Summer 2026 - Maine and the Canadian Atlantic Provinces

For our summer trip this year we are adventuring east for a change. Our first big stop is Chebeague Island just off the coast of Portland, Maine to stay with our nieces and their families. Our plan is to take two weeks to drive the 2,400 miles from Texas to Maine, stopping along the way visit friends and ride our bikes on famous hall of fame rails to trails rides. After a week in Maine we will explore the Canadian Atlantic Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland for a couple of months. We are ending the trip in mid October in Charleston, South Caroline at John's Citadel college reunion. Should be a fun trip exploring a totally new area for us both and what is now three black cats! We adopted Rocket from our RV Tech in Houston and he did well on our short Texas trip in April.  

We left on Monday July 13th and after a quick overnight in Oklahoma arrived in Boonville, Missouri. Our first ride was the Katy trail and we started early due to the heat. It was a very  enjoyable riding under shady trees, thorough a tunnel and alongside rocky cliffs and the Missouri River. We were having a lovely time until John got a flat tire about 7 miles from where we had parked the RV. We changed the tire but had a failure with the both our portable CO2 inflaters. We were standing there in the sticky heat being attacked by bugs when a guy from Austin stopped to assist and pulled out a tiny electrical pump - definitely getting one of those!  Feeling more optimistic we started  back and John got another flat tire! Out of options we started walking, until some more folks stopped and shared a manual pump to inflate enough for us to complete the remaining 2 miles. Turns out John had a tiny thorn in his tire that caused both flats. We were glad to get back to the campground, get a cold shower and relax after the 27 miles. 

We had realized on our first night we had a water pump issue which we thought was just air in the system. After some troubleshooting we determined we had a small leak in the water pump itself which needed fixing. We also had an inverter that wouldn't turn on unless we had electrical service at the camp site. Needless to say when we left Missouri on Thursday July 16th we were rather stressed!  We stopped in Columbia for extra bike tubes (can’t find our backup spares) and plumber putty to try and fix the water pump leak. It was long drive mostly on Interstate 70 to Indiana before we arrived at Summit Lake state park. 

The next morning we drove 10 miles to a trailhead and had great bike ride on the Cardinal Greenway trail. The trail was wonderfully paved, so no thorns, and very shaded by trees curving over the trail, so cool temperatures. We really enjoyed seeing the rolling farmland and fields of never ending corn and soybeans. The cats enjoyed exploring the trees and nature area before we all got hot and headed back to the campground for some air conditioning. 

We left Indiana Saturday July 18th and spent a delightful evening in Cincinnati with Sara's friends Ronny and Mike. They are great hosts and it was wonderful to spend time with them. We had shipped the fancy miniature electric bike pump and a new water pump to their house, so if our application of JB Water Weld didn't fix the leaking issue we could install a new pump.

After a relaxing morning with Ronny & Mike we set out for our next stop, driving through Ohio and briefly West Virginia before arriving in Confluence, Pennsylvania about 80 miles south east of Pittsburg. It was a really pretty area, very green with rolling hills and lots of trees. We had a great evening ride and were all relaxed until we got back to the RV and found we have an electric issue when connected to the campground power, and the water pump fix didn't work! The electrical issue was getting dire as no power from either batteries or when plugged in was a showstopper.

The next morning the core of engineers repair guy determined our 30amp campground pedestal was worn out, so yeah not our RV! We had a wonderful ride on the Great Allegheny passage trail, a crushed limestone surface, flat and shady running alongside the river with trees full of singing birds. The temperatures were much cooler and the cats enjoyed getting out of the RV to explore. We spent the afternoon calling some RV techs, using ChatGPT for troubleshooting and the multimeter to confirm voltages. We think the inverter issue might be corrosion on a post and a blown high current fuse. Hopefully we can fix these issues at our next location. We decided to skip the two days in Niagara Falls, in case we needed to stop in Philadelphia at an RV service center. 

Our next step was with Sara's friend Robin and her husband Vinnie who live about 50 miles north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Sara worked with Robin in England when Robin was living there for a few years. They had lost touch for a while and it had been 30 years since they last saw each other. We had a wonderful time catching up, and enjoying the peaceful town where they live. We had no idea Pennsylvania was so pretty, full of rural communities, lakes, rivers and forests. Definitely worth a more detailed exploration in the future. 

We had planned to explore the area the next day (July 22nd), but really needed to work on the RV issues. Turns out Vinnie used to work for Thor RV building RV's, and was an expert at fixing problems so he and John spent the day working while Robin and Sara caught up on 30 years of life! The inverter issue was related to a corroded post and blown fuse, and after a lot of effort the connection was moved to a new post and voila the issue was fixed!  After installing the new water pump we ended the day with local ice cream - the trip was back on!

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