Tuesday 27th June – some TLC for the RV

Our main quest today – Harvey needs an oil change.  But first we stopped at an RV centre to talk about the broken/missing parts we need to replace on the RV.  They estimate that a new roof dome, ladder, hub cap and light fitting will set us back a couple of hundred bucks at least. Ouch!  The RV centre we stopped in would’ve had to order them in, so we decided to hope Campers Inn have some spares and will go easy on charging us if they’re selling the RV for us!

It took two failed attempts – one at a Chevy garage and one where the guy looked at the size of the RV and didn’t have a ramp that could fit it – but third time lucky we got an oil change squeezed into our day whilst we waited.  And a cheap one at that, for only $34 – oil and filters.  It’s the last one we’ll need to worry about and we have all the receipts to show how well we’ve been looking after him during our travels.

At least we’d been heading in the right direction all morning.  Oil change done, it was 1pm but we were only two hours from a PA site we had called and booked for this evening’s cheap accommodation. 

We were staying near the town of Calais (still sounding a bit French round here!) and hit east coastal route 1.  Across an expanse of water, we were able to view Canada once more. We had made really good time, so when we saw brown signs appearing for a site of National Historical significance we thought we’d take a peek. 

The Saint Croix Island historical site commemorates one of the earliest known European settlements in North America, north of Florida. In 1604 over 100 French soldiers and gentlemen sailed here to try and establish a colony.  From the hard lessons learned here, other colonies grew and established an enduring French presence on the continent.  The island itself is inaccessible but there is an extremely brief interpretive trail on the nearest headland providing information about the people and the challenges they went through during their first year here. In fact, disease wiped out half of their population and so their leader, Pierre Dugua, ordered the remaining men to relocate to a mainland site with a fresh water supply and build strong shelters to endure the harsh winters.  This time the colony, Port Royal, succeeded. 

The island with the white hut on is Saint Croix Island

The best thing about this extra stopping point?  It was only 3 minutes’ drive from our campsite! Keenes Lake Family campground was looking lovely in the sunshine.

I was nearly tempted into the water but sitting in the sunshine whilst Simon made dinner won over! Shortly after we arrived the field we were in started filling up.  This instigated conversations with our neighbours to help people squeeze into the remaining gaps and get access to hook-ups.  As a result, this led to one of the most sociable evenings with complete strangers we’ve had this entire trip!  The elderly gentlemen who set up behind us, Paul, was on his own having spent 6 months separated from his wife in Canada whilst he has been in Florida.  By choice I might add.  Anyway, we invited him to sit with us and even provided him with some of Simon’s top-notch lasagne.  We got a fire going and ended up hosting another two retired couples who added their wood to the pile to keep us and the chatter going past 10pm.