Happy Fall – 4 October 2011

As the reserved campsite for the night was well way from any significant towns and we were not confident that the propane situation was any different to yesterday we rang ahead to establish if there was “emergency” accommodation we could move to if required; there was not. The campground owner helpfully suggested a motel in the largest town we would pass through, so we secured two rooms. After a delicious dinner at the Black Horse Tavern we retraced our steps a few miles to the motel.

After discussion with the proprietor he upgraded us to the suite for one of the rooms as it it was a two-room unit and certain members of the party had complained about certain other members' nocturnal audio the previous night. The owner said that they did not typically rent the suite at this time of the year or for a single night but he took pity on our plight and accommodated us in both senses of the word.

All was well until 5 a.m. when with a quiet rumble the vast majority of the softboard tile ceiling fell on top of Janine and Alan who were sleeping in the lounge. Fortunately such ceiling tiles are fairly light and no damage was done. The emotional trauma and psychological scarring will take many years of expensive therapy to heal!

The proprietor was, naturally, mortified when he saw the damage and opened another room for them to get a little more sleep.
As we pulled away from the motel, we were struck by the irony of the sign on the church across the street, “Happy Fall”.

We had yet another RV repair rendezvous to make so after stopping for another American Diner breakfast we drove through the rain all the way to the next campsite at Old Orchard on the Maine coast.

The RV repairman arrived a few minutes after us and could not find any propane leak. But his trip was not wasted as the rear slider unit which makes the internal space significantly larger when parked decided to fail. He made some makeshift repairs to enable its continued use and we concluded that the final task the previous repairman had undertaken had actually resolved the propane problem. There has not been any recurrence of the alarm or propane smell since so, hopefully, all is well.