, however, the first day of our sixth week of the trip and the beginning of our last week traveling and camping with Paul and Nancy.
Juniper in the shirt closet. It’s one of her favorite places in the Airstream.
After breakfast we trimmed Junipers claws, which we have needed to do or a while but kept forgetting. She tolerates the process but definitely does NOT enjoy it. What she does enjoy is getting in the shirt closet, especially during the morning.
Elm River RV Park fills propane tanks, so during a morning walk of the campground we checked at the office. The fill service was by weight, 1$ per pound plus tax. We checked our tanks to see if they needed to be topped up. One was full and the other one appeared to be about half full, which would have been 15 pounds. We disconnected the partial tank and carried it back to the office. Within the hour, the park manager dropped it off at our rig. It took 8 pounds, so that is all the propane we have used in five weeks on the road. It fuels our furnace, range, and grill, and can fuel our hot water heater and refrigerator. Both of the later usually run on 120 VAC, but we have been running the refrigerator on propane going down the road to keep our food cool. I don’t like doing that, but I don’t like eating or throwing away spoiled food, either.
The central courtyard at The Creamery. Dairy to the right, meat & wine to the left.
With the propane tank re-installed, we went to Masstown Market, less than a mile from the RV park. We took the F-150 so I could top up the fuel tank. The Market was nice, and we picked up a few things, including a 5 lb. bag of PEI potatoes. We had hoped to eat lunch there, but the only options were heavily meat or fish options. We noticed the Creamery across the street, but returned to camp and had a sandwich for lunch.
The creamery equipment room.
We spent the early afternoon reading and/or napping and, in general, just having a somewhat lazy day. Mid-afternoon, we went to the Creamery. It consisted of three sections: 1) the central court; 2) the cheese shop, and; 3) the meat market. The central court had an ice cream shop at the far end with a seating area above. There were also several people setting up small stations to sell various items.
On the left side was the cheese shop and the actual creamery. On the right side was the meat market, which also sold wine. Both the cheese shop and the meat market had an amazing variety of jellies, jams, mustards, sauces, etc. For kind of being in the middle of nowhere, they had really nice, unique products for sale.
Dinner was an improvised potato dish consisting of Yukon Gold potatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms, zucchini, bell pepper, and mixed greens with a little bit of shredded cheese and sour cream (both vegan for us) to top it off. A Cabernet Sauvignon was already open, and I opened the Riesling Gewürztraminer we bought at the Market today. After dinner we watched episodes/parts V and VI of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The wind died down and we had some color as dusk descended on the RV park.
Sunset afterglow at Elm River RV Park, NS, with our Flying Cloud.
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