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(Note: This blog entry represents a combination of writings and pictures already posted about our Cool Change II, Land Yacht Adventures 2021 through Cindy via Facebook and Rick via email. So for some of you, the following posts may be duplicative, but for others, this is the first time you are seeing them. We are repeating them here to centralize the record and share our experiences more broadly.)
RICK’S POST (with captions in italics by Cindy!):
We left my sister Chrys’s home in Gilford New Hampshire late on a Friday afternoon. We would have liked to have made an earlier start but we had some work to do following an issue we had with our refrigerator. It had resulted in us having to throw out all the food that spoiled when the refrigerator shut itself down down.
Though our trailer has all the modern conveniences of home, there are differences and limitations related to each of the onboard systems. For example, the toilet flushes to a black water tank that has a capacity of 20 gallons. A separate grey water tank has the same capacity. So although you have the convenience of running water and a flush toilet, they each need to be dumped out at the dump station before they reach capacity! Similarly, though we have both 12vdc and 120vac power, the 120 vac power only applies when we are in a place that we can connect through a shore power cord as we do not have a DC to AC inverter. If we do not have access to AC power, we are limited to running only 12vdc circuits off of the batteries or to use our generator if we need to use heavy AC load items like the air conditioner or the microwave.
The refrigerator runs on both 120 vac power when we are plugged in, or if we are without AC power, it automatically switches over to run on propane. There is a safety switch that shuts off the fridge if the trailer is not sitting fairly level. This safely switch I had previously thought only applied to operating on propane but I now learned that it also shuts down the fridge even if running on ac power.
The reason for the safety switch is that the refrigerator does not use freon like a normal 120vac powered refrigerator but instead uses a mixture of ammonia, water and hydrogen gas. If the rig is not level, it disrupts the flow of the ammonia and allows ice crystals to form in the refrigeration tubes. So after leaving the trailer for a few days’ time with my sister & her family, we returned to a mess. I had already thrown out all the food but we still needed to do some additional cleaning in addition to our normal chores before getting back on the road.
Another system we have on the trailer is a tire pressure monitor system (TPMS, the significance of which will become apparent soon). It consists of sensors that are placed on each of the trailer tires in place of the valve stem caps. Each of the sensors reports via bluetooth signal to a display we keep on top of the dashboard in the truck. It continually monitors each tire’s pressure and temperature and sends that data back to the display unit. When first I set it up, I had to program it to the parameters based on our tire specs so that it will sound an alarm when tire pressure is too high or low or if the tires are getting too hot.
So we got started late in the afternoon, leaving New Hampshire for Maine, but as the trip was only supposed to be about 2.5 hours, we weren’t overly concerned.
We enjoyed the drive out on two lane highway 11 that runs along the south side of Lake Winnipesaukee for its entire length. The road took us through more of New Hampshire’s scenic landscapes and a handful of small towns. It had been a very pleasant drive up to about the half way point of Rochester, NH. Then an alarm went off on the TPMS, indicating that one of the tires was loosing air quickly. I got us off the road as fast as I could and pulled into a shopping center parking lot to have a look.
The tire was still holding some air but it was very low. When I looked closer, I found that it was actually the valve stem that was leaking. The tire itself had not been punctured. Our problem was that it was 5:30 pm on a Friday night and though I knew the repair would be an easy fix at a tire shop, we needed to find somewhere to take it soon or the tire shops would be all closed for the night or weekend.
Cindy started calling around as I got out our compressor in an attempt to put enough air in the tire that we could drive on it for a mile or so without causing damage to the tire. The first place she called said they did not work on trailers because they had no safe way to lift it. They referred us to a place that worked on trailers but when we called they said they were about to close and could not do anything for us until Monday morning. They were very unsympathetic to our situation even though we could have gotten to their place before they closed.
