Canada & Beyond - Day 9

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, we had a very long day of driving on August 20th, leading into the 21st. We were graciously welcomed into Nicholas and Susan's home that night, and were able to get some much needed sleep. Susan made us all a delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, and we had a great morning visiting with them before hitting the road once again.

Group picture of us all before we left.

 Pulling out of their driveway that morning, we barely recognized where we were. It was so dark the night before, we just drove and drove, and couldn't believe how much ground we had covered.  

It didn't take too long to get back out on the Interstate and by that time were only a few minutes away from the US border.

It was 10am when we crossed back into the US for the first time in 8 days. It was a bittersweet feeling, but we knew we still had lots more to see and do in the following days! 

As we made our way through Maine, we pretty much just stuck to the Interstate and were getting close to a few major cities, when things started to act weird on the car. 

The battery light came on first, and we knew something was wrong. I started looking up what it might be, but we all were pretty certain it was the alternator going out. We turned off the radio, air, headlights, and everything we could think of to save battery life. 

I looked on the map for auto repair shops closest to where we were, and found one about 5 miles away in Old Town, ME. I called and they said to take it easy and try and get there, and if we didn't make it they would send a tow truck. Then within a couple minutes all the gauges and electronics went dead and we were cruising on fumes.

We were able to pull into their shop parking lot right as we were losing power, and it wasn't a moment too soon! They tested the battery and it was at 7%, they told us we wouldn't have made it another block... 

We were so relieved that it happened when it did, and not when we were driving through the highlands of Nova Scotia, or on some random highway the night before in the middle of nowhere. It was a major blessing! 

The guys were about to go on their lunch break, and said it was good timing because the car had to cool down before they could work on it anyway, and so if we had come any sooner or later we would have had to wait an hour longer. They whole situation couldn't have worked out any better.

So since we knew we were going to have to wait a while, and it was a warm day in the 80s, we decided to find somewhere cool to sit and eat some lunch.

  

It was a short walk across the river over to The Boomhouse Restaurant, which was super unique!

They weren't very busy, and after we finished eating some delicious food, they were totally cool with us chilling for a few hours. We made use of their free wifi, and they even gave us some snazzy glasses to watch the Solar Eclipse with, which was happening during those same few hours. (Seriously how good was that alternators timing!)

I was able to put the glasses in front of my phone camera to get a few pictures like that, ^ even though it really looked like this, haha.

It was around 3:00-3:30, when we got the call that the car was ready for us, so we started making our way back across the river. It was a beautiful day!

We got back to the shop, and every thing had went super smoothly, and we were able to get on our way in no time. We still had about 6 hours of driving left to do for the day, and it was already 4pm. 

The sun was going down as we drew closer to New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. 

None of us having ever been to this area before, got so excited as we started to see well known names and places, even though we didn't get to experience them all. It was cool just to be in this part of the country!

I didn't catch a picture of the New Hampshire state sign, but at least got one of the liquor store! ;p We were only in the state maybe 20 minutes, but hey it still counts! Then we quickly passed into Massachusetts.

It was so sad to have to bypass going to Boston, but it was already 9pm and we still had several hours left to go. We were all exhausted after our crazy past two days, and just ready to get some sleep.

After curving through the hilly countryside of MA for a couple hours, we finally made it to New York. It was too bad we drove this area at night, as much we were climbing up and down hills, I'm sure it was gorgeous.

It was 11:30pm and at long last, we reached our destination at Broken Wheel Campground, in Petersburgh, NY. We set up camp as quick as possible and crashed right away. It was a quiet peaceful area, and we all slept very well that night. Even though we were all so excited for the next day, which we spent exploring Niagara Falls! Stay tuned ;)