Day Twenty-three
Bass Harbor, ME to Exeter, NH
July 1st, 2000
High Point of the Day....
Low Point of the Day......
Brian & Theresa- Our new 2000 Dodge Stratus!
Not being with the bus
Intermittent quote of the day.....

    ....."Don't think of it as a potentially huge financial blow, think of it as an opportunity to drive a 2000 Dodge Stratus!"- Brian to Theresa as they left the Bar Harbor airport in their new rental.  The couple, with Saturday Night Live in mind, continues to announce "We drive a Dodge Stratus!"


Miles Traveled Today
Total Miles Traveled
Miles Theresa Drove
Weather
 294
Stratus- 294
Bus- 6094
Total- 6388
245
(829 total)
sunny, muggy
Price of Gas 
(average per gallon)
Wildlife
Night's Lodging
Where this Page was Uploaded
 no fillup
 Cricket, the 70 pound Newfoundland puppy
Great Bay Campground
Exeter, NH
  

Daily Narrative    Well, as might have been predicted, the extraordinarily helpful folks at Southwest Harbor Auto Repair could do nothing for an ailing 1977 Volkswagen Van.  We arose early and packed up our little Kabin and headed out to catch the free island shuttle to Southwest Harbor.  In an interesting twist of fate, the brakes on the shuttle bus locked up mid route and we walked the last mile to town.  We went to get a little breakfast at a coffee shop and called AAA for another tow, this time to the closest VW dealer in Ellsworth.  While we waited for the bus' lift to show up, we sat and developed "Plan B".  Since the dealer doesn't anticipate working on the bus until Thursday or Friday, and because we assume they will then only find out they need a part they don't have, we probably won't see the bus running again for a week and a half.  We found a rental car for a week and decided we will take it on to Cape Cod and New York City (where we will really just park it outside of town and catch a train in, not to worry...).  We will return to Bar Harbor when the week is up, and the Fourth of July Crowd is gone, and enjoy the island while we wait for the bus.  Not too bad for a "Plan B" we say.  We picked up our shiny new Dodge Stratus and transferred a majority of the bus into it.  We headed off for the interstate (we'll save the quaint windy roads for the bus) and stopped for a few pictures with Paul Bunyan in Bangor.  Just past Augusta Theresa paid her first highway toll. Brian seemed to remember it wouldn't be the last, and in fact there were two more on the Maine Turnpike alone.  We pulled into a campground just outside of Exeter, New Hampshire, around 8:00 and found a surprise piece of voice mail on the cell phone.  It was Brian's high school buddy Scott, returning a call from a few days earlier.  A call to Scott added a visit to Martha's Vineyard to this week's agenda.  Very cool.

Daily Pictures
 The bus wakes up in front of Southwest Auto Repair
Brian & Theresa wake in a Kozy Kamping Kabin
The left side of the very pretty Southwest Harbor
The right side
Brian and Theresa develop Plan B
Step One, get the bus the the VW dealer in Ellsworth
 Step Two, secure a 2000 Dodge Stratus
Step Three, continue on...  Paul Bunyan in downtown Bangor
Theresa pays her first toll
This traffic jam continued on for at least ten miles, all folks heading to Maine for the Fourth of July weekend
We, on the other hand, bucked the trend and headed for back to New Hampshire


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