That first tire shop Cindy had called sounded very professional at least, and we knew they were located less than a mile away. Cindy called them back and they said that if we could get there before they closed at 6 p.m., they would at least take a look but made no other promises. That was all we needed to hear so I finished filling the tire and we took off down the road to the shop called V.I.P. that was part of an O’Reilly’s Auto parts store. We pulled into the lot and I parked parallel to the service bays and far enough away that I hoped we were not blocking any cars that were being worked on. The Master Mechanic of the shop came out and took a look and explained that they were full up. They were just trying to get finished with the jobs they had promised for that day and he did not think he could help us. But then he continued talking with me another minute, asking about our travels, and he said he thought it was cool that we had traveled so far on this trip hauling a travel trailer. He quickly verified that the valve stem was the only issue and excused himself and went back inside the shop. Meanwhile, Cindy was inside trying to schmooze the service advisor. A few minutes later out of the blue, the master mechanic emerged, pulling a portable jack out to the trailer. He said nothing but got right to work jacking up the trailer and pulling off the wheel and bringing it into the shop.
In the meantime Cindy and the service advisor came outside and saw the work was already in progress. They turned around and went back inside.
Very soon, the mechanic emerged with the repaired tire and explained that he had replaced the valve stem and had replaced it with a high pressure stem. He made the recommendation that we should have the rest of the valve stems replaced asap if we did not want to have a repeat of the issue. I thanked him and tried to give him a generous tip, telling him he should treat the other mechanics to a beer after work, but he refused to accept, saying “This one is on me.” Cindy then went back in the office to pay and got the same story from the service advisor when she asked for the bill. So they did the repair free of charge at the end of a very busy day. If you ever find yourself in Rochester NH and possibly in need of tire or brake work, this is the place to go: VIP with O’Reilly’s Auto Parts!
We counted our blessings as we pulled out of the lot and continued on our way to Winslow Park Campground in Freeport, Maine. Cindy’s maiden name is Winslow so that was kind of special! We were lucky in that we still had some daylight when we arrived. The site they had intended for us was way too small to accommodate us. After a lot of maneuvering we were able to fit but we would be too close the the fire-pit to be able to use it and the location was terrible as it was between three roads.
We were parked and had decided we would just have to make the best of it when one of the camp hosts pulled up to our site and called me over. He said that they actually had a much better site that was supposed to be closed off but that he could call the manager and ask if we could stay there instead because the fit in our site was so bad.
He made the call and the manager agreed so we moved to the new site. By now it was dark out and there was no lighting in the area so it was kind of a struggle but we finally got settled into a very nice, large and quiet site at the back of the campground.
In the morning we went walking on the trails that ran all around the park. There are beautiful waterfront sections on two sides of the campground, as it is on a peninsula. To one side is Casco Bay and on the other is the Harrasseeket River. The sites that were along the water somehow looked too permanent to be regular camping sites. When I asked about this at the office, they said that all the waterfront sites were rented on a seasonal basis. The people staying in them had the right to reserve each year for the next full season. If they chose not to rent their assigned site for an upcoming season, they would have to let it go and the park would have a lottery of sorts for people in the area that were on a wait list. It is a pretty cool concept, and a great way for locals to have an affordable summer home on the water.
An adorable little trailer parked at Winslow campground for the season. This county campground was nearly full the entire time we were there, especially the sites along the water. 
One of the views from our daily walks on paths surrounding the campground, surrounded by sea.
We were going to be staying in the park for six nights, taking day trips into Portland to explore the area. We were looking forward to having some “Lobstah”down on the water in the old town harbor. We did that, and also went on a cruise of Casco Bay that featured a narrated tour of the port and the historical lighthouses.
We also went on a short bay tour of lighthouses on a cute little tour boat just before the hurricane remnants hit 
On our second full day in Maine, we ventured out into the City of Portland to enjoy what we had been waiting for: a full lobster and a lobster roll, sitting wharfside 
Rick forced Cindy to do the tourist thing!
The cute little tour boat 
Another view of the tour boat to the left in the background One of the lighthouses in the background
There is a Cemetery in Portland where my grandmother, grandfather and three uncles are buried and we visited there. It is a huge cemetery and not easy to find a particular headstone. But we could find the Greek section and with some phone assistance from my sister Chrys as well as online resources, we were able to locate the family plot.
Family member tombstones are located in two separate places in the cemetery
My uncle Andrew, (my father’s older brother) had owned and operated a restaurant in Portland that was called Patrinellis’s. It consisted of a street level 50s style family restaurant and soda fountain. There were a couple of floors above the restaurant, with rooms that he rented out as well as a small flat he kept for himself. He was a lifelong bachelor and worked at running the restaurant seven days a week.
