We woke up to a frosty surprise… The condensation that formed overnight inside Juju Jr.’s windows had frozen! It was kind of cold last night, but we didn’t expect to see frost on the inside of the windows. Needless to say, it was time to head south.
Morning
Ice inside your van is always interesting to wake up to, but it was just another one of the unique experiences we’ve had on this trip.
Breakfast had to be hot today, so it was oatmeal with dates. Ethan doesn’t really like dates, but he’s learning to eat what we have and appreciate it.
With Ethan’s help, we got Juju Jr. defrosted and ready to go. We left fairly early for Maine from Fredericton, and our destination was Scott and Helen Nearing’s Good Life Center. Dong Eun is a big fan of the Nearings, so we had a great opportunity to visit their last home and the farm there.
But first, we needed Ethan to update his sign to let people know we were now crossing the U.S., too.
And we stuck our maps up onto the bottom of the bunk to keep track of how far we’ve gone on our road trip. Canada’s a big place and we’ve come really far is what we were thinking after looking at the map in this way.
We finally hit the road and made it to the U.S. border. We were expecting a long wait to get Dong Eun’s I-94 visa(?), but the border was not busy and the border patrol officers were nice, so we got though the border rather quickly and into Maine.
And with the switch back to Eastern time, we were also happy to get an extra hour back.
Afternoon
We stopped to make lunch and take a short break before the 2.5hr drive to the Good Life Center. And have a snack of peanut butter and dates with pita bread.
Ethan was working on a new origami design called the double ice cream cone and wanted to make a video about it. He also made a video about folding a standing up penguin.
Ethan figured out how to convert MPH to KPH
One thing that I was worried about was how fast we were actually going. Juju Jr. only shows speed in kph, so I asked Ethan to make me a cheat sheet. He did that, but then he figured out that if you use the 5 times table and the 8 times table, you can easily figure out the conversion.
So for example, if the speed limit is 50mph, that’s 5 x 10, which you then multiply the 10 by 8 and you get 80kph. Brilliantly simple and were quite impressed that Ethan figured this out and was able to teach it to me.
What are those red things?
As we drove through Maine, Dong Eun wanted to know what the red patches of plants were that we have often seen. So we finally stopped and found out they were little plants, not flowers, as I had thought.
Dark early
It was only around 4:30pm but it was already sunset in Maine. It was another sign that we should keep moving south to avoid winter. But the sunset was beautiful.
Good Life Center
We arrived at the Good Life Center just before 5pm, but unfortunately, it was totally dark out. I felt bad for Dong Eun because I knew how much she wanted to see the Center. We were still able to look around and she was able to get a sense for the atmosphere. It’s a secluded area in Harborside, Maine, and we could easily understand why the Nearings chose this spot for their home. Hopefully, we’ll get another chance to visit in the future.
Evening
We thought we could drive all the way to Portland, Maine from Harborside, but it was a bit farther than we anticipated…also because we only drive a maximum of 55mph (88kph) on the highway, and only about 40mph uphills.
So we stopped for the night in Augusta at the Walmart, instead. The wifi at this Walmart was very weak and couldn’t reach the parking lot. So we camped in front of the T-Mobile store for their much faster wifi.
Luckily, Dong Eun made dinner when we were stopped earlier today. She’s a smart woman. We had quinoa with veggie balls, potatoes and beets.
Since it’s been a bit cold and it was raining, we chose not to open Juju Jr.’s top, which makes it a lot warmer and comfy to sleep.
Tomorrow, we’re going to try to get a phone plan sorted out, buy some groceries at Whole Foods, and head to Boston.
If you’re just reading this blog for the first time, we are a family of three traveling across Canada (and likely beyond) in a 1994 VW Westfalia camper van called Juju Jr. Our son Ethan, age 9, is unschooling and so we want him to learn from being on the road and traveling. So he’s also now a roadschooler and we are documenting the trip and his learning on this blog.
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