I had worked a couple of summers there att a time when I was an unruly teen. Those were very special and memorable times. My father, I think, sent me there out of frustration with my attitude in hopes that his brother would whip me into shape. I actually grew up a lot under Uncle Andrew’s guidance. He was not tough by any stretch of the imagination; he was quite the opposite. But he inspired me to want to be my best self and to please him. The summer I turned 16, I shared with him that I wanted to earn enough money to buy my own car and then to drive it from Maine back to California. Initially he thought the idea was ridiculous. In my mind there was no way my father would ever allow me to do that but by the end of the summer I had bought my car and Uncle Andrew had somehow received my father’s blessing for me to drive back home. When I arrived in California, I showed up at my sister Linda’s house near Auburn and still a couple hours from my destination. I had used the last of my money in Reno on fuel and Linda filled my gas tank so that I could make it the rest of the way home!
The car was a 1962 Chevy Biscayne wagon with a 327 V8 engine. It had the classic “three on the tree” manual transmission. It was bright red with some body rot from its life driving the salted winter roads in Maine. It was not a pretty sight but it was mine. I had installed curtains in it because I slept in it during my trip across the country. There was a bumper sticker on the back that said “Don’t laugh, your daughter may be in this car.” My parents made me park it on the street around the corner because they did not want it in their driveway.
As to my uncle, he sold the entire restaurant property a few years before he passed away and did not get to enjoy many years of retirement. In the years since, the restaurant has been a pizza place, an East Indian restaurant, and currently it is a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. Cindy and I went to have a look at it, as well as a nearby home where my parents lived for a time before I was born. My older sister Linda had lived there and asked us to get some photos of #7 Stetson Ct., Portland.
The restaurant founded by Rick’s Uncle Andrew 
Longfellow’s statue, across from what had been Uncle Andrew’s restaurant 
The house in Portland where Rick’s father, mother and older sister lived for a time
Many years ago we had a family property at nearby Old Orchard Beach built by my grandfather and home to his boys as they were growing up. My father ended up selling that after his brother had passed away. Cindy and I tried our best to find it but we did not have an address and the area had changed so much since I was last there as a teenager that I was not successful. I love that Portland always feels very familiar and like home to me for the memories that reside there.
Because of the previous tire issue and the advice of the mechanic, I wanted to get the rest of the trailer tires valve stems replaced to avoid a recurrence. There was a tire shop nearby who said they could do it so I made an appointment while we were in the area. It was just a few miles from our campground and we took a drive in the truck to survey and make sure we would be able to get the trailer into their lot for the work to be done.
It all looked good and we were on our way back to the campground when out of the blue, all of the dashboard warning lights started flashing on and off. I pulled into a parking lot and turned off the engine for a moment and then tried to restart it. The ignition just made that clicking sound as a very weak battery will do.
The lot I had pulled into was a small strip mall with just one lane going down the front of it and we were stopped right in the middle of the traffic lane. Fortunately it was late in the afternoon and most all of the businesses there had already closed. I was pretty certain we had a dead battery and that possibly an alternator issue had caused it. We were obviously going nowhere so we called for a tow. We had bought a warranty service when we purchased the truck and it required we go through them to get a tow so Cindy went through an awkward process of making an online request before we could call them direct. They could not give us an ETA until they found a company that would take the call. It was looking like it was going to be awhile so we made the best of it by ordering a pizza from a business in the shopping center and we ate in the truck. And yes, it also had started to rain, just as the skylight window got stuck open because the power in the truck was insufficient to close it! Inch by inch we got it closed.
After waiting for at least an hour with no ETA from the tow company, we decided to call AAA for a backup. We had them send out a truck that would only be able to give us a jump start and or replace the batteries. AAA showed up pretty quickly and the technician gave us a jump start and tested the batteries and alternator. He said that one of our two start batteries was dead and the alternator had failed. About that time, the tow truck sent by our warranty service finally showed up and now knowing for sure what the problem was, we had him tow the truck to the nearest Dodge dealer, near Portland. We called an Uber to drive us to the campground and the tow truck driver kindly stuck around until our ride came to be sure we were not left stranded.
The next day was a lot of back and forth with the dealer, who at first said they had no availability in their service schedule for several weeks. After some discussion, though, they agreed to do the repairs and work with our warranty company on it. I had asked the warranty company to approve the dealer installing a larger alternator and I would pay the difference. Surprisingly, the warranty company said that as long as it was an available option when the truck was first sold, they would allow the upgrade at no additional cost to us.
The next hurdle we had to get through was getting back to the dealer to pick up the truck. Even though we were able to take an uber from Freeport to our campsite, they would not come and pick us up there!
By coincidence, that morning I had met a man as we were both doing some breakfast dishes and we got to chatting. I told him the saga about the truck breaking down. He told me that he and his family would be in the campground for the next few days, and if we needed a ride into town for groceries or anything to just let him know. So we stopped by later and asked him if he could possibly give us a ride to the dealer the next day. It turned out that where we were headed was only a block away from where he worked. As luck would have it, he had been contemplating making a trip to the office to attend a retirement party for his former boss even though he was on vacation. He said that this must have been a sign that he was meant to be there!
So we got the truck back with two new batteries and a new alternator installed and the warranty ended covering about 30% of the total charges. The batteries were not covered on the warranty but we were just happy to get our truck back!
The next day we took off with only about an hour’s travel to reach our next campground destination in Biddeford, Maine. We would be staying in a small residential/RV park while we visited with a close friend of Cindy’s from her college years at Michigan State. He was one of several of Cindy’s friends who all shared a house after moving out west to San Francisco.
David and his wife Mel have lived in Biddeford for most of their working lives, where David was a university professor of pharmacology and Mel still works as a Nurse Anesthetist. Interestingly, David has a PHD in psychopharmacology with an emphasis on Psychedelic research, and though he is retired, he is still does consulting work for a Canadian company that is doing research on medicinal uses of psilocybin.
Rick, Cindy, David and Mel 
One of David and Mel’s plants
As a hobby, they grow (very scientifically I am sure), marijuana in their home garden as the state laws allow. They give it all away to friends as medicinal and spiritual support. In their basement they have canning jars on shelves full of beautifully trimmed buds vacuum sealed to stay fresh for a long time. They also make their own gummy’s in the shape of a teddy bear. They gifted us with some gummy’s that we keep intending to sample on a nature hike but have not as yet.
Cindy with her college friend David, 2021 
David and Cindy, Michigan State University campus, 1969
In addition to David’s horticultural skills, he is an avid sailor and has a sailboat moored very near their home. Cindy and I enjoyed the next two days sailing with David on the Atlantic in his Cape Dory sloop. It is equipped with just the basics but is none the less a very seaworthy boat that is a joy to sail. He uses it mostly for daysails and some coastal cruising. It felt so good to be sailing again and David pretty much let Cindy and I sail the boat the whole time we were on it. The weather was perfect as we spent the days sailing the shoreline off of Old Orchard Beach and north to a point just below Casco Bay.
David’s Cape Dory 
The campground we had moved to in Biddeford was in a residential area and had mostly permanent residents as well as some seasonal rental sites. They have just a few sites they rent out to transients like us. The site we got put in was pretty tight and there was a lot of mud around because the area was still saturated from being hit by the remnants of the same Hurricane Henrí we had dodged in New Hampshire. Our site was just fine though, as we did not spend much time there other than to sleep. We spent the rest of our time visiting with David and Mel.
On our final day there, while we were out sailing with David, Mel was home putting together a wonderful lobster dinner, which we all enjoyed, along with a their son and his wife, and another sailing friend couple that had joined us. They were all interested to hear about our sailing adventures and we shared with them the video of our Pacific crossing and first season in French Polynesia.
In the morning we headed back to my sister’s home in Gilford NH where we had planned to leave the truck and trailer at the same friend of Chrys’s property where we had stored the rig at when were visiting them the week before. This time, though, we would only spend a couple days with the Uicker’s while prepping the rig to be stored while we flew home to California for a few weeks’ time.
We didn’t stay long this second time around, but just long enough to get a ride on Barry’s classic convertible 
Barry and our nephew Marky, taking us out for a ride
Chrys 
Chrys and Barry’s 1790-era historic home in Gilford Village, New Hampshire
Where we left our rig for a month, at the ranch of a friend of Chrys’s
Leaving New Hampshire, Chrys gave us a ride to the closest bus stop for a shuttle to Boston. We had reservations at the Bostonian Hotel for a few nights before flying home to California.